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Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of his mistress. Synopsis Sonnet 130 satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was a convention of literature and art in general during the Elizabethan era. Influences originating with the poetry of ancient Greece and Rome had established a tradition of this, which continued in Europe's customs of courtly love and in courtly poetry, and the work of poets such as Petrarch. It was customary to praise the beauty of the object of one's affections with comparisons to beautiful things found in nature and heaven, such as stars in the night sky, the golden light of the rising sun, or red roses. The images conjured by Shakespeare were common ones that would have been well-recognized by a reader or listener of this sonnet. Shakespeare satirizes the hyperbole of the allusions used by conventional poets, which even by the Elizabethan era, had become cliché, predict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iambic Pentameter
Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". "Iambic" refers to the type of foot used, here the iamb, which in English indicates an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in ''a-bove''). "Pentameter" indicates a line of five "feet". Iambic pentameter is the most common meter in English poetry. It was first introduced into English by Chaucer in 14th century on the basis of French and Italian models. It is used in several major English poetic forms, including blank verse, the heroic couplet, and some of the traditionally rhymed stanza forms. William Shakespeare famously used iambic pentameter in his plays and sonnets, John Milton in his ''Paradise Lost'', and William Wordsworth in ''The Prelude''. As lines in iambic pentameter usually contain ten syllables, it is consider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Vendler
Helen Hennessy Vendler (born April 30, 1933) is an American literary critic and is Porter University Professor Emerita at Harvard University. Life and career Helen Hennessy Vendler was born on April 30, 1933, in Boston, Massachusetts, to George Hennessy and Helen Hennessy. She was the second of three children. Her parents encouraged her to read poems as a child. Vendler's father taught Spanish, French, and italian at a high school, while her mother had taught in a primary school before marriage. Vendler attended Emmanuel College over the Boston Girls' Latin School and Radcliffe College because her parents would not let her enroll in "secular education". She received an A. B. from Emmanuel. Vendler was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, attending the Université catholique de Louvain from 1954 to 1955, for mathematics. But while traveling to the university, she decided that she would rather study English than math and the Fulbright commission allowed her to switch her focus to li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Booth (academic)
Stephen Booth (April 20, 1933 – November 22, 2020) was a professor of English literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a leading Shakespearean scholar. Life Booth studied at Harvard University (A.B., Ph.D.) and the University of Cambridge (B.A., M.A.) where he was a Marshall Scholar. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1968 and a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1970-71. In 1991, Georgetown University gave him an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters. He received the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1995. Booth first attracted attention with his controversial 1969 essays ''On the Value of Hamlet'' and ''An Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets.'' He pointed out the "mental gymnastics" of close reading. He notes that "all of us were brought up on the idea that what poets say is sublime – takes us beyond reason; my commentary tries to describe the physics by which we get there." Frank Kermode praised ''On the Value of Hamlet' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petrarchan
The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is a sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets.Spiller, Michael R. G. The Development of the Sonnet: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1992. 5 Dec. 2015. Because of the structure of Italian, the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet is more easily fulfilled in that language than in English. The original Italian sonnet form consists of a total of fourteen hendecasyllabic lines (in English sonnets, iambic pentameter is used) in two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet. Form The rhyme scheme for the octave is typically ABBAABBA. The sestet is more flexible. Petrarch typically used CDECDE or CDCDCD for the sestet. Some other possibilities for the sestet include CDDCDD, CDDECE, or CDDCCD (as in Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room," a sonnet about sonnets). This form was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or exposing the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm —"in satire, irony is militant", according to literary critic Northrop Frye— but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to question. Satire is found in many a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnabe Barnes
