| How to write a sonnet
|
|
How to write a sonnet
Many poets write using rhyme. Many more are masters of set forms. At a time when the majority of America\'s recognized poets are writing in a plain style--blank verse and free verse--going back to learn the "forms" might seem unfashionable. However, there are some good arguments to encourage a diligent student of poetry to the study of formal poetry.
There are those who say "if you don\'t count the beats, it isn\'t poetry." After nearly a century of free verse, such a pronouncement seems a bit extreme! What can be said, however, is that the predominant history of poetry is one of regular meter and rhyme? A poet should spend some time with forms if for no other reason than to honor the past, to pay a little back to tradition!
Then, if you think about how to write a sonnet, writing poems with "no rules, " can breed a certain laxity. If there is no rhyme, no regular meter, no rule for length of the line or the poem itself, what measure does a poet apply to judge a poem a success? One thing following a form can do is send a poet back to work and rework the lines until they are the best example of the form. Thinking, working that hard could produce a better poem than the amorphous notion that anything goes in poem!
Perhaps one of the best explanations for what a poet can learn how to write a sonnet from a turn with forms came from one of America\'s foremost sonneteers, Aaron Kramer. Asked by students why anyone would want to write a sonnet, he pulled a chair into the center of the room.
Some other steps on how to write a sonnet
1. Choose your style of sonnet. The two most common kinds of sonnet are the Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet and the Shakespearean (English) sonnet. Note that the Petrarchan consists of quatrains (the octave) and a closing sestet in the pattern ABBA ABBA CDE CDE. The letters represent a rhyme (i.e., a\'s should rhyme with a\'s and b\'s should rhyme with b\'s). The Shakespearean style is two unique quatrains followed by two like and one unlike couplet: ABAB CDCD EF EF GG. However, it can also be quatrains and a couplet. In The Art of Shakespeare\'s Sonnets, Helen Vendler describes it as Q1, Q2, Q3, and C. The structure is essentially the same, though, with the couplet being the finisher.
2. Write your lines in iambic pentameter. This is where every other syllable is stressed, so that each line ends with a strong rhyme. There are also ten syllables in each line, five of which have emphasis (pentameter). The ninth line of the sonnet (Shakespearean/Italian style) usually has a turn or a change of tone) know this fully for how to write a sonnet
3. Keep writing! It will probably take you a few drafts to be happy with your sonnet, but don\'t get discouraged. Keep the trusty thesaurus by your side and you\'ll be fine.
How to write a sonnet >
|
|
