On my first Sonne, 'My father thought it bloody queer', Sonnet 130, Anne Hathaway
These four poems deal with different aspects of love. One of them is a "classic" English sonnet; a second is a well-made sonnet; the other two have features which we recognise from well-written sonnets.
They all use a 'twist' in their structure to enhance their meanings. Sometimes this 'twist' (which is technically called a volta from the Italian word for a 'turn' or a 'change of direction') is signalled by explicit words used as markers, for example, "And yet".
Re-read the poems carefully and then complete the following table. Use the reverse of the paper if you need more space.
| kind of love: include a quotation and a comment |
features of a sonnet: include a quotation and a comment |
how does the poem use a 'twist' to enhance meaning? remember to use a quotation and a comment |
other observations | |
| On my first Sonne | non-sexual love (philos is the kind of love a person has for a hobby; agape is a Christian love for a neighbour: so this is more than that, being the love of a man for his son) father-son relationship/ grief: child of my right hand referring to the "favoured place at the table" and perhaps to Jesus sitting "at the right hand of God". Jesus being a Son who died.
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Strict rhyme scheme (couplets) and a "final" couplet. Ten syllable lines: iambic pentameter. (u/ u/ u/ u/ u/) Short (12 lines) and succinct. |
Most of the poem is about the love he has for his son, but at the end he wishes that "what he loves [he] may never like too much". The poem moves from the past to the future and from uncontrolled love to discipline and restraint. | Johnson fears that his love was a "sinne" so he almost blames himself for his son's death: typical symptom of guilt. |
| 'My father thought it bloody queer' | Another example of father-son love. This may be hinted at in the metaphor of the piercing: the hole which became a sore, became a wound, and wept. This may be taken as a diagram of the "downs" in this relationship. The rhythm of the line emphasises this decline.
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Almost 14 lines! Strong use of rhyming patterns (here, internal rhymes) which echoes the sonnet's use of conventional rhymes. Ends with a tight couplet. Short and succinct: just deals with the relationship between son and father through the incident of the ear-ring. |
The twist is that the narrator - the son with the ring - "becomes" his father: "at twenty-nine", he hears his own voice inside his head giving the advice his father would have given. But why is this "no surprise"? Perhaps because he really always respected his father; perhaps he always had misgivings about it, explaining why he used a "jeweller's gun". |
It's about growing up as well. |
| Sonnet 130 | Eros. This is a love a man has for his "mistress" or girlfriend/ wife.
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This is a classic, English sonnet: 14 lines; ten syllables per line; three quatrains plus a couplet to finish. (A quatrain is a four-line section.) | All sonnets should have a twist. Sometimes it's around line eight, sometimes, as here, in the couplet. "And yet" signals the twist, where Shakespeare goes on to say he loves his woman despite the fact that she may not be conventionally beautiful. |
The poem is also a criticism of unimaginative love poetry. Beauty is present in small imperfections. |
| Anne Hathaway | Eros. This is a love a woman has for her husband.
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Many of the features of a "true" sonnet: 14 lines of the right length, rhyming couplet at the end. | The twist comes at the end where the tense moves from the PAST to the FUTURE: she will always carry the lover in the casket of her head. |
Shakespeare was famous for his love sonnets: it's appropriate that Anne Hathaway's poem is in this form.
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