Course Title:

Renaissance Poetry and Prose

Course Taught By

Professor Abdul Quyum Nizami

B.A (Hons) & M.A in English, BCS (Education)

Professor & Head, Department of English
Cumilla Victoria Govt. College (PLR)
The
Sonnets
What is a Sonnet?

• The name is taken from the Italian sonetto, which means “a little sound or
song.”
• A sonnet is a poem generally structured in the form of 14 lines, usually
iambic pentameter, that expresses a thought or idea and utilizes an
established rhyme scheme. As a poetic form, the sonnet was
developed by an early thirteenth-century Italian poet, Giacomo da
Lentini. However, it was the Renaissance Italian poet Petrarch that
perfected and made this poetic literary device famous.
General conventions of a
sonnet

The poetic form of the sonnet originated in the 13th century in Italy. It was
originally intended as a way of expressing romantic love among the upper
classes.
Traditional sonnets follow a set of rules. The most common rules are:
•A 14 line structure
•It has a regular rhyme scheme
•It follows a regular (also called the metre)
What is a rhyme scheme?
• A rhyme scheme means the pattern of the rhyming words at the end of each
line. For example, look at the pattern of rhymes in the first section of this
Shakespearean sonnet:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? A
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. B
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, A
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. B
• The words ‘day’ and ‘May’ rhyme so they are both given the letter ‘A’. Then
‘temperate’ and ‘date’ rhyme so they are both given the letter ‘B’ (the words
temperate would have been pronounced to rhyme with date) Therefore, this
section of the sonnet has a rhyme scheme of ABAB.
• If a new rhyme is used, then the next letter in the alphabet continues the pattern.
What is a regular rhythm?
• In poetry, rhythm is the beat and pace of a line of poetry. A regular
rhythm has a regular beat to each line of the poem. Sonnets typically
have ten beats in a line – this is called an iambic pentameter.

• Shakespearean sonnets end in two lines that rhyme with one another,
called a couplet.
Common rules of a sonnet
• Iambic pentameter: This is a rhythm of unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, with a
total of 10 beats. A good way to think about iambic pentameter is to think about the sound of a
heartbeat (duh-DUM, duh-DUM, duh-DUM). If we take a word like ‘delight’, we pronounce it
‘de-light’ where we place more emphasis on the second syllable.
• Rhyme: Petrarchan sonnets tend to follow a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA CDCDCD or
ABBAABBA CDECDE whereas Shakespearean sonnets follow a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD
EFEF GG. The rhyme pattern often identifies sections of meaning in the poem. These sections
have names that tell us how many lines they have:
Couplet – two lines
Quatrain – four lines
Sestet – six lines
Octave – eight lines
• Many modern poets have written sonnets which do not follow the exact
structure or rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnets.
Poets often enjoy playing around with this poetic form.

• Some poets have chosen not to use rhyme in their sonnet. In the 1920s,
WH Auden wrote one of the first unrhymed sonnets in English, The Secret
Agent.

• Other poets have written ‘inverted’ sonnets where the sestet comes first
Modern followed by the octave. Sometimes a modern poet may take features from
sonnets the Shakespearean form and combine them with some of the features from
the Petrarchan form.

• A feature of modern poetry is that the poet doesn’t have to use ‘end
stopped’ lines. Instead the poet can use ‘run on lines’ (or enjambment). The
Trick by Imtiaz Dharker is an example of a modern sonnet that uses some
‘run on lines’.

• Sometimes the only way to spot a modern sonnet is that it has 14 lines!
Shakespearean sonnets
• Shakespeare’s sonnets are some of the most well-known in the English
language. In total, Shakespeare wrote a large number of sonnets so it is
unsurprising that he made a few changes to the traditional structure and
themes associated with this form.

• Shakespeare kept the 14 line structure and followed a regular rhyme scheme.
His sonnets usually change the rhyming pattern every four lines – so that
each sonnet is made uap of three quatrains
• . Shakespeare’s sonnets usually end with a rhyming couplet. A traditional
Shakespearean sonnet has a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
Shakespeare and
His Sonnets

• Shakespeare's 154
sonnets, first appearing
in a collection in 1609,
may be roughly divided
into three groups.
To be continued…

• Number 1-126 are largely addressed to

a young man, often called the "Fair
Youth," and express admiration,
romantic affection, and concern with
the passage of time and the
preservation of beauty through poetry.
To be continued…

• Number 127-152 are addressed to a

dark woman, "Dark Lady," a

mysterious figure characterized by a

more sensual and morally

ambiguous relationship.
To be
continued…

• The last two sonnets are

conventional love poems

about Cupid.
Shakespearean Sonnet

• Efforts have been made to ascertain the

identity of these characters, but no one has

produced solid evidence that the sonnets are

related to Shakespeare's private life.

