08-19-2015, 10:12 AM
Hey I'm new to this site! Well one thing I can comment on about sonnets is actually one of the first real pieces of advice that I've ever received when I was starting out poetry. The sonnet is written in an iambic pentameter, or y'know in plain English it's written with ten syllables in five groups of unstressed stressed. The unstressed stressed is very important because the sonnet depends on it to flow very smoothly. What you usually want to go for when you're writing one is the 'perfect rhythm'; you want to put words with natural stresses where they should be and unstress where they should be.
One of the best examples of this being used that I can think of is 'When I heard the learn'd Astronomer' by Walt Whitman. The poem uses free form until right at the end he clinches this amazing perfect rhythm iambic pentameter.
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars
ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum
To show you that the stars are perfect. Well in his case he uses it to suddenly make the poem flow perfectly and you feel this content. But with sonnets you do it the other way round. You always keep the flow going then only break it when you really want to draw attention to something.
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare. The trip is in the 'As the death-bed' the rest of the poem still has the ba-dum ba-dum thing going on.
I've never written in such form before
Here you have stress and unstress mixed about everywhere! And that's the reason your poem doesn't really read as 'smoothly' as sonnets you might have read in class. Your second line
and know not whether grammar to invert.
actually HAS perfect rhythm. So it'll actually read a lot better. Have a go at it. Sonnets sound a lot more polished when you get this down and it helps wow others ;D
Well I hope I've helped!
One of the best examples of this being used that I can think of is 'When I heard the learn'd Astronomer' by Walt Whitman. The poem uses free form until right at the end he clinches this amazing perfect rhythm iambic pentameter.
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars
ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum
To show you that the stars are perfect. Well in his case he uses it to suddenly make the poem flow perfectly and you feel this content. But with sonnets you do it the other way round. You always keep the flow going then only break it when you really want to draw attention to something.
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare. The trip is in the 'As the death-bed' the rest of the poem still has the ba-dum ba-dum thing going on.
I've never written in such form before
Here you have stress and unstress mixed about everywhere! And that's the reason your poem doesn't really read as 'smoothly' as sonnets you might have read in class. Your second line
and know not whether grammar to invert.
actually HAS perfect rhythm. So it'll actually read a lot better. Have a go at it. Sonnets sound a lot more polished when you get this down and it helps wow others ;D
Well I hope I've helped!