Superb Sonnets

LA.E.1.4.1 The student identifies the characteristics that distinguish literary forms.
Sonnet a fourteen-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, which has one of two basic
structures.
Petrarchan (or Italian) Sonnet
(named for the 14th century poet Petrarch)
- has 14 lines
- 1st eight lines are called the octave
- the octave asks a question or poses a problem
- last six lines are called the sestet
- the sestet responds to the question or problem
- Rhyme Scheme: abba, abba, cde, cde (this is the traditional rhyme scheme, but often a Petrarchan sonnet
will have slight variations in the rhyme scheme.)
Example of a Petrarchan Sonnet:
The Cross of Snow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the long, sleepless watches of the night
A gentle face--the face of one long dead-Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deap ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
Shakespearean (or English) Sonnet
(named for William Shakespeare a master in this form)
- has 14 lines
- 3 stanzas of four lines each called quatrains
- last two lines are called the couplet
- Rhyme Scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg (this is the traditional rhyme scheme, but often a Shakespearean
sonnet will have slight variations in the rhyme scheme.)
Example of a Shakespearean Sonnet:
If I should learn, in some quite casual way By: Edna St. Vincent Millay
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again-Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man--who happened to be you-At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud--I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place-I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care

Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

Sonnet Search
LA.E.1.4.1 The student identifies the characteristics that distinguish literary forms.
I. Directions: For each of the following poems, label the rhyme scheme. Then identify
whether or not the poem is a sonnet. If it is a sonnet, identify which type of sonnet it is
and explain how you know in the Comments area. Refer to your notes on sonnets as
needed.
1. Addressed to my Friends at Yale College. . .
Your Comments:
Adieu! thou Yale! where youthful poets dwell,
No more I linger by thy classic stream.
Inglorious ease and sportive songs farewell!
Thou startling clarion! break the sleeper's dream!
And sing, ye bards! the war-inspiring theme.
Heard ye the din of battle? clang of arms?
Saw ye the steel 'mid starry banners beam?
Quick throbs my breast at war's untried alarms,
Unknown pulsations stirr'd by glory's charms.
While dear Columbia calls, no danger awes,
Though certain death to threaten'd chains be join'd.
Though fails this flesh devote to freedom's cause,
Can death subdue th' unconquerable mind?
Or adamantine chains ethereal substance bind?
2. Richard Cory By: Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
Good-morning, and he glittered when he walked
And he was rich--yes, richer than a king
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
When home and put a bullet through his head.

Your Comments:

3. To Science by Edgar Allen Poe

Your Comments:
Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
4. Range-Finding by Robert Frost
Your Comments:
The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung
And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest
Before it strained a single human breast.
The stricken flower bent double and so hung.
And still the bird revisited her young.
A butterfly its fall had dispossessed
A moment sought in air his flower of rest,
Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.
On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.
A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.
The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,
But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.
II. Directions: Write your own original sonnet using one of the two forms (Petrarchan or
Shakespearean). Identify which form you have chosen. Be sure to include all the
necessary elements for the form you choose. Refer to your notes on sonnets as needed.
Type your sonnet (heading MLA) and staple it to this packet when you turn it in.