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Lyrical texts

Handout 4: SONNETS

SHAKESPEARE

I Sonnet 130

SONNET 130: MY MISTRESS' EYES ARE NOTHING LIKE THE

SUN
BY WIL LIA M SHAKE SPEAR E
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

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Sparknotes.com

This sonnet compares the speaker’s lover to a number of other beauties—and never in the lover’s
favour. Her eyes are “nothing like the sun,” her lips are less red than coral; compared to white snow,
her breasts are dun-coloured, and her hairs are like black wires on her head. In the second quatrain,
the speaker says he has seen roses separated by colour (“damasked”) into red and white, but he sees
no such roses in his mistress’s cheeks; and he says the breath that “reeks” from his mistress is less
delightful than perfume. In the third quatrain, he admits that, though he loves her voice, music “hath
a far more pleasing sound,” and that, though he has never seen a goddess, his mistress—unlike
goddesses—walks on the ground. In the couplet, however, the speaker declares that, “by heav’n,” he
thinks his love as rare and valuable “As any she belied with false compare”—that is, any love in
which false comparisons were invoked to describe the loved one’s beauty.

Shakespeare's sonnets are composed of 14 lines, each written in iambic pentameter and most with
the traditional rhyme scheme of the English sonnet: abab cdcd efef gg. The Spanish sonnet: must
have 14 verses. Each verse must have 11 metric syllables. The verses must have distributed in two
quatrain and two tercets. The rhymes must be consonants. The rhymes, in the quatrains, must have
this structure: ABBA ABBA or ABAB ABAB. In the tercets the rhymes can be ordered in different
ways, for example: CCD DDC, CDE EDC, CDE CED, CDE DCE.

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Sonnet 2

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

From poets.org.

Born August 4, 1792, at Field Place, Sussex, England. He attended Eton College for six years
beginning in 1804, and then went on to Oxford University. He began writing poetry while at Eton,
but his first publication was a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi (1810), in which he voiced his own heretical
and atheistic opinions through the villain Zastrozzi. That same year, Shelley and another student,
Thomas Jefferson Hogg, published a pamphlet of burlesque verse, “Posthumous Fragments of
Margaret Nicholson,” and with his sister Elizabeth, Shelley published Original Poetry; by Victor and
Cazire. In 1811, Shelley continued this prolific outpouring with more publications, including another
pamphlet that he wrote and circulated with Hogg titled “The Necessity of Atheism,” which got him
expelled from Oxford after less than a year.

At age nineteen, Shelley eloped to Scotland with sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook. Once married,
Shelley moved to the Lake District of England to study and write. Two years later he published his
first long serious work, Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem. The poem emerged from Shelley’s friendship
with the British philosopher William Godwin, and it expressed Godwin’s freethinking Socialist
philosophy. Shelley also became enamoured of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter, Mary,
and, in 1814, they eloped to Europe. After six weeks, out of money, they returned to England. In
May, the couple went to Lake Geneva, where Shelley spent a great deal of time with George Gordon,
Lord Byron, sailing on Lake Geneva and discussing poetry and other topics, including ghosts and
spirits, into the night. During one of these ghostly “seances,” Byron proposed that each person
present should write a ghost story. Mary’s contribution to the contest became the novel Frankenstein.
That same year, Shelley produced the verse allegory Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude. In 1817, Shelley
produced Laon and Cythna, a long narrative poem that, because it contained references to incest as
well as attacks on religion, was withdrawn after only a few copies were published. It was later edited

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and reissued as The Revolt of Islam (1818). At this time, he also wrote revolutionary political tracts
signed “The Hermit of Marlow.” Then, early in 1818, he and his new wife left England for the last
time. During the remaining four years of his life, Shelley produced all his major works, including the
lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound (1820).

On July 8, 1822, shortly before his thirtieth birthday, Shelley was drowned in a storm while
attempting to sail from Leghorn to La Spezia.

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“England in 1819”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/152573/percy-bysshe-shelley-england-in-1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;

Un rey viejo, loco, ciego, odiado y pronto mortal [15]

Príncipes, despojos de su raza deslucida que [15]
ajenos son al escarnio, en su fangoso manantial; [16]
Gobernantes que no pueden ver, sentir o saber [14]
Sanguijuelas, de un país desvaneciente colgarán [16]
Hasta que ciegas de sangre, sin mácula van a caer [16]
Un pueblo hambriento y doliente en un campo sin labrar [14]

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An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

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This political poem is memorable for its piercing analysis of what was contemporary English society
and the hope that things, in one way or another, could change. The lines follow the rhyme scheme
ABABABCDCDCCDD, not a standard scheme for a sonnet. Shelley also makes use of iambic
pentameter.

He makes use of several literary devices, including alliteration, allusion, and caesura. An allusion is an
expression that’s meant to call something specific to mind without directly stating it. In this case,
there are several allusions to the current (at that time) state of English life. Alliteration occurs when
words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same sound. For
example, “despised, and dying” as well as “dregs” and “dull” in lines one and two. Caesura occurs
when a line is split in half, sometimes with punctuation, sometimes not. The use of punctuation in
these moments creates a very intentional pause in the text. A reader should consider how the pause
influences the rhythm of one’s reading and how it might precede an important turn in the text. For
example, line three: “Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;”.

https://poemanalysis.com/percy-bysshe-shelley/england-in-1819/

In the first lines of ‘England in 1819’ the speaker starts off with a bang. He calls the king “old, mad,
blind, despised, and dying”. Each of these words comes as something of a shock with their stressed
syllables. They also work as a hook to pull the reader in, making someone want to find out more
about this terrible king (King George III) and the state of the world in 1819.

The poet goes on, adding that it’s not just the king who is useless, the princes are too. This alludes to
the fact that when the king dies, nothing by necessity is going to change. The same type of leadership
is lined up for the next generations. They are the “dregs” of the aristocracy and are constantly
scorned by the public. The princes take and take without giving anything back. The “Rulers” of
England do not understand their own country.

Lines 5-7: the speaker describes the princes and all those or royal blood as “leechlike”. This simile
compares them to creatures, far from human, who feed off of others. In this case, they are feeding
off society—those they are supposed to protect. Moving away from the princes and towards those
the speaker sees as truly mattering, he adds that the people are “starved and stabbed”. This excellent
example of alliteration describes how oppressed the English people are. They are hungry and

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working without benefits to their lives. These lines might also refer to the Peterloo Massacre
(http://www.peterloomassacre.org/history.html) that occurred in August of that year.

Lines 8-14: Shelley describes the army. Here, he says that they are two-sided. They are used by the
government to repress the liberty that the English people deserve. The people are further repressed
by the laws their government passes. They benefit the wealthy and further harm the poor and middle
class. Religion has also been impacted. It is not, the speaker says, “Godless” and “Christless”. It has
lost everything that made it what it was. The bible is sealed shut meaning that it is never read. The
principles of religious life are not applied. This relates to “Time’s worst statute” in the following line.
This is an allusion to a law under which Roman Catholics were not allowed to vote or sit in
Parliament, along with several other restrictions.

All of the things that Shelley’s speaker has mentioned so far are the “grave” that change is going to
come bursting out of. At some point, the light is going to come to “illumine” the “tempestuous day”
England has been experiencing.