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May 9, 1594 Registration of The Rape of Lucrece On May 9, 1594, the poem was entered in the Hall Book of the Worshipful Company of Stationers, the English government's pre-publication registry. The poem was listed in the Hall Book under the title of The Ravyshement [Ravishment] of Lucrece but was published with the title Lucrece. The Rape of Lucrece was substituted as a title at a later date. The Rape of Lucrece is a narrative poem resembling a revenge tragedy with 1,855 lines.
• 你的美貌亦毫发无损。 • • 死神也无缘将你幽禁， • • 你在我永恒的诗中长存。
• 只要世间尚有人吟诵我的诗篇， • • 这诗就将不朽，永葆你的芳颜。
Summer day in England
• 炫目的美丽 炫目的美丽
Darling buds of May
The eye of heaven
Shakespeare the Poet
The definition of Sonnet
A lyric consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate scheme.
There two major patterns of in sonnets written in the English language
Ⅰ. Italian or Petrarchan sonnet
＊ consisting of two parts: an octave & a sestet ＊theme hopes & pains of an adoring male lover ＊ Rhyme scheme abbaabba cdecde/cdccdc ＊ Thomas Wyatt, the 1st imitator of Petrarchan sonnet in England
• Eternal arts /eternal beauty
The alternative of English sonnet ＊Spenserian sonnet • similar to English sonnet • different rhyme scheme • abab bcbc cdcd ee
Sonnet Sequences/Circles
Sample Poem: Sonnet 18
Chinese Version
• 我能否将你比作夏天？ • • 你比夏天更美丽温婉。 • • 狂风将五月的蓓蕾凋残， • 唯有你永恒的夏日常新，
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夏日的勾留何其短暂。
休恋那丽日当空， 转眼会云雾迷蒙。 休叹那百花飘零， 催折于无常的天命。
＊ The Development of the Sonnet: An Introduction(1992) by Michael R. G. Spiller ＊The Sonnet Sequence: A Study of the Strategies(1997) by Michael R. G. Spiller ＊Themes & Variations in Shakespeare's Sonnets(1963) by J. B. Leishman ＊The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets(1997) by Helen Vendler
Reference
＊The Sonnet in American Literature(1930) by L. G. Sterner
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
＊154 poems ＊ wrote earlier in life
＊dedicated to: a blond hair young man Shakespeare's one-time patron & a dark skin girl
Long Poems
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April 18, 1593 Registration of Venus and Adonis Poem
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Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare's narrative poem in six-line stanzas, was published by Richard Field (1561 1624). The poem was dedicated to Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624). This dedication refers to the author's "unpolisht lines" and contains the typically fawning language of a commoner addressing a nobleman in the hope of obtaining, or retaining, their patronage in exchange for poems dedicated to the recipient.
Shakespeare the Poet
Shakespeare’s Poetry
• 十四行诗(Sonnets) • 鲁克丽丝受辱记 (The Rape of Lucrece) • 维纳斯与阿都尼 (Venus and Adonis)
• 爱情的礼赞 ( A Complaint of Love) • 凤凰和斑鸠 (The Phoenix and the Turtle)
＊ theme: time, love, beauty and mutability
• Classification
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＊Sonnet 1 to 17: procreation sonnets
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Celebrates the beauty of a young man and urges him to marry so as to propagate and preserve that beauty. ＊Sonnet 18 to 126: The subsequent long sequence focuses on (probably) the same ideal young man, developing as a dominant motif the transience and destructive power of time, countered only by the force of love and friendship and the permanence of poetry. (homosexual /platonic love ) ＊Sonnet 127 to 154: Focus on the so-called Dark Lady as a tempting but degrading object of desire. Some sonnets (like 144) intimate a love triangle involving the speaker, the male friend, and the woman; others take note of a rival poet (sometimes identified as George Chapman or Christopher Marlowe).
＊other writers choosing this form
John Milton W. Wordsworth C. Rossetti D. G. Rossetti ETC.
Ⅱ. English sonnet/Elizabethan sonnet/Shakespearean sonnet
＊ consisting of four parts 3 quatrains & one concluding couplet ＊ theme various themes including love ＊ rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg ＊ The Earl of Surrey, one who developed English sonnet in England ＊other writer W. Wordsworth John Keats E. B. Browning C. Rossetti D. G. Rossetti W. B. Yeats R. Frost Etc.
＊Three best sonnet sequences in Renaissance England Astrophel & Stella by Philip Sidney Amoretti by Edmund Spenser Sonnets by William Shakespeare ＊Other sonnet sequences The River Duddon by W. Wordsworth(达顿河) The House of Life by D. G. Rossetti(生命的殿堂) Sonnets from the Portuguese by E. B. Browning(葡萄牙十四行诗)