Shakespearean Sonnet Creation

Due May 11, 2021 by 10am
Points 100
Submitting a file upload
Available until May 11, 2021 at 10am

This assignment was locked May 11, 2021 at 10am.

There’s more to a sonnet than just the structure of it. A sonnet is also an argument — it builds up a certain way. And how it builds up is related to its metaphors and how it moves from one metaphor to the next. In a Shakespearean sonnet, the argument builds up like this:

First quatrain: An exposition of the main theme and main metaphor.
Second quatrain: Theme and metaphor extended or complicated; often, some imaginative example is given.
Third quatrain: The Volta (a twist,turn, shift, or conflict), often introduced by a “but” (very often leading off the ninth line).
Couplet: Summarizes and leaves the reader with a new, concluding image.

The argument of Sonnet 18 goes like this:

First quatrain: Shakespeare establishes the theme of comparing “thou” (or “you”) to a summer’s day, and why to do so is a bad idea. The metaphor is made by comparing his beloved to summer itself.
Second quatrain: Shakespeare extends the theme, explaining why even the sun, supposed to be so great, gets obscured sometimes, and why everything that’s beautiful decays from beauty sooner or later. He has shifted the metaphor: In the first quatrain, it was “summer” in general, and now he’s comparing the sun and “every fair,” every beautiful thing, to his beloved.
Third quatrain: Here the argument takes a big left turn with the familiar “But.” Shakespeare says that the main reason he won’t compare his beloved to summer is that summer dies — but she won’t. He refers to the first two quatrains — her “eternal summer” won’t fade, and she won’t “lose possession” of the “fair” (the beauty) she possesses. So, he keeps the metaphors going, but in a different direction.

And for good measure, he throws in a negative version of all the sunshine in this poem — the “shade” of death, which, evidently, his beloved won’t have to worry about.
- Couplet: How is his beloved going to escape death? In Shakespeare’s poetry, which will keep her alive as long as people breathe or see. This bold statement gives closure to the whole argument — it’s a surprise.