Sonnets

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Sonnets

What do you know about sonnets?

The sonnet is

1. English because Spencer is Shakespeare's contemporary
2. English, because the rhyme scheme is ABABCDCDEFEFGG
3. Italian because the volta is after line 8
4. Italian, because it consists of 3 quatrains

What is the theme of Spencer's sonnet?

00:10-03:30

1) A woman's face with nature's own hand painted

2) Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion,

3) A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

4) With shifting change, as is false women's fashion.

5) An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

6) Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,

7) A man in hue all hues in his controlling,

8) Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazes.

9) And for a woman wert thou first created,

10) Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

11) And by addition me of thee defeated,

12) By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

13) But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,

14) Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure

1. indicate the rhyme scheme

2. indicate the volta and explain why it is a volta

3. scan the metre of line 7

What is the theme of Wordsworth's sonnet?

What is the theme of Rosetti's sonnet?

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My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.  

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare 

As any she belied with false compare. 

What is the theme of sonnet 130?