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

■ 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 meter

■ 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

Poetic Strategies

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.

Understanding poetic meter

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.

Common rhythms

■ 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.

Scanning lines of poetry

~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ■ 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)

To scan a poem, we mark each stressed and each

unstressed syllable. Use ~ {tilde} for unstressed and /

{slash} for stressed.

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

Iambs and other weird patterns

■ 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!”

Rhythm and meaning

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)

Inversion

■ 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.

Finally, briefly: rhyme scheme