1. Shakespearean
Sonnet
By R. S. Gwynn
Poetry Project
Mallory Smith
and Megann
Wilson

2. With the first line taken from the TV listings
A man is haunted by his father’s ghost.
Boy meets girl while feuding families fight.
A Scottish king is murdered by his host.
Two couples get lost on a summer night.
A hunchback slaughters all who block his way.
A ruler’s rivals plot against his life.
A fat man and a prince make rebels pay.
A noble Moor has doubts about his wife.
An English king decides to conquer France.
A duke finds out his best friend is a she.
A forest sets the scene for this romance.
An old man and his daughters disagree.
A Roman leader makes a big mistake.
A sexy queen is bitten by a snake.

3. The Analysis
Our analysis is simple. Each line of

this sonnet represents a different
play by William Shakespeare

4. Li n e s 1 - 5
A man is haunted by his father’s ghost.
“Hamlet”

Boy meets girl while feuding families fight .
“Romeo and Juliet”

A Scottish king is murdered by his host.
“MacBeth”

Two couples get lost on a summer night.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

A hunchback slaughters all who block his way.
“Richard III”


5. Li n e s 6 - 1 0
A ruler’s rivals plot against his life.
“Richard II”

A fat man and a prince make rebels pay.
“Henry IV”

A noble Moor has doubts about his wife.
“Othello”

An English king decides to conquer France.
“Henry V”

A duke finds out his best friend is a she.
“Twelfth Night”


6. Li n e s 11 - 1 4
A forest sets the scene for this romance.
“As You Like It”

An old man and his daughters disagree.
“King Lear”

A Roman leader makes a big mistake.
“Julius Caesar”

A sexy queen is bitten by a snake.
“Antony and Cleopatra”


7. The sonnet is a Shakespearean or

English sonnet.
The definition (from mylitlab) “Generally, a

sonnet is a one-stanza lyric poem of fourteen
lines in iambic pentameter with a specific
rhyme scheme. Sonnets address a range of
themes, but love is the most common. The
Shakespearean (or English) sonnet has three
quatrains (4 lines) and a concluding couplet
(two lines) with an abab cdcd efef gg rhyme
scheme. The Spenserian sonnet offers a
variant rhyme scheme of abab bcbc cdcd ee.
In the Shakespearean sonnet, the sestets
describe a problem or situation that is
repeated in each sestet with some variation;
the remaining couplet offers a
summary, usually with a turn of thought.”
The rhyme scheme, as dictated by being a

Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef
gg

8. The theme of the sonnet is quite

simply, plays by William
Shakespeare. Each line represents a
different play by the bard.

9. Alliteration
Definition (from mylitlab) “The

repetition of the same sounds in
initial consonants or stressed
syllables in a sequence of words.”
Example, line 2

“Boy meets girl while feuding families
fight”

10. Couplet
Definition (from mylitlab) “A

grouping of two rhymed verse lines
typically with a common metrical
pattern or line length.”
Example, lines 13-14

“A Roman leader makes a big mistake.
A sexy queen is bitten by a snake.”

11. Irony
Definition (from my litlab) “Broadly

speaking, irony is an incongruity or
contradiction between appearance
and reality”
Example, line 10

“A duke finds out his best friend is a she.”

12. Consonance
Definition (from mylitlab) “The

repetition of identical or similar
consonants in a sequence of words
with different vowel sounds.”
Example, line 11

“A forest sets the scene for this romance.”

13. Tone
Definition (from mylitlab) “The author's

attitude in a literary text toward the
audience or reader (i.e., familiar, formal)
or toward the subject itself
(i.e., satiric, celebratory, ironic).”
“Shakespearean Sonnet” can be seen in two

different tones. One tone is that of a
light, humorous poke at the television guide
lifestyle society has turned to. The second
tone is the seriousness of that
“Mcdonaldization” of society. The need to
have everything done now (instead of taking
one’s time to do something) which prevails
with reducing classic works to one liners.

14. Imagery
Definition (from mylitlab) “Imagery

(collective form of image) refers to a)
depictions of objects or qualities
perceived by the five senses; b) the
figurative language used to convey
abstract ideas concretely; or, more
specifically, c) the depiction of visual
objects or scenes. Imagery is what
makes language and literature
concrete and not abstract. “
Example, line 5

“A hunchback slaughters all who block his
way.”

15. Analysis Articles
While there are no articles specifically

analyzing “Shakespearean Sonnet” by R.
S. Gywnn, we did find a few articles that
mention his use of sonnets in modern
times and his use of humor while
broaching issues with modern culture.
We agreed with these ideas, as well as
the fact that sonnets are not necessarily
boring or antiquated.
We provided excerpts from the two

articles we liked best. The full articles
can be found on the ProQuest database.

16. “Borne Ceaselessly into the
past”
by Bruce Bawer
(An excerpt from the article)
“Reading R. S. Gwynn, you can find yourself getting irked
at other poets: why can't they all give you this many laughs? For
decades now we've been fed the line that formal poetry is by its
very nature stiff and stuffy, and that free -verse poems make for
more enjoyable company. Ha! The deep, dark, dirty little secret
is that it's the formal, even rigorously classical types -one
thinks, for example, of the likes of John Frederick Nims and
Frederick Turner-who tend to churn out the poems with the
greatest entertainment value.
Certainly this is the case with Gwynn, whose No Word of
Farewell: Selected Poems 1970 -2000 amuses at nearly every
turn. To be sure, like Nims and Turner, Gwynn pretty much
always has something serious (even, at times, deadly solemn) to
say; but more often than not he says it with a smile -or a
smirk, or a sneer. Like them, too, his recurring themes are the
decay of Western civilization -trash culture, fashionable
politics, education made E -Z-and the enduring
faults, frailties, fallacies, foibles, and fraudulencies of the
human comedy. Soaked in the classics, positively drenched in
poetic history (ancient as well as not so ancient), and suffused
by classical wit, Gwynn's poems read like textbook examples of
how to transform the personal into the universal for fun and
profit.”

17. “The sonnet: Not just for the
lovelorn anymore”
by Marilyn L. Taylor
(excerpt from the article)
Objection #2: Sonnets are old-fashioned.
A second reason I heard for avoiding the
sonnet is a widespread reluctance to write
quot;oldfashionedquot;-as if the form somehow
guarantees a corny outdated poem. You know
this is nonsense if you've read the work of
Marilyn Hacker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Molly
Peacock, Paul Muldoon, Rhina Espaillat, R.S.
Gwynn or the scores of others who frequently
speak in sonnets to our own age and in our own
quirky language-sometimes with profundity
sometimes with irresistible charm.