Reading Response to a Poem - Essay Example

II. The three elements Form The Form of Sonnet 29 is typical of William Shakespeare’s work. It is composed of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, whose lines are typically 10 syllables long. These lines are grouped into four quatraints with each quatrains having 4 lines and concluded with a couplet which are two lines long (your book). Rhyme Sonnet 29 is also very much Shakespearean in terms of use of rhymes where it follows a predictable pattern of abab, cdcd, efef, gg. This meant that in the end syllables of the first line of each rhymes or agrees with the third, and the second rhymes with the fourth.

To illustrate, line 1 and 3 in the first quatrain ends in “eyes” and “cries” and the second line ended in “state” and the fourth in “fate” and the same pattern goes with the two remaining quatrains with the last two lines serving as his ending statement or conclusion. Structure Despite the heavy usage of old English, Shakespeare’s poem is still comprehensible to the modern audience because of the structure of the sonnet where it seem to follow a school report where there is a thesis, supporting ideas and conclusion.

In sonnet 29, we can observe that the sonnet started with the word “when” which states a conditional argument serving as thesis or statement of the problem of the sonnet. “When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes” simply meant that he went out of favor of men and fortune or he had bad luck. And elaborated it in the succeeding lines what “bad luck” struck him as he became a social outcast (line 2) and how fate is letting him down (line 3 and 4). He then enumerated what could save him and the poet enumerated that his friends, skill and freedom would save him.

And as a conclusion, the poet hypothesized that there is nothing that could match how much love can end his melancholy as he likened it to “the lark at the break of day, rises” that the mere idea of love brings to the poet such happiness that he will not trade it for anything. The “lark” in this line did not actually meant rejoicing with the break of day but rather “it is the bird’s upward sweep from “sullen earth” that depicts the speaker’s sharp mood swing in this oddly truncated simile.

The actual singing is done by “my state,” and a singing state requires some further study” (Frank, 2006 pg. 137). Nevertheless despite this seeming complicity, the structure readily gives the reader an idea of what the sonnet is all about and this breaks the barrier down of understanding Shakespeare’s sonnets (Ho, 2007) III. Conclusion: Reading Response The analysis and conscious consideration of these elements present in William Shakespeare’s sonnets helps in breaking down the barrier of understanding and appreciating Shakespeares works.

Knowing beforehand that there will 14 lines broken into 4 parts, the first 3 having 4 lines that rhymes, the reader’s mind is already conditioned to read a shakespeare style of writing. It also helped a lot when the reader realizes that Shakespeare after all follows a structure of having a thesis, support and conclusion (that is how I put it to understand the sonnet) because it helps answer the nagging question in every literary piece “what is the poet trying to say?” This makes me focus on the whole work and read it according to its context and not just by determining what a particular word meant such as “lark” because it might just confuse and mislead me.

Instead, I looked