Sonnets

[roblovesplastic]

See post number 10 in this thread and you shut it. What do you call a drummer without a brain?

dunno sounds like you might be banned

I AM A MOD!!!

look ya didnae shut it or explain o manny of the wordies

mon eh?

[canuck]

rob, we aren't supposed to argue with the teacher.

Let's just sit in our desks and figure this out. And remember you are miles ahead of me in this exercise cuz you have a sense of poetry. My style is writing lab reports. So, I am counting on you for inspiration.

[roblovesplastic]

rob, we aren't supposed to argue with the teacher.

Let's just sit in our desks and figure this out. And remember you are miles ahead of me in this exercise cuz you have a sense of poetry. My style is writing lab reports. So, I am counting on you for inspiration.

writing lab reports?

OH SOME NUTTER POSTING ON THE MUSIC FORUM

[canuck]

There are several different type of sonnet, the Italian or Petrarchan, Elizabethan or Shakespearian and the Spencerian. In common is the number of lines ie 14. I will explain firstly the Elizabethan which is probably the simplest.
Fourteen lines arranged in three verses of four and the couplet at the end. The rhyme scheme is AB AB CD CD EF EF DD. The couplet is supposed to be the sting in the tail that can reverse the whole meaning of the poem.
Each line is Iambic Pentameter which means that it should scan di daa di daa di daa di daa di daa. Five feet.

I will cover the other forms when this one produces results.

The poem I posted at the beginning of the thread follows these rules. (I hope).

Here we go:

SOME ONE POSTING ON THE MUSIC FORUM

Has a passion for the beauty of dance

As to a nutter who writes laborum

Art tops science at each and ev'ry chance.



See, rob, how badly I need your help with this. I am hopeless.

[Kenn]

The meter's wrong the rhyme is bad
I've struggled through the night.
My heart is now so very sad
My grey hair turned to white!

All because a challenge thrown
To make a sonnet like of old.
Too many ideas now are sown
I've sat so long my feet grow cold.

Stubborn as the braying mule
I write,erase and write again
And now methinks I am a fool
To suffer all this mental pain.

Defeat is not a word I know
So pen in hand I onward go.

[Gleber2]

What do you call a drummer without a brain?

Normal!!!!!!.

[Gleber2]

The meter's wrong the rhyme is bad
I've struggled through the night.
My heart is now so very sad
My grey hair turned to white!

All because a challenge thrown
To make a sonnet like of old.
Too many ideas now are sown
I've sat so long my feet grow cold.

Stubborn as the braying mule
I write,erase and write again
And now methinks I am a fool
To suffer all this mental pain.

Defeat is not a word I know
So pen in hand I onward go.

The rhyme is fine but not the metric length. See? Iambic pentameter 5 feet.

[Saveman]

Very commendable first effort Mr Saveman. 'Springed' was almost unforgivable and some of the feet debatable but all in all IMHO a darn good first. BTWE seen should be saw, n'est ce pas?

LOL Yes....some very dodgy stuff going on in my sonnet, but thanks for the encouragement.......I'm actually looking forward to my next try...

[Saveman]

OK, lets try this again.......tried to get the "feet" correct this time....not sure if I've managed it or not....


On A Face of Misery


Tonight I seen a grown man cry again,
His tears fell down upon an empty face,
He tried to hide from all the inner pain,
His efforts weak, aware of his disgrace.

“What say thee friend, do you hear my heart beat?”
A question asked to no one who would care.
He was aware the answer spells defeat.
But still he asked the question to the air.

“Do you believe that I can make a change?
Can I become a person who can be?”
His inner-self would try to rearrange
The secret person of the heart to free.

And so I stare into this person's eyes
They’re mine I see, Quick! Where is my disguise?

[Gleber2]

OK, lets try this again.......tried to get the "feet" correct this time....not sure if I've managed it or not....


On A Face of Misery


Tonight I seen a grown man cry again,
His tears fell down upon an empty face,
He tried to hide from all the inner pain,
His efforts weak, aware of his disgrace.

“What say thee friend, do you hear my heart beat?”
A question asked to no one who would care.
He was aware the answer spells defeat.
But still he asked the question to the air.

“Do you believe that I can make a change?
Can I become a person who can be?”
His inner-self would try to rearrange
The secret person of the heart to free.

And so I stare into this person's eyes
They’re mine I see, Quick! Where is my disguise?

