Sonnet 45
Sonnet 45 | |||||||
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Sonnet 45 is one of
Structure
Sonnet 45 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the form's typical rhyme scheme, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is written in a type of poetic metre called iambic pentameter based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The final line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × / I send them back again, and straight grow sad. (45.14)
- / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.
The meter demands several contractions: one-syllable "being" in line 7 and "even" in line 11, and — somewhat controversially — a three-syllable "melancholy" (probably pronounced mel-an-ch'ly) in line 8.[2]
Recordings
- Paul Kelly, for the 2016 album, Seven Sonnets & a Song
Notes
References
- First edition and facsimile
- Shakespeare, William (1609). Shake-speares Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted. London: Thomas Thorpe.
- OCLC 458829162.
- Variorum editions
- OCLC 234756.
- Modern critical editions
- Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Madison: OCLC 86090499.
- OCLC 2968040.
- Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002). The Complete Sonnets and Poems. OCLC 48532938.
- OCLC 32272082.
- OCLC 15018446.
- Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006). Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems. OCLC 64594469.
- OCLC 46683809.
- OCLC 36806589.