Aim: How can further implementation of our poetry skills enhance our exploration and analysis of Shakespearean Sonnets?
Do Now: WHOLE CLASS DISCUSSION
Consider the word “Summer”. What symbolic meanings or connotations are usually associated with this word? Why?
For today's do now our class is discussing what summer means to us. Our classmates associated summer with a time of relaxation, a time to take a break from everything. Personally I associate summer with a time to take a break from everything, a chance to spend time with family and friends. I associate summer with free time to spend having fun, and learning and getting new hobbies.
Structure of a Shakespearean Sonnet
Shakespearean Sonnets are structure-specific:
Shakespearean sonnets are fourteen line poems.
They are traditionally about love and romance.
Divided into four parts: three quatrains (four lines each) and a rhyming couplet at the end of the poem (two lines)
First quatrain introduces the subject
Second quatrain complicates the subject
Third quatrain and The couplet resolves or alters the subject in some way
Follows the rhyme scheme- ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter (a metric line consisting of unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables)
Shakespeare’s sonnets are composed on a variety of topics but most of the time he sticks with those listed on the main page, namely: love, nature, and beauty. Oftentimes in Shakespeare’s sonnets he would use the first 2 quatrains to introduce a problem and the final one plus the couplet would either solve it or offer some possible solution.
Each syllable in a word is either stressed (hard) or unstressed (soft) based on the pronunciation of the letters. Stressed syllables are marked with a / over the letters; unstressed are marked with a u.
An Iambic foot contains two syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed. Iambic measure is often called the heartbeat meter because of its similarity of the rhythm of the human heart. Note the following terms with an iambic rhythm:
au / a au / a au / a au / a au / a au / a
a. Phoenix b. Forbid c. anew c. in turn d. repair e. heaven
Understand iambic pentameter: Iambic pentameter (five-measure) is a line of five iambic feet. The line has a total of ten syllables repeating the pattern of “unstressed, stressed” five times. Identify the iambic pentameter below using / for stressed and u for unstressed, then write and mark two lines below.
Often, a pet’s soft whine outcries the son’s
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day
Iambic Pentameter Made Easy [2:32]
Sonnet 18 is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known sonnets and even if you aren’t familiar with the entire poem, you have likely heard the first line (it is often alluded to in other forms of pop culture). Pay attention to rhyme scheme, figurative language, diction and tone and as you read annotate the poem for meaning.
Spirit reading
Our class read the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet out loud and discussed the characteristics of a Shakespearean sonnet, having fourteen lines, have topics about love and romance, are divided three quatrains(stanza with four lines), and follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and are written in iambic pentameter.
Sonnet 18
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
11 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Group Work
Today our group was tasked with discussing and answering the questions about sonnet 18.
We discussed that the speaker of this sonnet preferred their subject over summer, and that the subject was better than summer. Our group discussed that the beauty of the subject will never fade because the subject’s beauty is eternalized by this sonnet and that the beauty of summer will fade. After our class discussion about the sonnet we were put into breakout groups to discuss sonnet 130. My group discussed that sonnet 130 was about the speaker saying his love is rare. My group discussed saying that even though the speaker's mistress is not perfect the speaker can still love her, and that’s why his love is special.
Reflection
Today in class I learned about what a sonnet is. I learned that a sonnet is a Shakespearean poem that usually talks about love and nature and it is a poem that consists of 14 lines. The rhyme pattern is ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Sonnets are written in iambic perimeter, where an stressed word comes after an unstressed word. We learned about sonnets because we can now understand Shakespearean literature better. We can now look at these once confusing poems, and now understand that they have a deeper meaning behind those confusing sounding sentences. We can understand the message that the author is trying to relate to us and we can maybe even relate to it. We can use this lesson to write our own sonnets, to be able to spread our own message in a way that can make the readers think deeply about our message and let others understand us. Or we can use this lesson to understand other people more, and to know what message they are trying to spread. Anyway this lesson about sonnets helped me better understand sonnets, and the purpose of sonnets
No comments:
Post a Comment