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capri0mniI love writing Shakespearean sonnets.
The iambic pentameter (de-Dum, de-Dum, de-Dum, de-Dum, de-Dum) and the rhyme scheme (ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG) are like the edge pieces and colored middle pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, respectively. It's easy for the ear to catch that rhythm, and pick the right words out of the thousands in our everyday English vocabulary. The rhyme scheme is like the colors on the pieces, so I can sort out the sky from the grass, from the red brick farmhouse in the background.
This lets my brain compose the poem while I'm tootling around doing laundry, or sorting bills. And then, an hour or so later, thanks to the fact that I can count the by the fingers on one hand, I can recall the exact words I'd chosen, using only the basic gist of each quatrain as a mnemonic; this also makes it easier to memorise, when it comes time to recite it on stage.
It's also nice that the dictionary definition of guilt:
To be responsible for an offense
Is a perfect line of iambic pentameter.
Now, I just have to find the right word (with the right accents) to rhyme with offense ("innocence" is close, but it's a dactyl, not an iamb).
If I could end a line on "clench," that might be a close enough near-rhyme...
Hm.
In the meantime, here is one of my favorite Shakespearean sonnets by Shakespeare, for your amusement:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
(Will was in love with a woman of color (back in the time when olive skin was considered "color")! And she was a "big-boned gal"! In short, Gwyneth Paltrow woefully miscast! Woefully, I say!)
The iambic pentameter (de-Dum, de-Dum, de-Dum, de-Dum, de-Dum) and the rhyme scheme (ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG) are like the edge pieces and colored middle pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, respectively. It's easy for the ear to catch that rhythm, and pick the right words out of the thousands in our everyday English vocabulary. The rhyme scheme is like the colors on the pieces, so I can sort out the sky from the grass, from the red brick farmhouse in the background.
This lets my brain compose the poem while I'm tootling around doing laundry, or sorting bills. And then, an hour or so later, thanks to the fact that I can count the by the fingers on one hand, I can recall the exact words I'd chosen, using only the basic gist of each quatrain as a mnemonic; this also makes it easier to memorise, when it comes time to recite it on stage.
It's also nice that the dictionary definition of guilt:
To be responsible for an offense
Is a perfect line of iambic pentameter.
Now, I just have to find the right word (with the right accents) to rhyme with offense ("innocence" is close, but it's a dactyl, not an iamb).
If I could end a line on "clench," that might be a close enough near-rhyme...
Hm.
In the meantime, here is one of my favorite Shakespearean sonnets by Shakespeare, for your amusement:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
(Will was in love with a woman of color (back in the time when olive skin was considered "color")! And she was a "big-boned gal"! In short, Gwyneth Paltrow woefully miscast! Woefully, I say!)