Shakespeare and the Sonnet

• William Shakespeare's contribution to the sonnet form represents a

pinnacle in English poetry. Writing during the Elizabethan era, a time
when the sonnet was a popular mode of poetic expression,
Shakespeare both embraced and transformed the form, crafting 154
sonnets that delve deeply into themes of love, time, beauty, and
mortality. His work stands as a critical bridge between the traditional
Petrarchan sonnet and a more modern, introspective poetic voice.
Sonnet 1 in modern English: Simple
Translation
We want beautiful people to have children,
So that their beauty can live on forever.
Even when they grow old and die,
Their children will carry their memory.
But you’re in love with your own looks,
And you use your beauty selfishly.
You’re wasting what could be shared,
Hurting yourself by keeping it all to yourself.
You’re the world’s most beautiful thing right now,
A sign of the coming spring,
But you keep all that beauty hidden inside,
Being stingy and wasting it by not sharing.
Have mercy on the world—
Don’t let your beauty die with you in the grave.
Summary
• The first sonnet takes it as a given that “From fairest creatures we desire increase”—that is, that we desire beautiful
creatures to multiply, in order to preserve their “beauty’s rose” for the world. That way, when the parent dies (“as the
riper should by time decease”), the child might continue its beauty (“His tender heir might bear his memory”). In the
second quatrain, the speaker chides the young man he loves for being too self-absorbed to think of procreation: he is
“contracted” to his own “bright eyes,” and feeds his light with the fuel of his own loveliness. The speaker says that
this makes the young man his own unwitting enemy, for it makes “a famine where abundance lies,” and hoards all
the young man’s beauty for himself. In the third quatrain, he argues that the young man may now be beautiful—he is
“the world’s fresh ornament / And only herald to the gaudy spring”—but that, in time, his beauty will fade, and he
will bury his “content” within his flower’s own bud (that is, he will not pass his beauty on; it will wither with him).
In the couplet, the speaker asks the young man to “pity the world” and reproduce, or else be a glutton who, like the
grave, eats the beauty he owes to the whole world
Analysis
• The first sonnet introduces many of the themes that will define the sequence:
beauty, the passage of human life in time, the ideas of virtue and wasteful self-
consumption (“thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes”), and the love the
speaker bears for the young man, which causes him to elevate the young man
above the whole world, and to consider his procreation a form of “pity” for the
rest of the earth. Sonnet 1opens not only the entire sequence of sonnets, but also
the first mini-sequence, a group comprising the first seventeen sonnets, often
called the “procreation” sonnets because they each urge the young man to bear
children as an act of defiance against time.
To be continued….
• The logical structure of Sonnet 1is relatively simple: the first quatrain states the moral premise, that
beauty should strive to propagate itself; the second quatrain accuses the young man of violating
that moral premise, by wasting his beauty on himself alone; the third quatrain gives him an urgent
reason to change his ways and obey the moral premise, because otherwise his beauty will wither
and disappear; and the couplet summarizes the argument with a new exhortation to “pity the
world” and father a child. Some of the metaphoric images in the poem, however, are quite
complex. The image of the young man contracted to his own bright eyes, feeding his “light’s
flame” with “self-substantial fuel,” for instance, is an extremely intricate image of self-absorption,
and looks forward to the final image of Sonnet 73, in which old age is depicted as the snuffing of a
fire by the ashes of the wood it was once “nourished by”—almost its self-substantial fuel.
Simple Translation:
• Look in the mirror and see your face—
Now is the time to have a child who looks like you.
If you don’t create a new version of yourself now,
You’re cheating the world and denying someone the joy of motherhood.
What beautiful woman wouldn’t want your child?
And what man would be foolish enough to let his legacy end with himself?
You are a reflection of your mother’s beauty,
She sees her youth again when she looks at you.
One day, when you’re old, your child could do the same for you—
You’d see your youth live on, even through your wrinkles.
But if you choose not to have children,
You’ll die alone, and your beauty will die with you.
Sonnet 3 modern English
• Look in your mirror and tell the face you see that it’s time it should create another
If you do not renew yourself you would be depriving the world, and stop some
woman from becoming a mother. For where is the lovely woman whose
unploughed womb would not appreciate the way you plow your field? Or who is
he foolish enough to love himself so much as to neglect reproducing? You are the
mirror of your mother, and she is the mirror of you, and in you, she recalls the
lovely April of her youth. In the same way, you will see your youth in your own
children, in spite of the wrinkles caused by age. But if you live your life avoiding
being remembered you will die single and your image will die with you.
Sonnet 18
Should I compare you to a summer day?
You’re more lovely and more gentle.
Summer can be rough and short—
Its winds shake the spring flowers, and it doesn’t last long.
Sometimes the sun is too hot,
And sometimes clouds hide its golden light.
Simple All beauty fades eventually,
Translation: Either by accident or just by nature’s course.
But your beauty won’t fade,
You won’t lose the loveliness you have now.
Even Death won’t be able to claim you,
Because you’ll live on forever in this poem.
As long as people are alive and can read,
This poem will live—and so will your beauty.
• The speaker asks whether he should compare his
friend to a summer’s day, but decides against it
because the friend is more lovely and stable.
Summer is beautiful but short, sometimes too hot,
Summary: sometimes cloudy, and it eventually ends. In
contrast, the friend’s beauty will never fade
because it will live on forever in the lines of this
poem. As long as people live and read the poem,
the friend’s beauty will never die.
Analysis
• This sonnet is certainly the most famous in the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets; it may be the
most famous lyric poem in English. Among Shakespeare’s works, only lines such as “To be or not
to be” and “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” are better-known. This is not to say that
it is at all the best or most interesting or most beautiful of the sonnets; but the simplicity and
loveliness of its praise of the beloved has guaranteed its place.

