Lecture Notes, Tuesday, June 3: Elizabethan Sonnet and Lyric

3 June 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth

The Elizabethan Sonnet and Lyric

Lecture Outline
*how did poetry circulate?
*lyric as song
*sonnet (“little song”) form (Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean)
*how to read a sonnet (mechanics of reading)
*how to read a sonnet well
*find the sonnet themes
*workshop: essay writing

How did poetry circulate?
*print and manuscript

Lyric as Song
*major themes: love, desire, absence, usually = relationship of the narrator to a woman / women

Come again, sweet love
Come again, sweet love doth now invite,
thy graces that refrain to do me due delight.
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die
with thee again in sweetest sympathy
Come again, that I may cease to mourn
through thy unkind disdain for now left and forlorn.
I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die,
in deadly pain and endless misery
Gentle love, draw forth thy wounding dart:
Thou canst not pierce her heart;
For I that do approve. By sighs
and tears more hot than are thy shafts,
did tempt while she for scanty tryumphs laughs


Beauty Is But A Painted Hell
Beauty is but a painted hell;
Aye me, Aye me,
Shee wounds them that admire it,
Shee kils them that desire it.
Give her pride but fuell,
No fire is more cruell.
Pittie from ev'ry heart is fled:
Aye me, aye me,
Since false desire could borrow
Teares of dissembled sorrow,
Constant vows turn truthlesse,
Love cruele, Beauty ruthlesse.
Sorrow can laugh, and Fury sing:
Aye me, aye me,
My raving griefes discover
I liv'd too true a lover:
The first step to madnesse
Is the excesse of sadnesse.

I care not for these ladies
I care not for these ladies
That must be woo'd and pray'd
Give me sweet Amaryllis
The wanton country maid,
Nature Art disdaineth,
Her beauty is her own:

Chorus:
And when we court and kiss
She cries 'Forsooth, let go!'
But when we come where comfort is
She never will say no.

If I love Amaryllis
She brings me fruit and flowers
But if we love these ladies
We must bring golden showers
Give them gold that sell love
Give me the nut-brown lass

Chorus

These ladies must have pillows
And beds by strangers wrought
Give me a bow'r of willows
Of moss and leaves unbought,
And fresh Amaryllis
On milk and honey fed

Chorus




Sonnet (“little song”) form (Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean)
*Petrarchan: octave (8) + sestet (6)
*English: 3 quatrains (groups of 4 lines) + couplet

*So what?
*Knowing which form you’re dealing with will help you know what expect from the content
e.g.:
*pg 123, Petrarch’s Sonnet 134 in the Italian
*pg. 123 Wyatt’s version of 134 – close to the Petrarchan form
*pg 108 Wyatt’s sonnet 11 Whoso list to hunt
*pg. 126, Samuel Daniel’s Sonnet 6 from Delia
*pg 123, Surrey’s translation of Petrarch’s sonnet 140 – a weird mix of the two forms?

How to read a sonnet (mechanics of reading)
*identify what kind of sonnet you’re dealing with
*Look for repetition and expansion of the same themes from section to section
*Or track changes / introduction of new elements from section to section
*Questions to ask: ~what is the overall message of the sonnet?
~what is the overall impact of the sonnet?
(not necessarily the same as message)
e.g.:
*pg. 127, Daniel’s sonnet 33 (When men shall find thy flower)
*pg. 127, Drayton’s sonnet 61 from Idea (Since there’s no help)

How to read a sonnet well
*pg. 128-129 Barnfield, sonnet 14 from Cynthia

Find the sonnet themes
*retracing the sonnets we’ve gone over today (maybe also Surrey’s Love the Doth Reign, 118)