Explain what you have discovered about the sonnet form from your reading of three of the following poems: 'After Death', 'Youth Gone, Beauty Gone', 'Two Pursuits', 'Endurance' and 'Remember'- Do you think the content of these poems is well suited to the s

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Kate Feld

UVL

Explain what you have discovered about the sonnet form from your reading of three of the following poems: ‘After Death’, ‘Youth Gone, Beauty Gone’, ‘Two Pursuits’, ‘Endurance’ and ‘Remember’- Do you think the content of these poems is well suited to the sonnet from?

The three poems I have chosen are ‘After Death’, ‘Youth Gone, Beauty Gone’ and ‘Remember’. I have chosen ‘After Death’ and ‘Remember’ because they give very different, unstereotypical ideas about death, and ‘Youth Gone, Beauty Gone’ ties in with these because it is referring to growing old. Reading and examining these poems I have discovered that a sonnet has a very definite structure, which is emphasised by a particular rhyme scheme. Sonnets also have a distinctive rhythm. All three sonnets have the same style of language and imagery, and use of a personal voice.

There is a very set structure to a sonnet; each sonnet is fourteen lines long, and has only one stanza. These sonnets are written in the Petrachan sonnet from, which means that within the one one stanza, the sonnet is divided into two sections: the first eight lines are called an octave, the final six lines are called a sestet. These divisions can be clearly shown by the rhyme scheme. In the octave, the rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA, and then in the sestet, two lines of CD and E are used in any variation, except that there cannot be a rhyming couplet to finish the sonnet. For example, the rhyme scheme of ‘After Death’ is ABBA ABBA, CDEEDC and in ‘Remember’, the rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA, CDDECE.

By using As and Bs in the first section and Cs, Ds and Es in the second, the progression to the second section is very clear, which is also shown in the content. Though there is generally only one idea that is being explored in a sonnet, there is a definite distinction between the two sections of the sonnet by the development of the idea. In the first section, the idea is introduced to us and in the second section, the idea is elaborated on and explored more fully. The change is complimented by the rhyme scheme, for example, in ‘Remember’:

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“Remember me when I am gone away   -line 1

…Remember me when no more day by day   -line 5

…Only remember me…  -line 7

…Yet if you should forget for a while  -line 9

…do not grieve   -line 10

…Better by far you should forget and smile  -line 13

…Than that you should remember and be sad.”  -line 14

The person is asking her loved one to remember her in the octave, presumably when she is dead, but then in the sestet, this is developed. She only wants to be remembered if the memory ...

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