English 11 Name: ______Sonnets
Directions: To answer the following questions, please refer to pp. 295-311 of your textbook.
1. Define the term sonnet. Include both the meaning of the word and the traditional form.
2. Why would the sonnet be an acceptable form of poetry for the Renaissance?
3. Name one originator of a sonnet form: ______
List the three major types of sonnets, describe their form, and show the pattern for their rhyme schemes:
4. ______
5. ______
6. ______
Define the following terms:
7. metaphor
8. quatrain
10. couplet
11. stanza
12. extended metaphor
13. octave
14. sestet
15. rhyme scheme Directions: After reading the sonnets below, answer the questions that follow.
Sonnet 30 Sonnet 54
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought Of this World's theatre in which we stay, I summon up remembrance of things past, My love like the Spectator idly sits, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, Beholding me, that all the pageants play, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Disguising diversely my troubled wits. Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And mask in mirth like to a Comedy; And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe, Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits, And moan the expense of many a vanished sight: I wail and make my woes a Tragedy. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, Yet she, beholding me with constant eye, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart; The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry Which I new pay as if not paid before. She laughs and hardens evermore her heart. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan, All losses are restored and sorrows end. She is no woman, but a senseless stone.
Sonnet 71 Sonnet 17
No longer mourn for me when I am dead A rain of bitter tears falls from my face Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell And a tormenting wind blows with my sighs Give warning to the world that I am fled Whenever toward you I turn my eyes, From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Whose absence cuts me from the human race. Nay, if you read this line, remember not It is true that the mild and gentle smiles The hand that writ it; for I love you so Do soothe the ardour of my strong desire That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot And rescue me from my martyrdom's fire If thinking on me then should make you woe. While I intently look upon your guiles; O, if, I say, you look upon this verse But my spirits become suddenly cold When I perhaps compounded am with clay, When I see, leaving, the acts I behold Do not so much as my poor name rehearse. Stolen from me by my stars' fateful ray; But let your love even with my life decay, Loosened at last by the amorous keys, Lest the wise world should look into your moan The soul deserts the heart to seek your breeze, And mock you with me after I am gone. And in deep thought it tears itself away.
16. List the TYPE of sonnet for each sonnet above:
#30 ______#54 ______
#71 ______#17 ______
17. List the rhyme scheme for each sonnet:
#30 ______#54 ______
#71 ______#17 ______
18. What is the extended metaphor for each sonnet? Be specific. What is being compared?
#30 ______#54 ______
#71 ______#17 ______
19. For each sonnet, state where the turning point occurs (give text and line #) and the effect of that turning point:
Where Turning Point Occurs Effect of Turning Point
20. Select ONE of the sonnets and paraphrase it here. Be sure to include the sonnet # you are paraphrasing.
Sonnet #: ______
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______Refer to the following text for questions 21-26
Sonnet #30 Sonnet #75
My love is like to ice, and I to fire; One day I wrote her name upon the strand, How comes it then that this her cold so great But came the waves and washed it away: Is not dissolved through my so-hot desire, Again I wrote it with a second hand, But harder grows the more I her intreat? But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay, Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold; A mortal thing so to immortalize, But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, For I myself shall like to this decay, And feel my flames augmented manifold? And eek my name be wiped out likewise. What more miraculous thing may be told No so, (quod I) let baser things devise That fire which all things melts, should harden ice: To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: And ice which is congealed with senseless cold, My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize, Should kindle fire by wonderful device? And in the heavens write your glorious name. Such is the power of love in gentle mind, Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, That it can alter all the course of kind. Out love shall live, and later life renew.
Refer to the following text for questions 27-36
Sonnet #29 It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks I all alone beweep my outcast state Within his bending sickle's compass come: And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, And look upon myself and curse my fate, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, If this be error and upon me proved, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Sonnet #130 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Like to the lark at break of day arising Coral is far more red than her lips' red; From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. That then I scorn to change my state with kings. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; Sonnet #116 And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. Let me not to the marriage of true minds I love to hear her speak, yet well I know Admit impediments. Love is not love That music hath a far more pleasing sound; Which alters when it alteration finds, I grant I never saw a goddess go; Or bends with the remover to remove: My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare That looks on tempests and is never shaken; As any she belied with false compare. 37-40 Answer each of the following in a well-developed paragraph. Be sure to support your ideas with examples. (5 points each)
37. Explain how the following quote by the poet Virgil relates to any of the sonnets discussed in class: “Love conquers all things.”
38. Explain how that same quote for number 37 does or does not relate to the love songs of today.
39. What, in your opinion, are the distinguishing characteristics of true love? Explain.
40. Based on your own knowledge and experience as well as the writings of the sonnets and modern love songs, give a response to the following quote by Alfred Lord Tennyson: “’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.”