All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
It's probably a sonnet though. Poems are a commonplace occurrence for the English student, and they come in all shapes and forms- some rhyme, some don't make sense, some use random words. Regardless of the breed you get, in unfamiliar text, the poem is a bane for many. They are the stuff of nightmares, the arrow that pierces the heel of Achilles.
It's easy to see why. Poems (at the good ones) must convey just about as much substance as any other work of literature, but there's significantly less room to do it. As such, each line must be complete and absolute perfection- and although poems are horrific to try and dissect, the good ones have a certain beauty to them- and all with a fraction of the length of the novel. (This isn't including epics like the Iliad or the Odyssey of course, and most certainly not including the Mahabharata which is 220,000(!) verses long.)
Most poems come in the form of a sonnet. Sonnet's are extremely popular and have been seen in their natural habitat since the English Renaissance and every time period since. They must be 14 lines, of usually 10 syllables a line. Yes, only 14 lines, which seems like not much more than one idea, yet sonnets are usually split into two and therefore convey two different ideas. The first half is an octave (eight lines), which lays out exposition and the general theme of the poem; then there is a sudden change in the last six lines (sestet), where some sort of contrast or reversal happens. This is the typical structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, (a classic example is Dante's La Vita Nuova), but Shakespeare took this and split the octave into two quatrains (4 lines), followed by a third quatrain and then finishing with a couplet. The couplet was usually the 'aha' moment of the poem.
Well, that's all fine and dandy. But what does this mean? If you know the general structure of the sonnet (whether it's 8-6 or 4-4-4-2), then you can fit your professor glasses better and identify the poetic ideas with more ease. For example, take Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 (the famous "shall I compare thee"). We know that Shakespeare had his 4-4-4-2 scheme, but as sonnet's are generally split in two, we can look for a change after the second quatrain (4-4). Indeed, we see that the start of the third quatrain begins with a 'But', which isn't so remarkable, unless you knew the double nature of sonnets- and so the 'but' is the vanguard for some sort of great change in the following lines- and indeed it is, for we see that the beloved transcends beyond being mere human and metamorphoses into a personification of a never-ending summer itself.
I have something to confess. I'm a filthy liar. Yeah, even worse than the woman in Shakespeare's sonnet 138. All these things I've told you are extremely flexible- for example, Mary Elizabeth Frye's 'Do not stand at my grave and weep' is a sonnet that is only 12 lines- but I urge you to give a look (despite being evil and only having 12 lines)- there is a certain beauty to the rhyme in the poem, since it's not 500 years old and thus not in weird English (thanks Shakespeare!). Oh, but the horror doesn't end there- oh no, not at all; sonnets are pretty flexible in terms of their syllables as well. Percy Shelley's Ozymandias begins with an 11 syllable line- if my maths is correct that's +1 syllable and +2318497 annoyed English students.
Regardless, the thing to take away from this is that nothing in English is ever set in stone- even though sonnets are supposed to be 14-10 syllable lines, some smart-ass writer will come along with some weird spliced fusion gun go ghost morphed thing and be all smug about disobeying the rules. Writing is all about being hipster- and thus nothing in English will ever be absolute.
So, next time you're agonizing over a poem- if it looks square, you know it's a sonnet! Hooray! Uh, so how does that help? Well it doesn't- much, but this is English; You didn't seriously think this was gonna be easy did you!?
It's easy to see why. Poems (at the good ones) must convey just about as much substance as any other work of literature, but there's significantly less room to do it. As such, each line must be complete and absolute perfection- and although poems are horrific to try and dissect, the good ones have a certain beauty to them- and all with a fraction of the length of the novel. (This isn't including epics like the Iliad or the Odyssey of course, and most certainly not including the Mahabharata which is 220,000(!) verses long.)
Most poems come in the form of a sonnet. Sonnet's are extremely popular and have been seen in their natural habitat since the English Renaissance and every time period since. They must be 14 lines, of usually 10 syllables a line. Yes, only 14 lines, which seems like not much more than one idea, yet sonnets are usually split into two and therefore convey two different ideas. The first half is an octave (eight lines), which lays out exposition and the general theme of the poem; then there is a sudden change in the last six lines (sestet), where some sort of contrast or reversal happens. This is the typical structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, (a classic example is Dante's La Vita Nuova), but Shakespeare took this and split the octave into two quatrains (4 lines), followed by a third quatrain and then finishing with a couplet. The couplet was usually the 'aha' moment of the poem.
Well, that's all fine and dandy. But what does this mean? If you know the general structure of the sonnet (whether it's 8-6 or 4-4-4-2), then you can fit your professor glasses better and identify the poetic ideas with more ease. For example, take Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 (the famous "shall I compare thee"). We know that Shakespeare had his 4-4-4-2 scheme, but as sonnet's are generally split in two, we can look for a change after the second quatrain (4-4). Indeed, we see that the start of the third quatrain begins with a 'But', which isn't so remarkable, unless you knew the double nature of sonnets- and so the 'but' is the vanguard for some sort of great change in the following lines- and indeed it is, for we see that the beloved transcends beyond being mere human and metamorphoses into a personification of a never-ending summer itself.
I have something to confess. I'm a filthy liar. Yeah, even worse than the woman in Shakespeare's sonnet 138. All these things I've told you are extremely flexible- for example, Mary Elizabeth Frye's 'Do not stand at my grave and weep' is a sonnet that is only 12 lines- but I urge you to give a look (despite being evil and only having 12 lines)- there is a certain beauty to the rhyme in the poem, since it's not 500 years old and thus not in weird English (thanks Shakespeare!). Oh, but the horror doesn't end there- oh no, not at all; sonnets are pretty flexible in terms of their syllables as well. Percy Shelley's Ozymandias begins with an 11 syllable line- if my maths is correct that's +1 syllable and +2318497 annoyed English students.
Regardless, the thing to take away from this is that nothing in English is ever set in stone- even though sonnets are supposed to be 14-10 syllable lines, some smart-ass writer will come along with some weird spliced fusion gun go ghost morphed thing and be all smug about disobeying the rules. Writing is all about being hipster- and thus nothing in English will ever be absolute.
So, next time you're agonizing over a poem- if it looks square, you know it's a sonnet! Hooray! Uh, so how does that help? Well it doesn't- much, but this is English; You didn't seriously think this was gonna be easy did you!?
Image courtesy of http://www.robweir.com/blog/images/sonnets_cloud.png