SONNET DOGGONIT

Just a quick grammar lesson:


Remember: For those of you, who like myself, couldn't tell you what iambic pentameter is without starting to sweat, I found this helpful article at iambicpentameter.net, which appears to be a blog devoted to the use of foot and meter in such a way. Who knew?:

Let’s define some terms to help explain this one. Meter refers to the pattern of syllables in a line of poetry. The most basic unit of measure in a poem is the syllable and the pattern of syllables in a line, from stressed to unstressed or vice versa. This is the meter. Syllables are paired two and three at a time, depending on the stresses in the sentence.

Two syllables together, or three if it’s a three-syllable construction, is known as a foot. So in a line of poetry the cow would be considered one foot. Because when you say the words, the is unstressed andcow is stressed, it can be represented as da DUM. An unstressed/stressed foot is known as an iamb. That’s where the term iambic comes from.

Pentameter is simply penta, which means 5, meters. So a line of poetry written in pentameter has 5 feet, or 5 sets of stressed and unstressed syllables. In basic iambic pentameter, a line would have 5 feet of iambs, which is an unstressed and then a stressed syllable. For example:

If you would put the key inside the lock

This line has 5 feet, so it’s written in pentameter. And the stressing pattern is all iambs:

if YOU | would PUT | the KEY | inSIDE | the LOCK

da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM

That’s the simplest way to define iambic pentameter.

Great examples of a iambic pentameter poems would be many of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He often wrote sonnets and whole lines of dialogue from plays in this meter.

Other Poetry Definitions

It can help to understand the other forms of feet and meter that are used in poetry.  These are all determined by the stressing pattern.

DA dum (FORest)  =  Trochee

DA DUM (RED CAT) =  Spondee

da da DUM (like a WOLF) = Anapest

DA da DUM (CUT the FLESH) = Dactyl

da dum (and the) (-ing the) = Pyrrhic

Understanding the rhythm of poetry and how to read a line to determine whether iambic pentameter or some other meter is used can help you learn to write your own poetry and better appreciate the writings of classic and modern poets.

Again, check out iambicpentameter.net if you're really, really desperate.


Okay. So on to Shakespearian sonnets. This article came from Wikipedia:

The form is often named after Shakespeare, not because he was the first to write in this form but because he became its most famous practitioner. The form consists of fourteen lines structured as three quatrains and a couplet. The third quatrain generally introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic "turn"; the volta. In Shakespeare's sonnets, however, the volta usually comes in the couplet, and usually summarizes the theme of the poem or introduces a fresh new look at the theme. With only a rare exception, the meter is iambic pentameter, although there is some accepted metrical flexibility (e.g., lines ending with an extra-syllable feminine rhyme, or a trochaic foot rather than an iamb, particularly at the beginning of a line). The usual rhyme scheme is end-rhymed a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.

This example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, illustrates the form (with some typical variances one may expect when reading an Elizabethan-age sonnet with modern eyes):

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)*
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a)
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)*
O no, it is an ever fixèd mark (c)**
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)***
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c)**
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)***
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)*
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)*

If this be error and upon me proved, (g)*

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)*

I know that this helped me a lot. 
If you're having trouble coming up with a good sonnet, you could always follow suit of the French surrealist Raymond Queneau, who wrote a book called A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, where he wrote ten 14 line sonnets with the same end rhymes, and cut each book into lines, so that one could mix and match all of the poems. The result is a collection of random sonnets produced from the same "parents and originals". Bet the printing company had fun with that!

And just an FYI, 
The word sonnet comes from the Italian sonneto, meaning "little sound". If you'd like a searchable database of Shakespeare's sonnets, check this out:
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/