Tuesday, October 9 (9:25 class)
by T’Rese Maddox
Dr. Seaman started off by announcing that the papers we wrote were graded and returned to us in OAKS. There is a chance to revise your paper and it is highly recommended to see Dr. Seaman for guidance. The revised paper will be averaged with the grade of the first paper turned in. This is due Tuesday, October 16 at 11 pm. The test that we took last Thursday will be returned next Tuesday.
Class began with Sonnets being the subject of today. We were able to talk about the sonnets that were written by Wyatt and Petrarch. Wyatt and his works were on pages 532-35 and Petrarch’s on pages 546-48. Dr. Seaman explained how the literature we read in the first half of the semester from the Medieval Ages were mostly narratives that depicted a change in time. The texts on our syllabus shift from narratives to poetic sonnets with sonnets being categorized as lyrics which has no story or plot and expresses/describes feelings in a specific moment in time. Both sonnets and the earlier narratives we read this semester have the theme of love. Dr. Seaman reiterated that earlier in the semester we read about courtly love, fairy love, and religious love. The difference within the sonnets from the Renaissance is that love is expressed differently than the medieval past.
Next, we talked about how Petrarch was the founder of sonnet writing and how he introduced different views of love. Petrarch (1304-1374) was an Italian writer and philosopher that was the first to establish sonnets as a form of poetry. It was also brought up how he was a Catholic and that during this time; the national religion in Europe was Catholic and this was before the Protestant Reformation.
Then, we talked about Elizabethan Sonnets and Lyrics which was during the reign of Elizabeth I from the second half of the 1500’s to the early 1600’s. Dr. Seaman clarified that Wyatt and Surrey should not be categorized in this time period because they were around before the reign of Elizabeth I. Wyatt and Surrey were writing as early as the 1520’s-30’s. Petrarch’s sonnets were copied and translated from Latin to English by Wyatt and Surrey since they were intrigued by his works. These translations then turned into imitations of Petrarch’s work and adaptations which are inspirations of Petrarch’s. Finally, Wyatt and Surrey started to write their own sonnets about their own situations. The writings of these authors were coterie products, which means that their works were written for the elite only (other writers, mainly) and there was a small circulation of their work.
We then delved into the forms/ideas of these works which was imagery, love, non-romantic love, national identity, and riddles. We started off by looking at Petrarch’s work which was inspired by his love for Laura that shaped the erotic experience which means it had an effect on the experience and the way it was expressed–that there wasn’t an experience that the poetry simply conveys but that the idea of courtly love provided a lens that love was perceived through. Petrarch’s sonnet 134 that was translated by Wyatt was observed and explained. The idea of this sonnet is one that has suffering love. We noted that each line had words that were polarized by opposites. (ex. Peace and War in line 1 and burn and free in line 2). The usage of opposites in this manner is called a paradox. Paradox’s are two opposites that have a true meaning behind them which makes us think of internal strife and that there is no control of our feelings and emotions. It also heightens the significance of this love that he suffers from. The characteristics of a typical sonnet were analyzed in lines 1-14. They are: 1) 14 lines, 2) an Iambic Pentameter which is 10 syllables per line which has an iambic meter which has an unstressed followed by an stressed syllable, and 3) a rhyme scheme with an a,b,b,a/a,b,b,a/c,d,d,c,/e,e pattern. The first 2 sets make an octet (8 lines) and the last 2 make a sestet (6 lines). The couplet in the end is more common during the Elizabethan Era.
Wyatt was last on the agenda as we talked about his life which was short since he died at age 39. He worked for the king and served for the court. It is rumored he had affection for Anne Boleyn who was Henry VIII’s future 2nd wife which was the assumed subject in some of his love sonnets. Most of Wyatt’s work was not published in his life time and a publication in 1557 called Tottel’s Miscellany allowed the public to finally see his work. We looked at works by Wyatt and their different subjects. Wyatt wrote about love (sonnet 10), education/knowledge (sonnet 31), his own poetry (sonnet 94) , and national identity (sonnet 60). We analyzed sonnet 190 which compared a beloved lover to a hunter in which it is impossible to obtain the love the hunter desperately wants. This comparison is an example of conceit which is the comparison of two things which aren’t compatible but explains a certain message. The hunter that is hunting for his love is in line 1-2 as Wyatt says, “Whoso list to hunt, I know where is a hind,…” The deer which is his lover that is impossible for him to obtained is portrayed in lines 6-7 as he, “Draw from the deer: but, as she fleeth afore,/Fainting I follow” (548). We also looked at ballad 80 which explains a deer as a lover that is meek and hard to get to. This ballad is a complaint that a woman is changeable to a man and that they don’t want commitment and that they are unfaithful. This personification of a deer being an uncommitted and ever changing woman is shown in lines 1-7 when Wyatt says, “They flee from me that sometimes did me seek/ With naked foot stalking in my chamber./I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek/That now are wild and do not remember/ That sometime they put themself in danger/ to take bread at my hand; and now they range,/ Busily seeking with a continual change” (534).
