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Aspects of a Sonnet Essay

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Aspects of a Sonnet

Explore aspects of the sonnet tradition through reference to a range of material you have studied?

A sonnet is a 14-line poem with each line having 10 syllables. It originated in the 13th century and was introduced into England in the
16th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

The Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet characteristically consists of an eight-line octave, rhyming abbaabba, that states a problem, asks a question, or expresses an emotional tension, followed by a six-line sestet, of varying rhyme schemes, that resolves the problem, answers the question, or resolves the tension. The rhyme scheme for the sestet is cdecde.

For instance, Wilfred Owen uses the first eight-lines to describe how deaths at war …show more content…

The question of whether Shakespeare was a bi-sexual has never been answered. Shakespeare uses very emotive words in his sonnets, which captures you amongst the words and involves the readers mind, body and soul. For instance in his famous sonnet "Shall I compare thee…?", Shakespeare compares someone to the beauty of nature, thus his first line and the title of the sonnet. He uses a rhetorical question to inhibit the fact that he knows the answer himself and needs no one to confirm it.

"Shall I Compare thee to a summers day?"

(Sonnet XVl l l, line 1)

The sonnet describes of how summer only last for a short time therefore the sonnet could have been implying that the beauty of this person is only temporary. However he crushes this idea with the lines:

"But thy eternall Sommer shall not fade"

(Sonnet XVl l l, line 9)

"Nor loose possession of that faire thou ow'st"

(Sonnet XVl l l, line 10)

Shakespeare portrays his love in this sonnet by giving it a sense of immortality and suggesting it is eternal. He indicates that the only enemy in love is time therefore why he portrays his love as timeless.
Although he is not talking from experience his poems still exert a sense of realism in his words of wisdom. The language and imagery used in many of his sonnets leave an impressionable mark on the reader as his belief in love boils over the top in his sonnet, "Shall I compare thee?" His exaggeration in the

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