THE SONNET

THE SONNET

The term sonnet derives from the Italian sonetto, a little sound or song. The first example we have are by Giacomo da Lentini but the sonnet established its importance as a poetic form with Petrarch's Canzoniere. The poets who came after him took his sonnets as a model. The Petrarch's sonnet consists of two quatrains and two tercets .In the Renaissance, English poets express their chaste adoration of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I. The English poets of sonnets were Wyatt, Surray, Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare. The Elizabethan sonnet is given by three quatrains and a couplet. The usual rhyme was ABAB-CDCD-EFEF-GG but this structure was more flexible. In the quatrains there is a problem and in the couplet there is the solution of the problem. With William Shakespeare the Elizabethan sonnet had the best results, he wrote 154 and are dedicated to Mr.W.H., who has identified with two friends and patrons of Shakespeare. The themes are death, love, poetic immortality, old age and friendship.

SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER'S DAY

It's one of the most well known of Shakespeare's sonnets. The poet says that he will make the beauty of his beloved immortal by celebrating it in his poem. The sonnet can be divided into three quatrains and a final couplet. In the first quatrain the poet states that the youth is more beautiful than a summer's day, because he livelier and more steadfast. In the second quatrain the poet highlights the defect of the summer, which is too inconstant often too hot and cloudy. The sun is given human qualities, as for example eyes, and the colour of human complexion. In the third quatrains the poet states that the youth's beauty will outlive death and summer through the poem. The image of the summer is revoked in this quatrains, but is now portrayed as being eternal. There is a personification also in this quatrain, since human qualities are given to death, who has the power of bragging. The final couplet restates the idea that the poem will give eternity to the youth. The sonnet has a regular rhyme scheme. There are many examples of alliteration and repetition.

SONNET 18

In the sonnet the poet begins by ing the young man to a sunny day, because the man's youth is similar to a nature in full became. But summer in England is often short and the weather in changeable with strong winds. This  instability can not be ing with the harmony of young's man beauty, but at the some time it's true that the youth will not last in eternity, for this reason it is not nature, but only in art that Shakespeare can make the idea of young man immortal, and it's important to note that this aspect confirms the presence of platonic love.