This week's readings were different from what we have read so far in that they were sonnets. A sonnet is fourteen line poem with a specific rhyme scheme and structure. The rhyming scheme is called a Shakespearean rhyme scheme and the rhyming scheme goes a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. Also, Shakespearean sonnets are supposed to have ten syllables in each line. This is according to Wikipedia.
But looking over the "Sonnet on Seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep at a Tale of Distress," I noticed that there are a couple lines that go over the ten syllable limit. For instance the fourth line, "And my full heart was swell'd to dear delicious pain," seems as though it is twelve syllables. Also, line twelve seems as though it takes up about twelve or thirteen syllables. This is very curious to me because I do not know why some of these lines go over ten syllables if it is supposed to be a sonnet. My counting may have been off when it came to counting the syllables or Wordsworth wanted it to be different. My definition that I found of a sonnet might have been wrong or outdated, but it is very curious to me the reason behind this poem.
The rhyming scheme aside, the poem tells the story of Miss Williams weeping when she hears a tale of distress. Wordsworth uses great analogies to describe the emotion and action of the story. To emphasize, the first two lines of the poem exemplify this idea. "Life's purple tide began to flow in languid streams through every thrilling vein," is the line that caught my attention. An interpretation of this line could be that blood is flowing through the veins in her body fluidly. "Swimming eyes" in the next line refers to how her eyes got really watery. There are many other examples of this throughout the poem. Wordsworth pretty much describes everything in this kind of manner. It is very creative because if he were to do it straightforward, it would not really evoke any emotion in my opinion. When reading, you cant helpe but think about nature with his analogies.
Actually, there's not a hard "limit" on the number of syllables per line. Sonnets in English typically have iambic pentameter lines--do you remember my explanation of that in class? It's about the BEATS per line, really (5), and the stressed and unstressed syllables just establish the meter, the dominant "foot" (the iamb, a lighter stressed syllable followed by a harder stressed syllable). Anyway, all the formal constraints of the sonnet are tested and broken from time to time, especially by skilled writers.
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