- Jan 2017
-
www.poetryfoundation.org www.poetryfoundation.org
-
Why I Don’t Piss in the Ocean
This poem is structured in a verse that can be divided into two septet, but presented in one stanza. (For stanza forms, see this page.)
Consider the following (as you annotate the poem), First septet: Who is the central figure here? What is the dominant impression here? What is the key message contained here?
Repeat for the second septet.
What are the connections between the two septet?
-
-
letterpile.com letterpile.com
-
ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?------------------E JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.-----------------F ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;---------------E They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.--------------F
In the first two quatrains, both Romeo and Juliet spoke their respective parts for the entire stanzas. In this quatrain, the lines are distributed between the two. To what effects?
Notice also that English sonnets aim to increase tension. What kind of tension is heightened here, and how is it resolved in the volta?
-
-
www.poetryfoundation.org www.poetryfoundation.org
-
One of the sonnet’s most popular aims is to write in praise of someone (or something) beloved.
Sonnets are basically used as a highly formal and lyrical praise of love.
-
In the Petrarchan sonnet, the sections are broken up into an octave (first eight lines) and a sestet (final six lines). In the Shakespearean sonnet, there are three quatrains (four-line stanzas or sections) and then a couplet. In both types, a volta marks the transition to the final section.
Here are some terms that you need to learn. "Octave", "Sestet", "quatrain", "couplet", "volta".
-
The form was adopted and enthusiastically embraced by the English in the Elizabethan period, most notably by Shakespeare, who gave it the structure we commonly think of today: 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter.
This is a key feature of sonnets: remember this.
-