Poetry Unit. Lesson 2 on Sonnets

1.  The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two
parts.
 The first eight lines are called the octave
and usually pose a problem of some kind.
› Can also be divided into quatrains
 The last six are called the sextet, and they
generally offer some kind of resolution to
the problem posed in the octave.
› Can also be divided into tercets
 The turn occurs between the octave and
the sextet is called the volta, or turn.

2.  In a normal Petrarchan sonnet, the
octave's rhyme scheme is usually ABBA
ABBA
 The sextet can have a variety of rhymes
schemes (two common ones are CDE
CDE and CDC CDC)

3.  I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
 or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
 I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
 secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
 the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
 and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
 from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
 I love you directly without problems or pride:
 I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to
love,
 except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
 so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
 so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

4.  When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
 That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

5. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

6.  composed of three quatrains and a cou
plet in iambic pentameter with the rhym
e scheme
 abab bcbc cdcdee.

7.  Spenser often begins L9 of his sonnets
with "But" or "Yet," indicating a volta
exactly where it would occur in the
Italian sonnet; however, if one looks
closely, one often finds that the "turn"
here really isn't one at all, that the actual
turn occurs where the rhyme pattern
changes, with the couplet, thus giving a
12 and 2 line pattern very different from
the Italian 8 and 6 line pattern

8. 
(a) One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
 (b) But came the waves and washed it away:
 (a) Again I wrote it with a second hand,
 (b) But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
 (b) Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
 (c) A mortal thing so to immortalize!
 (b) For I myself shall like to this decay,
 (c) And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
 (c) Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
 (d) To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
 (c) My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
 (d) And in the heavens write your glorious name;
 (e) Where, when as death shall all the world subdue,
 (e) Our love shall live, and later life renew.

9.  Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
 My love like the Spectator idly sits,
 Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
 Disguising diversely my troubled wits.
 Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
 And mask in mirth like to a Comedy;
 Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
 I wail and make my woes a Tragedy.
 Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
 Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
 But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry
 She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
 What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
 She is no woman, but a senseless stone.

10.  Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
 My love like the Spectator idly sits,
 Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
 Disguising diversely my troubled wits.
 Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
 And mask in mirth like to a Comedy;
 Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
 I wail and make my woes a Tragedy.
 Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
 Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
 But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry
 She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
 What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
 She is no woman, but a senseless stone.