This concluded the discussion for today and Dr. Seaman is going to discuss Surrey and Shakespeare on Thursday.
Tuesday, Oct 9 (10:50 class)
by Patrick Speers
Class started off with Dr. Seaman reminding us that our papers were returned to us on OAKS with comments and a rubric. She reminded us that we have the option of revising our papers. If you choose to revise your paper, the two grades (the original grade and the revised grade) will be averaged. In order for your revision to be accepted you must meet with Dr. Seaman. Afterwards, Dr. Seaman told us that the midterm exams won’t be returned until Tuesday at the earliest.
Then we started discussing the wonderful world of sonnets. We talked about how we are making the switch from narrative poetry, like Lanval and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and moving into lyric poetry like the sonnets of Petrarch, Wyatt, and Surrey. We learned that we are making a shift in modes (narrative to lyric) it was also a shift in eras (Medieval to Renaissance).
From there, we started talking about Francesco Petrarch. He is essentially the Italian poet that is credited with inventing the sonnet. He lived from 1304-1374, which puts him a generation or two older than Chaucer.
We learned that Petrarch’s sonnets ended up in England by way of Wyatt and Surrey. They were the ones who translated Petrarch’s Italian sonnets into English. In the 1590s, one of the ways to establish yourself as a poet was to write a sequence of sonnets. A sequence of sonnets is a group of sonnets thematically unified to create a long work, although generally, unlike the stanza, each sonnet so connected can also be read as a meaningful separate unit.
“Petrarch’s sonnet sequence provided European love poets with a way to shape erotic experience…”(546) What is key about that quote is that rather than simply talking about an experience, Petrarch shapes an experience based on an already existing experience.
Although Petrarch is the one who initially wrote sonnets centuries earlier, it wasn’t until Wyatt and Surrey translated them that they gained attention in English. Because of the language barrier from Italian to English, Wyatt and Surrey had to imitate Petrarch’s style as best as possible for the poems to make sense. Only after they learned Petrarch’s style could they then imitate his style in their own work.
Sonnets can take different shapes. Mainly, they take the form of either three quatrains and a couplet, which is also known as a Shakespearian sonnet. Or, they have an octet and a sestet. Petrarch wrote mainly in the octet/sestet form.
From there, we talked about rhyme scheme and meter. In order to better understand these terms, we broke down the rhyme scheme of sonnet 134, and also went over the meter of the first line of sonnet 134. The rhyme scheme of sonnet 134 is abbaabbacddcee. We discovered that the meter of the first line of 134 is an iambic pentameter. This means that there are five sets of unstressed, stressed syllables for each line. For example, the first line of 134 is “I find no peace and all my war is done.” In that line, the stressed syllables are “find” “peace” “all” “war” and “done.” If you’ll notice, that is every other syllable.
After discussing the inner workings of a sonnet, we went on to discuss the common themes throughout Wyatt’s sonnets. In most of his sonnets, Wyatt talks about love. Wyatt’s use of paradox gives the reader an enhanced point of view.
Key Terms:
Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem.
Meter: The basic rhythmic structure of a line or lines.
Iambic Pentameter: five sets of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
Paradox: statement that leads to a contradiction or situation, which if true, defies logic or reason.
Thursday, Oct 11 (9:25 class)
by Jessica Somogie
Class began by briefly talking about what works we had gone over in the past class. We began by talking about the Sonnets of Surrey and Wyatt.We were told that we would be talking about some poems in a lot of depth in class, however we wouldn’t be reading them all on the same level of depth. Dr.Seaman stated that some pieces were assigned to get a feel for various themes that were prevalent.
We began with the works of Surrey. We discussed the biography of Surrey and the similarities he had to Wyatt. Similar to Wyatt, he was of nobility. However, Surrey was more powerful, but also more vulnerable. Surrey lived a precarious personal and political life. He was executed because of family loyalties at the young age of thirty-two by Henry VIII. This was Henry VIII’s last execution. His poetry was very much about detached things. For instance, he write about being in prison and about Wyatt’s death. Poetry offered a way out of the more chaotic things going on in their lives and aristocracy. There was little known of the poetry of Surrey and Wyatt outside of their small circle.
As a class we then flipped to page 542 and went of the poem, “Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green”. Our focus was on the structure, logic, and content of the writing. In lines 2-4, two extremes are expressed (sun vs. cold). He takes just these three lines to set up a this universal natural imagery. In the next eight lines, he does something very similar, but more quickly and with less detail. In these lines it seems to be just oppositions and natural contrasts. In the last two lines the purpose of the whole poem comes about. The purpose being that “As long as I will be yours nothing else matters”. The speaker in this poem insists on constancy in his devotion to her. His only thought is to be hers. This sort of devotion is comforting and seems to be what centers him. As we saw in Wyatt, the devotion is extreme and upsetting, which represents more of an inconstancy.