Barnabe Barnes (c. 1571 – 1609) was an English poet. He is known for his Petrarchan love sonnets and for his combative personality, involving feuds with other writers and culminating in an alleged attempted murder. Early life The third son of Dr Richard Barnes, bishop of Durham, he was baptised in York at the church of St Michael le Belfry on 6 March 1571. In 1586 he was entered at Brasenose College, Oxford, but did not take his degree. His father died in 1587 leaving two-thirds of his estate to be divided among his six children, and Barnes appears to have been able to live on income from this bequest.John D. Cox, "Barnes, Barnabe (bap. 1571, d. 1609)," ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 In 1591 he went to France with the earl of Essex, who was then serving against the prince of Parma. On his return he published ''Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Sonnettes, Madrigals, Elegies and Odes'' (ent. on Stationers' Register 1593), dedicated to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. He died on 23 December 1631 in London. Early life Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham, Nottinghamshire. 19th- and 20th-century scholars, on the basis of scattered allusions in his poems and dedications, suggested that Drayton might have studied at the University of Oxford, and been intimate with the Polesworth branch of the Goodere family. More recent work has cast doubt on those speculations. Literary career 1590–1602 In 1590, he produced his first book, ''The Harmony of the Church'', a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated to Lady Devereux. It is notable for a version of the '' Song of Solomon'', executed with considerable richness of expression. However, with the exception of forty copies, seized by the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Watson (poet)
Thomas Watson (1555–1592) was an English poet and translator, and the pioneer of the English madrigal. His lyrics aside, he wrote largely in Latin, also being the first to translate Sophocles's ''Antigone'' from Greek. His incorporation of Italianate forms into English lyric verse influenced a generation of English writers, including Shakespeare, who was referred to in 1595 by William Covell as "Watson's heyre" (heir). He wrote both English and Latin compositions, and was particularly admired for the Latin. His unusual 18-line sonnets were influential, although the form was not generally taken up. Early life Thomas Watson was born in mid-1555, probably in the parish of St Olave, Hart Street, London, to a prosperous London couple, William Watson and Anne Lee. His father's death in November 1559 was followed by his mother's in 1561, and Watson and his older brother went to live with their maternal uncle in Oxfordshire. From 1567, Watson attended Winchester College in Westminste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scansion
Scansion ( , rhymes with ''mansion''; verb: ''to scan''), or a system of scansion, is the method or practice of determining and (usually) graphically representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse. In classical poetry, these patterns are quantitative based on the different ''lengths'' of each syllable. In English poetry, they are based on the different levels of ''stress'' placed on each syllable. In both cases, the meter often has a regular foot. Over the years, many systems have been established to mark the scansion of a poem. Overview Systems of scansion, and the assumptions (often tacit or even subconscious) that underlie them, are so numerous and contradictory that it is often difficult to tell whether differences in scansion indicate opposed metrical theories, conflicting understandings of a line's linguistic character, divergent practical goals, or whether they merely constitute a trivial argument over who has the "better ear" for verse. There is even a debate am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metre (poetry)
In poetry, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both known as prosody. (Within linguistics, " prosody" is used in a more general sense that includes not only poetic metre but also the rhythmic aspects of prose, whether formal or informal, that vary from language to language, and sometimes between poetic traditions.) Characteristics An assortment of features can be identified when classifying poetry and its metre. Qualitative versus quantitative metre The metre of most poetry of the Western world and elsewhere is based on patterns of syllables of particular types. The familiar type of metre in English-language poetry is called qualitative metre, with stressed syllables comin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhyme Scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rhyming scheme, from "To Anthea, who may Command him Anything", by Robert Herrick: Function in writing These rhyme patterns have various effects, and can be used to: * Control flow: If every line has the same rhyme (AAAA), the stanza will read as having a very quick flow, whereas a rhyme scheme like ABCABC can be felt to unfold more slowly. * Structure a poems message and thought patterns: For example, a simple couplet with a rhyme scheme of AABB lends itself to simpler direct ideas, because the resolution comes in the very next line. Essentially these couplets can be thought of as self-contained statements. This idea of rhyme schemes reflecting thought processes is often discussed particularly regarding sonnets. * Determine whether ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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