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?
The class discussed the symbolic meaning of “Summer” and what type of connotation it conveyed. The first thing that comes to mind is vacation, warmth, and joy. The bright sun and the beach give us a sense of freedom, holding cold drinks and friends right by our side. We don’t think of school. The word “Summer” has different meanings for each and every person.
We continue to discuss what a Shakespearean Sonnet is, the sonnets consist of a fourteen-line poem. They are traditionally about love and romance and is 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
To write the poem, we have to 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). There would be two syllables and five measures in each line, ending up with 10 syllables per line.
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. Often times 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.
Moving on, the class read Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.
Sonnet 18
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? A
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate: B
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, A
4 And summer's lease hath all too short a date: B
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, C
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; D
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines, C
8 By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; D
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade E
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; F
11 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, E
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; F
13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, G
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. G
My group discussed that the speaker compares the subject to the summer day by describing their appearances and how lovely they are. The speaker prefers the person he is talking about because he describes how “Thou art more lovely and more temperate” which means they (the subject) are more lovely than the summer day. The problem the speaker has with summer is that it ends too early and it isn’t permanent. Summer does not compare to the person because summer isn’t always there and not every day of summer is beautiful. The main difference between summer and the subject is that summer fades and loses its beauty, but the subject never loses its beauty because he describes them as “eternal summer”. The message in line 13-14 sort of don’t alter the message of the sonnet because, throughout the sonnet, he states how beautiful and eternal the subject’s beauty is. When he attaches it to man or to the poem, the kinds of states that those two things will be eternal.
The class believed that he compares the women to the summer’s day and the problem is that beauty is not constant. Over time it will decline and go away, women don’t get to keep their beauty forever. The “this” the speaker mentions is the sonnet, he insinuates that the sonnet will last forever and that her beauty will never end.
Then, Ms.Peterson read aloud Sonnet 130 to the class.
Sonnet 130
1 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, A
2 Coral is far more red, than her lips red, B
3 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun: A
4 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head: B
5 I have seen roses damasked, red and white, C
6 But no such roses see I in her cheeks, D
7 And in some perfumes is there more delight, C
8 Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.D
9 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know, E
10 That music hath a far more pleasing sound: F
11 I grant I never saw a goddess go, E
12 My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. F
13 And yet by heaven I think my love as rare, G
14 As any she belied with false compare. G
Our group thinks the speaker describes the mistress as a boring, ugly, and undesirable person. “I love to hear her speak, yet well I know, That music hath a far more pleasing sound:” Describes how he rather listen to music than to hear her speak. The speaker speaks negatively about her cheeks and breath because he mentions how there are no colors in her cheeks and how her breath is not pleasant at all. “But no such roses see I in her cheeks...Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks”. The speaker explains the way that her mistress act as a negative thing and he talks about her with a distance. Most people would talk about how beautiful their mistress would be. The poet talks about how rare his love is because despite how he describes her, he still loves her. He loves in a different way and it is different from the stereotypical poems because he is not talking about how beautiful the mistress is. We believed the speaker speaks differently of love compared to many other people because he still loves his mistress despite how she looks. The main theme is that beauty is not everything and you can love someone who is not beautiful.
Extra materials:
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Crash Course Literature 304 [12:26]
Understanding Iambic Pentameter [6:24]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-tayWCupD8&ab_channel=ShakespeareCoach
Reflection:
Most people’s first impression of poems is that they’re difficult and I felt the same way. They seemed hard to understand and even harder to interpret. However, when we take a closer look at the structure of the poems, the theme, and how they are written, everything begins to fit. I learned how to write a Shakespearean sonnet, through the help of an iambic parameter and its ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme. The most difficult part, personally, is getting the words to rhyme in a pattern and making sure it’s only 10 syllables long. I learned that I’m still reading English, but poems just take a lot more time to understand. Knowing how the poems are written helps to understand the poems in more depth. It helps to analyze Shakespeare’s perspective through these poems and we can really see from his perspective. If we can understand the basic structures, then we can set the foundation for every other poem. Learning to write a Shakespearean sonnet allows me to my own poems and create my own meanings, where the audience can see from my perspective.
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