On page 543 we read “So Cruel Prison How Could Betide”. We talked about how this portrayed a deeply rooted personal experience. This stood out because this is not common in sonnets, but this was a case where we knew for sure that it was based on the real experiences of Surrey. This poem was about how he was imprisoned for disturbing the peace at age twenty. However, he is not complaining in the poem, instead he is describing the happier days of his youth. Surrey had been a guest there a time before when he was spending time with a friend, Richmond, who had married Surrey’s sister. For him prison had been full of memories of a completely different inhabitation. In line 41, he becomes pale, but it’s not because he is imprisoned, it is because he is sick with grief because of Richmond’s death. There are many paradoxes in his writing. For example, “bliss renewing woes” and “not a women but a castle”. The poem outlines that Surrey is going through two sorts of grief. One part of his grief is actually being in prison and the second is the greater grief which is how the prison is a reminder of the loss of his friend. The poem shows how the lesser grief banishes when he thinks of the greater grief. This sonnet is different from the first because it is so direct.
Dr.Seaman then gave a handout with versions of Surrey and Wyatt of the same poem. Wyatt’s was entitled, “The long love that in my heart doth harbor” and Surrey’s was entitled, “Love doth reign and live within my thought.” We read them ourselves first then discussed with a partner. When we were all done with this we came together and talked about the poems as a group. At the beginning of Wyatt’s in the first two lines, he writes about love living in him and residing in his heart and mind. The heart and mind are representative of places of safe habitation of love. In the next two lines, we talked in class about how love is no longer residing in the harbor, but is a claim made through his face. This shows that the love is coming forth publicly because he can’t help to reveal it through his face. In Surrey’s poem love is reigning, royal and has already conquered him. This differs from Wyatt because with love is not royal and with Surrey love is a king. In the last line, Surrey says love is worth dying for, however Wyatt says that its better to be faithful- not only in love. In Wyatt’s he being taught and he keeps “her” love in control. Surrey talks about an ongoing shame that “she” taught me. In lines 4 and 5 there is a shift over to him instead of her. Wyatt’s version is much more direct and literal, he doesn’t use a lot of imagery and metaphor like Surrey does. Surrey’s in much more poetic and crafted to us. The last line of the second quatrain, has the two poems saying pretty much the same thing, Surrey just presents the language more figuratively. Surrey talks about his lord being love and Wyatt calls his master love. Surrey is trying to say that he is enthralled with love and he won’t remove his foot from his lord. Both of the poems are very similar, but the way that they choose to convey the writing modifies the way to respond to them. These love poems are about serving love in the abstract not just “your beloved”.
On page 551, we looked at Drayton’s sonnet collection. He is mostly talking about women and he says that their sex is only their glory. In the first quatrain he is talking about carriages and how inside are these painted fools which are women. He calls women meaningless, bad, made-up, and foolish. Drayton says that they are doing no good for anyone and that they will be forgotten because no one is going to talk or write about them, however he says this is how it should be. The poet gives the listener eternity by writing about her in the poem. There is a similar theme in the Shakespearean poems, but they have slightly a different tone. These poems are borrowing form the classical period in many ways. The poets claim is made true by proof of us reading the poem in class. It means that writing is immortality.
We then went on to talk about Sir Philip Sidney. We began on page 654. First we all took out a piece of paper to answer a question. The question was: Is Sidney a Protestant or Catholic? Many students didn’t know, but about three students came up with the correct answer, which was Protestant. Sidney lived and died faithfully. He was much more stable in his relationship with the crown and was seen as the ideal courtier. As soon as he died he became legendary. Sidney’s Arcadia was the most prominent prose narrative and it was also a pastoral. A pastoral is a narrative that is set in an idealized agricultural setting. Sidney is well known for writing the first example of a literary criticism or theory, his Defense of Poesy. Sidney is mostly talking about drama and he wrote the “apology for poetry” (not actually sorry but in defense of) he did this because someone wrote against drama in particular.
On page 658 we learn about the relationship between Stella and Sidney. Poem one was really well done. lines 1-4 describe how he is trying to get his beloved to see the pain that he feels for her. He believes that if she reads it she’ll believe it, then know it and he’ll get her grace. It seems as though grace and love go hand-in-hand and that males are always seeking grace of their beloved–this is very common in courtly love poetry. In next 4 lines he turns to others and studies others poetry. He feels he has to look else where because he’s not doing it right the first time. Sidney refers to his brain as” sunburned” and he thinks reading other stuff will refresh it. This study that he does actually does not help him and prevents him from trying to do what he wants. We touched on Number 2 which had the familiar notion of the speaker being a servant of Love. In number 7 the key question resided on Stella’s eyes. The question was why would nature do such a thing to eyes? On page 657, Number 24, you needed to have read the footnote to understand that Stella is married to Rich. In this poem Sidney says that Rich fools have a filthy heart.
The sonnet is not a natural form, the conventions are not natural, but they point out the difficulty of writing during this period. We finished up by talking about what we would be doing the following class.
Key term:
- Pedagogical: to learn something