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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
The sonnet seems to be the epitome of the lover's message. It
is a type of poetic form that was extremely popular in Elizabethan and
Victorian England. The sonnet form was invented by Giacomo da Lentino
in the mid-13th century. This 5 page paper compares and contrasts
Shakespeare's Sonnet #18, Shall I compare thee to a summer's day; Edmund
Spencer's Sonnet # 75, One day I wrote her name upon the strand; and
John Donne's Sonnet #10, Death be not proud, though some have called
thee. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_KTsonnet.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
invented by Giacomo da Lentino in the mid-13th century. He adapted a folk song known as the strambotto that rhymed abababab. This became the first octave of the
sonnet form. Another stanza pattern gave him the sestet. Finally a contemporary named Guittone dArezzo adapted the da Lentino sonnet into the current Petrarchan one (Bugeia 15).
All sonnets have fourteen lines. Most utilize the iambic pentameter, or five pairs of light and hard stresses, of Shakespearean fame. There is also a turn or a
change in the meaning of the message. Often, this turn is in concern with a change in the rhyme pattern. As the sonnets of Shakespeare and Spenser show,
the final couplet usually crystallizes what has been suggested in the first twelve lines (Bugeia 15). Shakespeares Sonnet #18, Shall I compare thee to a summers day? is
done in a typical Shakespearean style. He uses the iambic pentameter and begins by posing a question, much as Elizabeth Barrett Browning did some years later. This particular
sonnet, however, avoids the question directly. Rather than answering the question, the poet proceeds to give reasons why the comparison would not work. The theme is romantic
love as the narrator addresses his (?) beloved and asks if he should compare her to a summers day but knows that he cannot because there are many things that
are unpleasant about a day that cannot be ascribed to her. The tone is one of adoration and fear that the love may end. The sonnet quickly
turns from a lighthearted comparison to a emphatic statement that this one thing (death and, or, ending) the two (his love and the day) will never have in common.
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