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Form

Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet:

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cdcdcd - or cdecde - or cdcdee

First eight lines = "Octave"

Remaining six lines = "Sestet"

Between these two = the "Volta," or "turn. Usually, a shift in rhyme scheme accompanies the introduction of a new idea.

The Petrarchan Sonnet:

Rima 134

Shakespeare and the Sonnet

  • Shakespeare published a collection of 154 sonnets
  • He pioneered a new form, dubbed the "Shakespearean" or "English" Sonnet

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Form:

abab

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I find no peace, and all my war is done;

I fear and hope; I burn and freeze like ice;

I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;

And nought I have, and all the world I seize on;

That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison

And holdeth me not, yet can I 'scape nowise;

Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,

And yet of death it giveth none occasion.

Withouten eyen, I see; and without tongue I plain;

I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;

I love another, and thus I hate myself;

I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain;

Likewise displeaseth me both death and life;

And my delight is causer of this strife.

Petrarch

Couplet - two rhyming lines

Iambic pentameter - lines with 5 "iambs" (weak beat followed by a stronger beat)

The Petrarchan Sonnet

The Prologue

Content and Themes

  • Born Francesco Petracco in Tuscany (Italy) in 1304. He grew up in a fairly wealthy family and was forced by his parents to study law, though his real interests were poetry and Latin literature.
  • He was a prolific writer, traveler, and translator/discover-er of ancient Roman and Greek manuscripts - laid the groundwork for the Renaissance
  • He became one of the "rock stars" of his day. In 1341, he was named the first "poet laureate" since ancient days, and was crowned on holy grounds in Rome.

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

  • "Laura" - The object of many of his poems, Laura is a mysterious, far-off, unreachable woman that Petrarch pines for but never gets.
  • He called his distant relationship to her "an overwhelming but pure love affair."
  • Petrarch's writing on Laura expresses both delight and despair. It hurts when he thinks about her, but he is too in love to stop. His poems are the epitome of unrequited love.
  • Courtly love - the medieval tradition of love between a knight and a noble woman, characterized by chivalry, flowery praise, and a lack of any real contact/consummation

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Paradox

A statement that seems to contradict itself

Examples:

  • Being cruel to be kind
  • Out of evil can come good
  • Out of death can come life
  • The road to hell is paved with good intentions

Duality

A strong contrast between two opposing images or ideas

Light vs. dark, love vs. hate, birth vs. death

Petrarch, The Sonnet, and Poetic Love

Sonnet 130

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

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