Recitation: Playing Sonnets

Nothing will enable you to better appreciate the artistry of sonneteers, old and new, than trying your hand at the genre!  We therefore challenge you to a game of sonnet.  Because Autumn break falls on Thursday and Friday of this week, there’ll be no discussions–just submit your work to Carmen by the end of Sunday:

 

Your Mission:

 

  1. Compose either a Spenserian or a Shakespearean sonnet on a theme inspired by some work in this course (for example, (re)write an elegy in sonnet form, or write your own portrait of the Clerk or the Wife of Bath as a sonnet, or imagine the would-be mistresses of Donne or Marvell responding to their propositions with a witty sonnet).  Be sure to follow all the rules.  When you compose, AVOID OLD-TIMEY LANGUAGE. Using “thy,” “yon,” “thou,” “hath” etc. was common in the Renaissance but is quaint and cringe-worthy now. Unless you think you can pull off a sonnet that absolutely passes for Shakespeare or his contemporaries, just leave those archaic words in the seventeenth century.
  2. Explain why you chose the Spenserian or a Shakespearean sonnet–how would you have had to develop your ideas differently if you’d chosen the other form.
  3. Scan your sonnet, dividing each line into its constituent feet and indicating the stressed and unstressed syllables.
  4. Mark the rhyme scheme of your sonnet, using the conventional ABCD… to designate different rhymes.
  5. Indicate the turn/volta in your sonnet, explaining in a sentence or two why it’s a turn.
  6. Submit your work to Carmen by the end of Sunday.

 

License

British Literature to 1800 Copyright © 2020 by Karen Winstead. All Rights Reserved.

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