Friday, December 28, 2007

Sonnets and such continued...

Just a question: are we responsible for looking up and printing a copy of everyone's sonnets?

- my Italian sonnet:

IX---by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

- my English/Shakespearean sonnet: 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

13 comments:

Fatima said...

my Spenserian sonnet (by Edmund Spenser from Amoretti

Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands,
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.
And happy lines on which, with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book.
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook
Of Helicon, whence she derived is,
When ye behold that angel's blessed look,
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss.
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none.

Kelsie said...

Nice choices, Fatima! I think we agreed that we would print out 7 copies of our own sonnets and give a copy to everyone in our class. I'll post mine as soon as I finalize my choice! :)

Anisha said...

Seven copies each sounds good.
Quick question: Are there any Spenserian poems that aren't by Edmund Spenser?

Theresa said...

Anisha-
"Spenser also introduced the Spenserian stanza, which consisted of eight lines of iambic pentameters, followed by a ninth line of iambic hexameter; this last line is called an alexandrine, and it is used to complete the thought presented by the first eight lines. The rhyming scheme is ababbcbcc. Spenser used it for The Faerie Queen; it was regarded as a revolutionary innovation in its day. It was revived in the 19th century by the Romantic poets - Byron in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; John Keats in The Eve of St. Agnes; and by Percy Bysshe Shelley in Adonis."
From http://www.themediadrome.com/content/articles/words_articles/right_word_3_sonnet.htm

By the way, shotty "The Eve of Saint Agnes"

Theresa said...

And I also want Shakespeare sonnet 130

Elizabeth Johnson said...

So, since everybody's doing it... my sonnets:

Petrarchan -- Milton's Sonnet 19
Shakespearean -- Shakespeare's (surprise!) Sonnet 30
Spenserian -- Spenser's (surprise again!) Sonnet 79

Albert said...

Alright, I've got:
Italian:
Sonnet 71 by Sir Philip Sidney
Shakespearean:
Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare
Spenserian:
Sonnet 54 by Spenser

Kelsie said...

Shakespearean- Sonnet 14 by Shakespeare

Kelsie said...

Italian- "The world is too much with us; late and soon" by Wordsworth

Kelsie said...

Spenserian- Sonnet 56 by Spenser

Albert said...

I guess we can start talking about analyzing this stuff, at least structurally...

So in class we talked about how the line groupings and the volta are main contributors to the thoughts presented in a sonnet. Pretty interesting how sonnets closely resembles the form of prose, i.e. tying related thoughts to prove a point, and contrasting that point as well.
good stuff :P

My qualm, is with any other form based poetry, is that the structure inherently limits your thoughts. This leads to two conclusions:
1) Sonnets are a pain the rear to compose. It will thwart the attempts of many to create true masterpieces
2) Sonnets represent the true genius of those who can express themselves freely with little to no thought to the structural limitations. It's almost like watching a professional chef versus a college student who lives on microwave dinners both cooking a 5-star quality meal. For the chef, it just comes naturally. All the ingredients are there, it's just how one does it that makes the difference.

Anyone else feel that way?

Anisha said...

I like your conclusions, Albert, although I'm not really sure how to contribute more to them.

Theresa, was it your St. Agnes poem which ended up being another form of Spenserian? And if so, does that mean that original Spenserian was, in fact, only written by Spenser?

Anisha said...

I like your conclusions, Albert, although I'm not really sure how to contribute more to them.

Theresa, was it your St. Agnes poem which ended up being another form of Spenserian? And if so, does that mean that original Spenserian was, in fact, only written by Spenser?