• On the surface, the poem is simply a statement of praise about the beauty of the friend; summer
tends to unpleasant extremes of windiness and heat, but the beloved is always mild and temperate.
Summer is incidentally personified as the “eye of heaven” with its “gold complexion”; the imagery
throughout is simple and unaffected, with the “darling buds of May” giving way to the “eternal
summer”, which the speaker promises the beloved. The language, too, is comparatively unadorned
for the sonnets; it is not heavy with alliteration or assonance, and nearly every line is its own self-
contained clause—almost every line ends with some punctuation, which effects a pause.
To be continued….
• Sonnet 18 is the first poem in the sonnets not to explicitly encourage the young man to have
children. The “procreation” sequence of the first 17 sonnets ended with the speaker’s realization
that the young man might not need children to preserve his beauty; he could also live, the speaker
writes at the end of Sonnet 17, “in my rhyme.” Sonnet 18, then, is the first “rhyme”—the speaker’s
first attempt to preserve the young man’s beauty for all time. An important theme of the sonnet (as
it is an important theme throughout much of the sequence) is the power of the speaker’s poem to
defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to future generations. The
beloved’s “eternal summer” shall not fade precisely because it is embodied in the sonnet: “So long
as men can breathe or eyes can see,” the speaker writes in the couplet, “So long lives this, and this
gives life to thee.”
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee
• In this beautiful couplet, the poet wants to convey a message to his friend that he will enjoy his
life as long as there are human beings on the surface of this earth. As the beloved of the poet is
preserved in the eternal poetry of the poet, his friend will enjoy his life each and every time
people read his poetry. The more people read his poetry, the more his friend will enjoy his life.

• You might have observed that those people, who die aimlessly or without any cause, are never
remembered by people. They become a part of history and are buried over by time. But those,
who are having a particular characteristic or any other achievement they have made, are
remembered in the annals of history. Their achievements are commemorated everywhere and
every time someone reads his account.

• For example, Lady Diana is remembered for her spectacular beauty. Though she is dead, yet she
lives in the heart of people. In the same way, the poet wants to immortalize his friend in his
poetry. As long as humans will read his poetry, his friend will be appreciated and commemorated.
Thanks for your patience, active
participation and sincere
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