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:
- 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.
- 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.
- Scan your sonnet, dividing each line into its constituent feet and indicating the stressed and unstressed syllables.
- Mark the rhyme scheme of your sonnet, using the conventional ABCD… to designate different rhymes.
- Indicate the turn/volta in your sonnet, explaining in a sentence or two why it’s a turn.
- Submit your work to Carmen by the end of Sunday.