POETRY: THE BLAZON, THE ENGLISH SONNET, AND CONTEMPORARY SONG LYRICS
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
by William Shakespeare
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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Source: Shakespeare, William. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.
d. Web. 17 May 2011.
Identify lines that include imagery and discuss the effect of imagery on the poem’s meaning.
Several lines of the poem include imagery. My favorite is “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” because I can really see that image. This image emphasizes how much lovelier this person is than anything beautiful in nature. The poet finds fault with every lovely thing as a comparison. Summer is lovely, but the sun is sometimes too hot and the wind too rough.
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“ This writer never make an mistake for me always deliver long before due date. Am telling you man this writer is absolutely the best. ”
His love is more beautiful and gentle. He makes her beauty eternal in his poem.
“Thou are not lovelier than lilacs”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,—I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,—with moonlight so.
Like him who day by day unto his draught
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink—and live—what has destroyed some men.
draught – n. Drink.
inured – v. To become accustomed to; hardened.
quaffed – v. To drink with enjoyment.
Source: Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Sonnets.org. Sonnet Central, 20 Mar. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Compare Millay’s poem to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 in terms of time period, imagery, and diction.
While the poems were written centuries apart, they have many similarities. Both poems are sonnets that use comparisons but in an unusual way. Each tells what the love is not lovelier than. Both poems use imagery involving nature, and both use vivid word choice. While Millay does state her love is not more beautiful than “small white poppies,” she “bend[s] before” him in awe. Shakespeare makes a point of stating that his love is an ordinary woman, not a goddess. Both poets use careful diction and poetic language. Shakespeare uses “hath,” and inverts sentences. Millay uses “thy” and “thou” along with other archaic words. Her line, “lovelier than lilacs” is an example of her choosing words for their sound as much as their meaning. The lines “day by day unto his draught/of delicate poison adds him one drop more” also illustrates her concern for the sound of the poem. Love and lovers seem little changed over the centuries!
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth . . .
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child’s writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow’s nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
Source: Breton, Andre. “Freedom of Love.” 99 Poems in Translation. Ed. Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury, and Geoffrey Godbert. New York: Grove Press, 1994. Google Books. Web. 13 May 2011.
Compare Breton’s portrayal of his wife in this poem to how Spenser and Shakespeare portray their loves in their sonnets. What cultural and generational differences do you notice?
Breton’s poem includes the expected comparisons to the beauty of his wife’s hair and mouth, but he goes beyond praising mere physical beauty to create a comparison about her thoughts. Breton’s poem reveals a modern outlook with his inclusion of less expected parts: her eyelashes, brows, and waist. Both Shakespeare and Spenser stick to the usual body parts: hair, eyes, cheeks, and breast. All express their love, but Shakespeare portrays his loved one as a “real” woman, not a perfect woman. Breton’s wife seems more real than Spenser’s, who is idealized the most with rich comparisons like gold, rubies, and pearls. Breton’s poem also uses more modern and unexpected comparisons: “the waist of an otter,” “teeth like the tracks of white mice on the white earth,” “shoulders of champagne.” His images are more vivid because they are less familiar.
Meter is the regular pattern of rhythm in a poem. An iambic foot is two syllables: the first unstressed, the second stressed. An example is “the sun.”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
by William Shakespeare
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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Source: Shakespeare, William. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 17 May 2011.
Identify the type of poem, its meter, and its rhyme scheme.
The poem is a sonnet. It has 14 lines and follows the rhyme scheme of an English sonnet: ABABCDCDEFEFGG. It can also be identified as a kind of reverse blazon because the poet is listing things to compare his love to but decides that she is far lovelier than anything he can think of. The poem is written in iambic pentameter.
Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings by H. Beard
“Another One Rides the Bus” by Weird Al Yankovic
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams
The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert
deliberate word choice used to create a particular effect
the use of comparisons of a loved one to things in nature
the regular pattern of rhythm in a poem
a particular pattern of rhyme used in sonnets
the use of comparisons of a loved one to beautiful things in nature
the use of a device or style that has become an expected element of the form
the use of iambic pentameter in tragedies and comedies
the gathering of writers to discuss their works and techniques
praise of a loved one’s beauty
the 14-line structure
comparison of a loved one to nature
the use of hyperbole
“Thou are not lovelier than lilacs”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,—I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,—with moonlight so.
Like him who day by day unto his draught
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink—and live—what has destroyed some men.
draught – n. Drink.
inured – v. To become accustomed to; hardened.
quaffed – v. To drink with enjoyment.
Source: Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Sonnets.org. Sonnet Central, 20 Mar. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Compare Millay’s poem to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 in terms of rhyme, rhythm, and structure.
Both poems are sonnets, but their rhyme schemes differ. His is an English sonnet, (ABABCDCDEFEFGG), while hers is an Italian sonnet (ABBAABBACDECDE). Both use iambic pentameter.
copying another work and claiming it as your own; illegal in most places
a work intended to imitate and make fun of another; often used in satire
using vivid language and sensory details to create images
a kind of poem that praises physical beauty by comparing it to lovely things
a poem written in praise of one’s love
a 14-line poem that follows a particular rhyme scheme
a poem that compares a love to things in nature
a poem or story written to imitate and make fun of something
lines of poetry with a rhyme scheme of ABABABABAB
poetry that uses precise imagery and an irregular meter
poetry written in praise of a love’s beauty compared to nature
lines of poetry with a pattern of 10 unaccented and accented syllables
blazon
sonnet
iambic
quatrain
Meter is an unaccented, accented pattern or rhythm.
Meter is a poetic line of 10 syllables without accents.
Meter is the regular pattern of rhythm in a poem.
Meter is the convention of a quatrain.
The reader recognizes it and enjoys the reference.
Hyperbole is only useful in satire and parody, not poetry.
It gives the poem a regular pattern of rhythm.
It allows the poet to emphasize something.
the use of drawn or photographic images to illustrate a work
the use of vivid language that creates sensory images
the writer’s vivid imagination and creativity
the reader’s ability to use imagination while reading
“The rest be works of nature’s wonderment,/But this the work of heart’s astonishment.”
“You’re perfect for me me me me me”
“Yeah, I know, I know, when I compliment her she won’t believe me/And it’s so, it’s so, sad to think that she don’t see what I see”
“Fair is my love, when her fair golden hairs/With the loose wind ye waving chance to mark”
“Love is not blind”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love is not blind. I see with single eye
Your ugliness and other women’s grace.
I know the imperfection of your face,
The eyes too wide apart, the brow too high
For beauty. Learned from earliest youth am I
In loveliness, and cannot so erase
Its letters from my mind, that I may trace
You faultless, I must love until I die.
More subtle is the sovereignty of love:
So am I caught that when I say, “Not fair,”
‘Tis but as if I said, “Not here—not there
Not risen—not writing letters.” Well I know
What is this beauty men are babbling of;
I wonder only why they prize it so.
Source: Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “Love is not blind.” Sonnets.org. Sonnet Central, n.d. Web. 17 May 2011.
Which rhyme scheme does this poem use?
ABABCDCDEFEFGG
IAIAIAIAORROFO
ABBAABBACDDECE
It doesn’t follow a set pattern.
“Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet”
“thy speech is comely”
“She’s so beautiful and I tell her every day”
“You’re perfect for me, me, me, me, me”
POETRY: THE BLAZON, THE ENGLISH SONNET, AND CONTEMPORARY SONG LYRICS. (2018, Jan 18). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/paper-on-poetry-the-blazon-the-english-sonnet-and-contemporary-song-lyrics/
