12/12/2014

Homework: Romeo and Juliet terms sheet!

12/04/2014

Study words lackadaisical and phosphorescent- which we may take quiz over tomorrow or Monday, depending on Nickel's lecture.
Work on sonnet:)

Johnson

12/03/2014

Tonight, read the two sonnets below and answer the same questions from yesterday about each sonnet; however, you do not need to write your answers out--just know how you would answer each question in discussion--this gives you more time to devote to your own sonnet writing.

Johnson


Sonnet 61
Francesco Petrarch
Blest be the day, and blest the month and year,
Season and hour and very moment blest,
The lovely land and place where first possessed
By two pure eyes I found me prisoner;
And blest the first sweet pain, the first most dear,
Which burnt my heart when Love came in as guest;
And blest the bow, the shafts which shook my breast,
And even the wounds which Love delivered there.
Blest be the words and voices which filled grove
And glen with echoes of my lady's name;
The sighs, the tears, the fierce despair of love;
And blest the sonnet-sources of my fame;
And blest that thought of thoughts which is her own,
Of her, her only, of herself alone!

"To Helene" by Pierre de Ronsard
translated by Robert Hollander

When you are very old, in evening candlelight,
Moved closer to the coals and carding out your wool
You'll sing my songs and marvel that you were
such a fool:
"O Ronsard did praise me when I was young and bright."

Then you'll have no handmaid to help you pass
the night,
Spinning while your gossip leads her into lull.
Until you say my name and her roused eyes grow
full
In wonder of your glory in what Ronsard did
write.

When I am in the earth, poor ghost without his
bones,
A sleeper in the shade of myrtle trees and stones,
Then you, beside the hearth, old crouched
and gray,
Will yearn for that's lost, repenting your
disdain.
Live it well, I pray you, today won't come again:
Gather up roses before they fall away.

12/02/2014

Tuesday's Homework:

Tuesday Night: Read Sonnet 42 by Petrarch and Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare and answer the following questions:

1. First, copy the first four lines of each poem down and mark the rhyme scheme of each one (pretty easy).
2. Next examine each poem, and write down the rhyme scheme for each entire poem. For example: ABBA, ABBA, CDC, CDC

3. Write down the theme or author/speaker's central message in each poem.

4. Write down two examples of literary devices used in each poem.

5. Explain how the literary devices in #4 contribute to the theme of each poem.

Sonnet 42 Petrarch

The spring returns, the spring wind softly blowing
Sprinkles the grass with gleam and glitter of showers,
Powdering pearl and diamond, dripping with flowers,
Dropping wet flowers, dancing the winters going;
The swallow twitters, the groves of midnight are glowing
With nightingale music and madness; the sweet fierce powers
Of love flame up through the earth; the seed-soul towers
And trembles; nature is filled to overflowing…
The spring returns, but there is no returning
Of spring for me. O heart with anguish burning!
She that unlocked all April in a breath
Returns not…And these meadows, blossoms, birds
These lovely gentle girls—words, empty words
As bitter as the black estates of death! 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73) William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616 That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.