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Sonnets Notes (ENGL 210)
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Sonnets Notes (ENGL 210)
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Topic 4: Sonnets and the Renaissance + Early Modern PeriodOctober 3rd –
Prosody
English poetry is counted in counts (syllables), rather than in words.
● Iambic pentameter – a line of poetry has five (penta) iambs per line (two syllables each)
○ Iambs – metrical foot (unstressed and stressed syllables)
○ Spondee – two stressed feet
○ Pyrrhic – two unstressed
● Scansion – studying the rhythm and pace of a poem (inflecting tones)
In the English tradition, there are generally two alternately prominent sonnet forms: the
Petrarchan sonnet/Italian sonnet, characterized by eight lines followed by six lines (the last six
lines are often a “response” to the first eight lines); and the Shakespearean sonnet
Astrophil and Stella
The sonnet is a profession of love (courting) – Astrophil is professing his love for Stella. Sonnets
are generally about love (not explicitly though – it can sometimes be in the background).
● Sonnet 1 – the first line is actually a hexameter and not a pentameter.
○ He is sincerely loving and wants to use poetry to express his love. We have a
sense that in this speaker’s mind, there is a difference between the internal feeling
(love) and the external expression (the manifestation of that feeling in art).
○ Sonnets attempt to work through how to transmit emotion through art (and to their
critics, very artificial).
○ Opposites (l. 2) – pleasure versus pain.
○ “That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain / Pleasure might cause
her read, reading might make her know / Knowledge might pity win, and pity
grace obtain” (ll. 3-8)
■ Gradual evolution towards grace.
■ Note the repetition of “might” – this isn’t definite.
○ There’s something about masculinity in the beginning of the poem, but the
persona also imagines himself as a pregnant man (where his baby is the poem).
■ Inability and struggle to express things – a classic struggle for sonneteers.
■ “How do I transform this internal desireful quality to a lived reality?”
● Shakespeare takes this in a lot of unusual directions – he is much
more interested in perpetuating beauty (beauty is transient and will
not last).
○ The idea that pity might somehow inspire desire may seem bizarre to us.
However, it is a signature trope of the sonnet form.
○ This is a culture that reverences past examples and traditions…
○ “the blackest face of woe” (l. 5) – both a metaphor for his sadness as well as
committing the black ink to paper.
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