William Shakespeare I can use concrete strategies for identifying and analyzing poetic structure I can participate effectively in a range of collaborative conversations
Shakespeare s Sonnets - Sonnet 73 Universal themes of love, aging, and death Classic in form and structure 14 lines Strict rhyme scheme Iambic Pentameter Introductory Video
First Read - Sonnet 73 As you read, please annotate for the following: Using context, make predictions about definitions of bolded vocabulary What imagery exists in each stanza of the sonnet? How does this suggest the theme of the poem? What is the speaker concerned about? How does the first metaphor in the first four lines of the poem connect to the speaker s life? Do you think the speaker is merely aging, or actively dying? How can you tell? What does the speaker want from his lover?
Sync TV - Sonnet 73 Listen for the way students use academic vocabulary during their discussion The students have different interpretations of the poem - how do they come to consensus? *** Don t forget - watch this with a director s and actor s eye as well!
Sync TV Practice Discussion Please take a few minutes to engage in a collaborative conversation to discuss the questions. Don t forget to use academic vocabulary! To what things does the speaker compare himself? What do each of these comparisons have in common? What is Shakespeare saying about mortality and love? How do death and love relate? How does the speaker in the poem feel about his youth?
SKILL - POETIC STRUCTURE Definition Video Examples of Different structures Haiku Ghazal Elegy Found Poem Ode How were you affected by the structure of the poem vs. the subject of the poem? Model Listen Discuss- What problem or question does the beginning of the sonnet introduce? What kind of structure do the poem s rhythms and rhymes follow? How does the rhythm of the poem work well with its subject? How do changes in rhythm give insight into the experience of aging?
Sonnet 73 - Close Read As a team, you will discuss the 5 focus questions. Each member of the team will select 1-2 questions to re-read and annotate for. You will then collaboratively discuss the 5 questions - remember, be a leader for your team!! Following the discussion of Sonnet 73, you will find another Shakespearean Sonnet and complete a close read. Please prepare 1-2 Google Slides so that you can share your close read with the class. *5 points - Statement of Purpose (analysis, close reading strategies) *5 points - Elaboration of Evidence
Rhythm in Language
Poetic meter Poetry is a lyrical art form. For its impact, it depends on both rhythm as well as language. Meter is the rhythm of a poem. There are specific ways to analyze meter so that we can label a poem s rhythmic pattern. Why? Being able to describe the pattern of a poem s meter can help us analyze its meaning. What for? As you analyze Sonnet 73, you will apply your understanding of meter. How? This lesson will answer that question!
Poetic Strategies Shift words around (inversion) to create the stress you need More on this! Use the apostrophe to remove syllables: Stand to it -> Stand to t Never -> n er It is -> tis Use accents to change or add syllabication/emphasis: Blessed -> blessèd Damned -> damnèd
Understanding poetic meter Shakespearean drama is all about using iambic pentameter. Iambic: the dominant pattern or foot of syllable stress is ~ / {unstressed stressed} Pentameter: the dominant meter of the poem is 5 stresses to a line or 10 syllables Without scripts, this was a lyrical, or song-like, way for actors to memorize lines more easily.
Common rhythms The iamb is surprisingly common in the English language; we often speak in iambic pentameter without realizing it: ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / I d like to have you meet a friend of mine. ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / Did you take out the garbage yesterday? ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / Tis simple! Try one with your table mates.
Scanning lines of poetry We scan lines to determine the basic rhythm and to consider the relevance of that rhythm to the meaning of the context. Poetry has much in common with music, and both have mathematical foundations. When we scan a poem, much like music, we begin by voicing the lines aloud, paying careful attention to the syllables which seem to be stressed, pronouncing these with {slightly} more emphasis.
To scan a poem, we mark each stressed and each unstressed syllable. Use ~ {tilde} for unstressed and / {slash} for stressed. ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / When I do count the clock that tells the time. (Sonnet 12) ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / When in disgrace with fortune and men s eyes ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / I all alone beweep my outcast state. (Sonnet 29) ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / Shall I compare thee to a summer s day? ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (Sonnet 18)
Iambs and other weird patterns Along with the iamb, there are other possible patterns: Pattern Noun Adjective ~ / iamb iambic ~ ~ / anapest anapestic / ~ trochee trochaic / ~ ~ dactyl dactylic / / spondee spondaic We describe a poetic line, then, by its type and number of poetic feet. For example: 5 iambs = iambic pentameter 4 trochees = trochaic tetrameter
Rhythm and meaning While the iamb {~ /} easily represents a natural rhythm and emphasis often used in English, the trochee {/ ~} gives a feeling of pressing forward, of urgency or insistence: / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ Charging down the King s path steady On to meet our death charge ready The anapest is used for a galloping kind of rhythm {~~/ ~~/} or for a light, almost comic feeling: ~ / ~ ~ / ~ ~ / There once was a fellow at Drew Who spotted a mouse in his stew, Told the waiter about it, who said Well don t shout it Or the rest will be wanting one, too!
Inversion Sometimes the words needed do not fit neatly into the form; in this case, play with their order for effect. Note Macbeth s fleeting reflection: But in these cases We still have judgment here, that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague th inventor. (1.7.7-10) or Lady Macbeth s maniacal plan: When in swinish sleep Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon Th unguarded Duncan? (1.7.77-80)
Finally, briefly: rhyme scheme Look at the final two lines at the end of {nearly} every scene: What do you notice? Bear hence this body and attend our will. Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill. (3.1.192-194) This is called a rhyming couplet. While most of Romeo and Juliet is written in unrhymed, or blank, verse, he signaled to the audience that action was wrapping up by inserting a final rhyming pair of lines.