Spencerian Sonnet

Sonnet Basics:

  • 14 lines: an octave of 8 lines followed by a sestet of 6 lines
  • Iambic pentameter: ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM
  • Involves a comparison, a juxtaposition, a contrast to help examine an idea
  • Contains a volta after the octave--a 'turn around'

The Spencerian Sonnet:

  • Developed by Edmund Spencer
  • Three quatrains with interlocking rhyme scheme and a couplet
  • abab   bcbc   cdcd   ee
  • Each quatrain develops its own separate, though related, theme
  • Spencer often begins line 9 (where the volta is in Italian sonnets) with 'but' or 'yet'; however the true turn is usually in the ending couplet (EE)

Example:

Sonnet LIV

Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectator idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising diversely my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in mirth like to a Comedy;
Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I wail and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone.

Worksheet:

SPENCERIAN SONNET:

A
B
A
B

B
C
B
C

C
D
C
D

E
E

to submit your formal poetry




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