Poetic Forms and Sonnet Structure

Vocabulary and key concepts regarding poetic forms, metrical units, and the structure of English sonnets as discussed in the lecture notes.

Meter

A metrical pattern used in poetry.

Foot

A metrical unit, such as an iambic foot or Iambus.

Iambic pentameter

The specific meter used in English or Shakespearean sonnets.

English/Shakespearean sonnet structure

A poem consisting of $14$ lines, organized into $3$ quatrains and a couplet.

English/Shakespearean sonnet rhyme scheme

The pattern identified in the transcript as abad cdcd efef gg.

Couplet

A two-line unit that concludes a Shakespearean sonnet.

Stanza

A grouped set of lines within a poem.

Helen Vendler

Author of The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, published by Harvard UP in $1997$.

"Actors" in lyric (Vendler)

According to Helen Vendler, these are words, not "dramatic persons".

Drama of any lyric (Vendler)

Constituted by the successive entrances of new sets of words or new stylistic arrangements (grammatic, syntactical, phonetic) which conflict with previous arrangements.

Thomas Watson

Author of Hekatompathia, published in $1581$, which includes the line "Harke you that list to heare what sainte I serve".

Hekatompathia

A $1581$ work by Thomas Watson featuring elaborate comparisons of a lady's features to items like "beaten goulde" and "silver sounde".

Sonnet 130

A Shakespearean sonnet beginning with "My mistress’ eyes are brilliant as the sun" that discusses the speaker's love as rare.