The Sonnet








Advanced Studies: Meter

Assignments

* Journal: Sonnet Analysis
  • Find one Italian sonnet.  Locate the line of the turn (volta) and copy that line down.  Explain how the meaning of the poem shifts at that line. 
  • Find one English sonnet.  Locate the line of the turn (volta) and copy that line down down.  Explain how the meaning of the poem shifts at that line.  

* Journal: Sonnet Imitation
  • Find and hand copy one sonnet written before 1800 (this could be one above or another you find and like).  
  • Find and hand copy one sonnet written after 1800 (this could be one above or another you find and like). 
  • Now you will create your own sonnet using one of the poems you copied.  
    1. Model your poem after one or the other that you copied. 
    2. So, you need to have the same rhyme scheme (end-rhyme pattern). 
    3. You also need to try to write it in a similar kind of meter, but you will not lose points if can't meet this requirement perfectly.  This is challenging for many people to do. 
    4. You could choose the same theme or a different theme as that shown in your model. 
    5. Your turn or volta should occur in the same line that your model does, which means your meaning should shift in the same line as your model.  


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"Another Tattoo" by Weird Al Yankovic 

Beautiful tats, all over my back
Makes me so proud, I'm gonna shout it out loud
I got another tattoo, baby 
Another tattoo, baby 
 
No part of me's blank, I'm really ink-obsessed
It's like an art show the moment that I get undressed (Check it!)
At every job interview, they're just so impressed (Really?)
'Cause I got all my ex-wives on my chest! (Ha, ha!)

Over here is Clay Aiken, there's a side of bacon,
And a Minotaur pillow fightin' with Satan (Yes!)
Next to Hello Kitty and a zombie ice skatin' (Yah!)
Wait... it's Ronald Regan

I've got these dragons, (Yo!) I've got these dolphins (Yo!)
All inscribed on me indelibly (Indelibly!)
I've had bad reactions, (Yeah!) Bad infections, (Yeah!)
Even Hepatitis C ('Titis C)

My friends think that I need therapy (Therapy)
Maybe some laser surgery (Surgery)
For the flaming goat skull on my knee
(Knee) Knee (Knee) Knee
(Hey!)

Beautiful tats, (Yeah!) all over my back (All over!)
And I've got some space here on the side of my face here 
For another tattoo, baby 
Another tattoo, baby 

No, I'm not high, (High) I'm really okay (Okay!)
I just love these scribbles (Ha, ha!) that won't go away (Yes)
I've got another tattoo, baby 
Another tattoo, baby 
Yeah...

Yes, there were a few, I got from losin' a bet.
I misspelled a word or two, still there's nothin' I regret.
My shoppin' trips are no sweat, there's never stuff I forget.
Check out this rad Boba Fett. He's playin' clarinet!

Beautiful tats (Yeah!) all over my back (All over!)
And what the heck, (Ha, ha!) there's still some room on my neck 
I'll get another tattoo, baby 
Another tattoo, baby 

I don't know why, (Why?) but every day, (Day!)
Whenever folks see me, they just back away (Woo!)
I've got another tattoo, baby 
Another tattoo, baby 
Yeah...

[Tattoo gun noises]
D'ow! Duh... 
Okay, right there by my elbow.
You see? Yeah. I got a couple square inches left.
Uh... maybe a squid, or a tarantula, or somethin', 
I don't know. Surprise me.
[Bzzzzz!]
D'ow!
No comments:

"Blackberry-Picking" by Seamus Heaney


Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.
No comments:

George Gordon (Lord Byron)

"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies."


I. Essential Questions
  • How does the composition (literary elements) support the meaning (content and theme)? 
II. Background

Take Some Notes on Gordon from Encyclopedia.com and Poets' Graves:
  • Years
  • Troubles
  • Death 
For more on Byron: Poetry Foundation 

 III. Terms

  • Bryonic Hero
  • Review caesura (and its antithesis, emjambment) 

IV. Reading

    V. Journal: George Gordon  
    "The Destruction of Sennacherib"
    • 1. Describe the rhythm (in your own words; one to two sentences).  Now, which of the following is the dominant type of foot?  How does this rhythm support the content of the poem?
     
    •   2.  Identify, describe, and explain two key stylistic elements that support the poem's message (besides the rhythm above).

    "She Walks in Beauty"
    •  3.  Change one line of the poem by substituting a synonym or related word for the word in the poem.  Explain how the meaning of the poems is tarnished by your substitution. 


      


     


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         "Lord Byron and Percy Shelley were described as 'monsters of lying, meanness, cruelty and treachery' in a memoir by their ex-lover.  Claire Clairmont's memoir was discovered by Cambridge graduate Dr Daisy Hay as she researched her first book in New York Public Library. Ms Clairmont's book accuses the poets of ruining lives - including her own, it was reported in the Observer.

    Ms Clairmont was the step-sister of Percy's wife Mary Shelley and is thought to have had a child with Percy Shelley, as well as being made pregnant and then dumped, by Byron.  She wrote: 'Under the influence of the doctrine and belief of free love, I saw the two first poets of England... become monsters.'  Ms Clairmont wrote [that] she hoped her memoir would show 'what evil passion free love assured, what tenderness it dissolves; how it abused affections that should be the solace and balm of life, into a destroying scourge....The worshippers of free love not only preyed upon one another but also on themselves, turning their existence into a perfect hell.'

    Ms Clairmont started a relationship with Lord Byron when she was just 18, but the writer quickly grew tired of her. After she had daughter Allegra by Byron, she was denied access to the child by the poet, who then sent his daughter to a convent where she died aged five. Byron also questioned whether he was the child's real father, and labelled her a brat."

    --From The Daily Mail, March 2010

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