Good one. On first glance the metre is right although 'grown' could be one or two beats. Saw, not seen, is gramatically right and scans better.

[Moira]

Saveman

I've not studied the sonnet "thing" so have no idea if your "feet" were in the right place, but your "Face" was awesome. Your post spoke to me & I applaud your effort.

Gleber2 is keeping us all on track here which is excellent - just hope he doesn't go into the Haiku thread & rip my first effort to shreds

Well anyway - he was speaking to himself on here earlier - and strictly speaking his correction of your grammar was "spelted rong"

[canuck]

"Sir, Sir" (Canadian kid waving her arm frantically in the air), "Teacher, sir, Saveman stole my poem, at least what I wanted to say. Now what do I do?"

[Kenn]

I've done me best,
I've tried,
But I am from
the west
An' how I've cried
For me the verse is all that counts
And may the Green Man smile.
For he and I have shared a while!

[Gleber2]

Well anyway - he was speaking to himself on here earlier - and strictly speaking his correction of your grammar was "spelted rong"

Whit dae ye mean. I've gone through the thread an canna see whit ye mean.

[Gleber2]

"Sir, Sir" (Canadian kid waving her arm frantically in the air), "Teacher, sir, Saveman stole my poem, at least what I wanted to say. Now what do I do?"

Be quiet, snivelling little girl. Now learn the poem by Milton which begins:-

When I consider how my light is spent.

[canuck]

Professor, is this what you mean?

Sonnet 19 (Sonnet XIX)
When I consider how my light is spent
John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask; But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Note
Many people refer to this poem as 'When I consider how my life is spent' however when Milton wrote this poem he was referring to his
rapidly failing eyesight

[Gleber2]

Yes. Also called 'On his Blindness'

This an example of the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. Iambic pentameter again but with a rhyme scheme Abba,abba,cdecde. Italian has so many more rhyming words than English that the rhyme scheme was changed for English sonnets. This is an example of one kind of Petrarchan sonnet.. There are other rhyme schemes that can be used for the six line part but the first, 8 line part is always abbaabba.

Check Milton;On the Late Massacre in Peidmont.

[canuck]

I noticed the change in rhyming scheme. I figured that you would explain it when we were ready to hear it. Thanks.

[canuck]

Sir, I get this one. I even know about the Babylonians, cuz they were in my thesis.

Sonnet XVIII: On the Late Massacre in Piemont



1Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
2 Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,
3 Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
4 When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones;
5Forget not: in thy book record their groans
6 Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
7 Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd
8 Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
9The vales redoubl'd to the hills, and they
10 To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
11 O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway
12The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
13 A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way
14Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

Notes
1] The Waldensians or Vaudois were Protestants who had long lived in the territories of the Roman Catholic rulers of Piedmont, and were thought of by Protestants of Milton's day as having preserved a simple scriptural faith from earlier times. Confined by treaty to certain mountain valleys, they had gradually intruded into the plain of Piedmont. Ordered to retire, they had been pursued into the mountains and there massacred by the Piedmontese soldiery in April 1655. In documents penned by Milton as Latin secretary, Cromwell strongly protested against such treachery and cruelty. Later in the year, possibly after Morland returned with his report (see below, 7-8 note), Milton wrote his sonnet, first published in Poems, 1673.

3-4] This suggests Milton's acceptance of the idea of pure, unidolatrous worship preserved by the Vaudois from primitive times (see above, introductory note).

5] thy book refers to the books to be consulted at the Judgment (Revelation 20:12).

7-8] The incident is narrated, with an accompanying plate, in the History of the Evangelical Churches in the Valleys of Piedmont (1658), by Sir Samuel Morland, Cromwell's emissary, who may well have given Milton the details on his return.

9] redoubled: re-echoed.

10-14] The reader is expected to remember Tertullian's famous phrase, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" and the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3-9) where the seed that fell on good ground brought forth as much as a hundredfold. Such was to be the blood of these martyrs sown where the Pope (triple tyrant in his mitre with its three crowns) still rules: It was to make converts who, having learned God's truth, would renounce the idolatry of Rome (figured, as Protestants believed, by the Babylon of Revelation 16:19, etc.) and thus escape the woe of God's punishment upon it.

Online text copyright © 2005, Ian Lancashire for the Department of English, University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

[Gleber2]

Note that in this second example of the Petrarchan sonnet, Milton has changed the rhyme scheme of the second, six line stanza. Now it is CD CD CD instead of cdecde.