Sunday, November 22, 2020

Blog #3 - Emily Hsieh - Period 2 - Wednesday, November 18th 2020 - Day A

Aim - How can further implementation of our poetry skills enhance our exploration and analysis of Shakespearean Sonnets ? 


To do - With your partner, consider the word “Summer”. What symbolic meanings or connotations are usually associated with this word? Why?

                                                                                                                                                                                  


 For the To-do, although we did not split into partners, due to a certain virus. We thought about it by ourselves, and showed our answers together, in the classroom. Many people had different ideas about summer. Some said childhood memories, or new opportunities, or travel. For myself, I imagined cool beaches with a hot sunny climate, and summer break. I imagined that there were many viewpoints with different classmates, and there were. However in general, most of the viewpoints about summer was deemed positive, with few negatives.


After discussing, we spirit read the second slide. Spirit reading in this class is reading without needing to raise your hands, and just jumping in. With this certain spirit read, we read about the “Structure of a Shakespearean Sonnet” The slide noted that Shakespearean Sonnets were 14 line poems, and mostly contained words about love. This also said that it was divided into four parts, of three quatrains, and an ending couplet that rhymed. The Sonnet’s first part introduces the subject, for example love. Then the second part complicates it, like love, is very rare, and the last couplet, ends the subject or further complicates it. It always follows the rhyme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is always written in iamic pentameter. 


Iamic Pentameter - a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable, for example Two households, both alike in dignity.


To explain iamic pentameter better, we were also given a video that was two minutes and thirty-two seconds long made by Emily Staudt, explaining iamic pentameter in an easier fashion.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-tayWCupD8&ab_channel=ShakespeareCoach




In the forth slide, we were given notes, to help us analyze poetry. This was given to us as, poetry by Shakespear, is a lot harder, to analyze than most poetry. This likely due to time difference, with things being more traditional at the time than poetry now. Nowadays, there are many differences that make up modern poems, versus traditional poems. For example this article on Study.com, instructed by Joshua Wimmer and Ginna WIlkerson.


https://study.com/academy/lesson/traditional-poems-definition-examples.html


We read a poem, by Shakesphere, called Sonnet 18, detailing the woes of summer. This poem was mainly about beauty, and how it would fade over time. This poem also detailed 


For the sixth, seventh, and eighth slide, we split out into breakout rooms for zoom, and we were given about fifteen minutes to discuss Sonnet 18 on slide number five. We answered the questions, and then met back up in the main session to discuss our answers. The answers we found in the breakout rooms, deviated a small bit from the other groups, but was also very similar to the other groups.


The questions were mainly about Shakespeare's opinion and viewpoint based on the writing of the poem. For example, some common questions were about the quatrains.


1 - Using the capital letters A-G, mark the poem for its rhyme scheme. In Quatrain One: According to the speaker, how does this subject compare to summer? Which does he prefer?


SInce this poem is in Shakespearean Sonnet’s form, it has to be ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Shakesphere views summer to be short, while he compares it to a person, perhaps a woman. He compares them as the women being more temperamental, and lovely than summer, and that summer was short. For example the text says “Thou art more lovely and more temperate:...And summer's lease hath all too short a date”

The ninth slide details another Shakespearean Sonnet. It details Sonnet 130, a sonnet about a mistress, and her various imperfections, but the love the man held for her despite her imperfections. The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth slides detail more questions, just like the ones, on the sixth, seventh and eighth slides. We later broke out into breakout rooms, but sadly the class was about to end, so we did the rest asynchronously. However the questions were mostly the same as before.


2 - In Quatrain One: How does the speaker describe his mistress?  What specific attributes does he reference?


He described his mistress as very inferior to other objects. He says that her eyes would never compare to the sun and her lips are nowhere near as red as coral. He is telling us that she is like a worse version of other things in nature. For example, “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, Coral is far more red, than her lips red”


On the last slide, we are greeted with an arrow to refer back to the aim, and a video, by CrashCourse, on Shakespearean Sonnets. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDpW1sHrBaU&feature=share&ab_channel=CrashCourse


Reflection - 


What did I learn? 

Today I learned all about Shakespearean Sonnets. Shakespearean Sonnets is a form of poetry exactly fourteen lines long. It’s divided into four parts, three quatrains, and a final couplet to end it off with a resolving statement. Generally it goes in the order of AB AB CD CD EF EF GG, and is normally about romance. The first part introduces the subject, the third part complicates it and the final fourth finally ends it.  During the lesson we learned about Shakespearean Sonnets, how to analyze them and how to identify them. Overall we learned a lot in this lesson.


Why did I learn it?

We learned this in order to identify “Shakespearean Sonnets” in real life. This lesson is also important to deeper appreciate a poem itself, and immerse ourselves into the words that are written, and rhymes that have been sung. We needed to learn this lesson in order to analyze the poems and reach the deeper meanings inside them. Therefore, we went out of our comfort zone today, and learned this lesson.


How will I use what I learned? 

If we ever come across a Shakespearean poem, we can identify and analyze it making me have a deeper understanding. This lets us enjoy poems more, if I know more about what they are talking about, and if I could understand them. This can also be applied to modern poems, and help us analyze those as well. For example if we ever went into literature, we could likely better understand than we would have without this lesson.


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