Sonnet Paper Assignment
British Literature Honors
Due date: 12/15/2011
I will not meet with anyone to discuss the paper on Wed. 12/14. I will not meet with anyone with whom I have not previously discussed the paper (on an individual basis) on Tues 12/13. I have limited time after school. I am here early in the morning and can make time to meet with you periods 2,3,or 6. You need to schedule these meetings in advance.
As with all of your papers, you may not use sources other than the teacher, your textbook, and a dictionary.
The assignment:
Traditionally, sonnets are love poems. All writing, at least at some level, is an attempt to persuade. This is certainly true of love poems. Why else would the speaker express his love?
We have looked at five of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He is not the only Renaissance sonneteer. Read the sonnets by Spenser (67,75) and Sidney (31, 39). Choose one of the sonnets by Spenser or Sidney and one of the five Shakespeare sonnets that we studied.
Your job is to consider yourself the object of these two poems; that is, each speaker is attempting to persuade you with his/herpoem. Decide which one is most persuasive and write an essay of 2-4 pages in which you analyze which poem is more persuasive. You still need to follow all the guidelines for formal papers—including writing in the 3rd person only.
You may compare; you may contrast, but you MUST EXPLAIN WHY.
There are many facets to consider. These include:
Sonnet 67
Edmund Spenser
Like as a huntsman after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escaped away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds, beguiled of their prey:
So, after long pursuit and vain assay,
When I all weary had the chase forsook,
The gentle deer returned the self-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.
There she, beholding me with milder look,
Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide,
Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
And with her own good will her firmly tied.
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild,
So goodly won, with her own will beguiled.
Edmund Spenser - Sonnet 75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew.
Sidney
Sonnet 31
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies !
How silently, and with how wan a face !
What, may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long with love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks;thy languisht grace
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there, ungratefulness?
Sonnet 39
Come Sleep!O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof, shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw;
O make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.