Sonnet project: Sonnet 128

Lily Gmeiner
Dylan Santa
Lauren McGuinn
Ms. Gardner
English 10H/Period 6
12 September 2016
Annotated Sonnet
Sonnet 128 Conceptual Remake
Your fingers, they play the black and the white
Of checkered keys, for when swift strokes are struck,
My ear recalls a dark piano alight
With chameleon shades of sound . Bad luck
I have that ivory moves closer to
You, dear minstrel, than I whose lips remain
For your moonlight sonata, midnight blue,
Where splendid vibrato flows like champagne.
Oh, but the woe of restlessly watching
That brilliant flutter of hand and bone,
Each melody progress in woods notching,
While here I must stand, without you, alone.
So cede to what is played your soulful flesh,
But leave lips to me, my heart they will refresh.
Meme
People say not be be jealous of other people...

But they didnt say anything about a piano

Picture:
http://cp91279.biography.com/1000509261001/1000509261001_2013980530001_William-
Shakespeare-The-Life-of-the-Bard.jpg
 Erasure Poem
How oft when thou, my music, music playst,

Upon that blessd wood whose motion sounds

With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently swayst

The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

Do I envy' those jacks that nimble leap

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,

At the woods boldness by thee blushing stand.

To be so tickled, they would change their state

And situation with those dancing chips,

O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

Making dead wood more blest than living lips.

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

Tweet
Four Proverbs
Parallelism: When courage fails, cunning prevails.

Alliteration: Music merits marriage.

Paradox: Silence surrounds good music.

Personification: Mozart is loves apprentice.

Dylans Analysis
Love unfailingly involves compromise: through the use of personification, the poet is able to to make a compromise with his rival. The poet
shows this by setting the scene as romantic and then setting up a reason for a compromise. By personifying a keyed instrument and its parts and
repeatedly making the lines flow as if they were verses instead of stanzas, the poet romanticizes the lines through the infusion of passionate musical
qualities. When he ponders Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap to kiss the tender inward of thy hand, the keys are shown to kiss his mistress
hand. The action of kissing reinforces the romanticism of the sonnet. Furthermore, the poet presents how held back he is through this same romantic
personification: Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, at the woods boldness by thee blushing stand. Blushing, by its very nature,
is present in embarrassment, especially in front of an admired person. Because of his embarrassment of which he resolves to rid himself, he is
inspired to compromise with the melodies in order to get what he wants: the player. By ceding the personified fingers to the keys, the poet gets to
keep the players lips, reflecting the real-life experience of letting the partner in a relationship keep certain traits and attitudes while also having to
give up others.
Keyly, the poet displays the first stanza without much pause, such as in the continuity and flow of music. This mirroring of poetry and
music presents a feud between the two, for they both are vying to be the players. Most prevalently is, Upon that blessd wood whose motion
sounds With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently swayst The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, which shows no stop nor pause for three line;
it is a form of music. The fact that music is within the sonnet clearly represents the battle between the two: song versus poem, musician versus poet.
However, as the song progresses past the first quatrain, the lines become more regularly punctuated, bringing the poem further from sonata and
closer to sonnet suggesting that the poet, although withdrawn, is somehow coming to a resolution without the keys which he later is revealed to be a
compromise.
Laurens Analysis
In Sonnet 128, within romance, competition and jealousy is present: the poet suffers from jealousy as he competes with the virginal to
grasp a kiss from his mistress lips. William Shakespeares use of rich and powerful diction and sound devices thoroughly create the
poets battle with the virginal. In the beginning of the sonnet, what can be heard is flowing vowels and the s sounds in the second line:
thou, my music, music, playst. The use of assonance sets the tone of sweet and delicate introduction with conjuring mellow sonic
images to describe the music his mistress is playing on the virginal and to present a theme of powerful and strong romance. In lines five
and six, the speaker finds to draw more romantic enviness of the virginal: Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap, To kiss the tender
inward of thy hand. Through expressing the eagerness of the keys to be played, the speaker epitomizes his jealousy of the keys. He
desires to be treated with the same experience that the instrument has possessed. As the speakers enviness progresses, the third quatrain
can be solely understood of how jealous he is of the virginal through the use of personification: To be so tickled, they would change
their state, And situation with those dancing chips, O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, Making dead wood more bless'd than
living lips. The powerful use of diction through personification conveys his fantasies of his lips switching places with the virginal and
its keys, for the instrument is treated better than he by her. Ultimately, the poets lust for his lover is vast, but interfered with a battle of
competition and jealousy through the playing of the virginal by his mistress. The poet is mesmerized by her fingers delicately kissing the
keys as they glide to the surface, yet he aches with jealousy as he powerfully craves his lips should replace the keys. The only comfort
the poet is provided with is his passionate dreams of kissing her. The poet confronts an empty consolation as her fingers continue to play
the wooden keys of the instrument, as his fantasies of what their love could be, continue to be just dreams.
Lilys Analysis
Where there is love there is conflict: in the end, a resolution is made with compromise. In Shakespeares sonnet 128, there is a strong use of
assonance at the beginning of this sonnet. This makes the sound so much more soothing and calming for the reader. As well as a sound illusion,
and sets the tone of the poem, and how the narrator is so helpless in love. How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,. The use of all of the long
vowels, composes a melodramatic sound and lets the reader know how the man is feeling. Shakespeares use of personification about how blessed
the piano is: Upon that blessed wood, and how much he desires to be the piano: Do I envy those jack, implies that his yearning for the woman
is so strong that he is foolishly comparing himself with an inanimate object; as well as envying a piece of dead wood. In quatrain number two, the
use of the metaphor ...my poor lips which should that harvest reap, creates a strong image. The image being that the woman is ultimately a
bounty of goodness and the narrator is very keen to have it(her). Both of these examples supports the theme of this man being so in love, simply
because throughout the sonnet there are multiple examples of his admiration for her: sweet fingers, To kiss the tender inward of thy hand and
so on. In the end, those two examples of metaphor and personification really get the point across about the man's crazy and passionate feelings for
the woman. By putting an exclamation point at the end of the second quatrain, it disrupts the smooth and calm euphony sound of the poem: At the
wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!. What this does, is create an illusion of confliction where the man gets so caught up in his labyrinth of
thoughts; that he has to halt and comprehend it. It also gives the reader a chance to breath and the rest of the poem sounds a little more calm
becuase of the abrupt stop. As the end of the couplet approaches, the sonnets resolution does as well. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Give
them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. Throughout the Sonnet, there is conflict because the man is so jealous of the piano. The couplet at the end is
the resolution, where the compromise is made. Ultimately, the man knows deep inside that wanting to switch places with the piano is childish and
literally impossible. To settle his internal conflict, he decides within himself (while also talking to the piano), that he can just settle with her lips
and the piano can keep the fingers.