First "Italian" Sonnet

[billy]

shakespeare sometimes deviated from an iamb i his sonnets.
we have a thread about what constitutes iambic pentameter that milo gave good answers in. i couldn't find the bugger so i google for this.

Although strictly speaking, iambic pentameter refers to five iambs in a row (as above), in practice, poets vary their iambic pentameter a great deal, while maintaining the iamb as the most common foot. There are some conventions to these variations, however. Iambic pentameter must always contain only five feet, and the second foot is almost always an iamb. The first foot, in contrast, often changes by the use of inversion, which reverses the order of the syllables in the foot. The following line from Shakespeare's Richard III begins with an inversion:

/ × × / × / × / × /
Now is the winter of our discontent

Another common departure from standard iambic pentameter is the addition of a final unstressed syllable, which creates a weak or feminine ending. One of Shakespeare's most famous lines of iambic pentameter has a weak ending:[3]

× / × / × / / × × / (×)
To be or not to be, | that is the question

This line also has an inversion of the fourth foot, following the caesura (marked with "|"). In general a caesura acts in many ways like a line-end: inversions are common after it, and the extra unstressed syllable of the feminine ending may appear before it. Shakespeare and John Milton (in his work before Paradise Lost) at times employed feminine endings before a caesura.[4]

Here is the first quatrain of a sonnet by John Donne, which demonstrates how he uses a number of metrical variations strategically. This scansion adds numbers to indicate how Donne uses a variety of stress levels to realize his beats and offbeats (1 = lightest stress, 4 = heaviest stress):

I had to google "enjamb". I didn't know that was even really an option with sonnet forms; I just assumed each line had to complete a thought. I'll definitely play around with it in some future poems. As far as putting it here...I'd have to re-write the whole damn thing. Too much work lol

I think I'm starting to see what people mean by "wordy". It's hard for me to keep strict iambic pentameter without a lot of "of, the, at, to, etc." But the more classical sonnets I read, the more I realize that almost none have perfect iambic pentameter...so maybe I haz some wiggle room.

Cliché...sigh...I'll work on it.

Ozymandias was really cool (thank God for spark notes)!

Thanks, everyone. I think this'll shape up to be my best yet.