Shakespeare sonnet
As Shakespeare Sonnet (also English or Elizabethan sonnet ) is in the prosody of the classic form of the sonnet called in English literature that in Elizabethan times in the Sonnets of William Shakespeare found its exemplary expression.
shape
The form is characterized by the fact that, unlike the Petrarch sonnet , which groups the 14 verses into two quartets and two terzets (4-4-3-3), here it is divided into three quartets and a final pair of verses (4-4- 4-2). In addition, the Petrarch sonnet only uses two rhymes in the first eight verses (the octet part), whereas the Shakespeare sonnet uses four rhymes. The rhyme scheme is:
- [abab cdcd efef gg]
The internal structure does not have to correspond to this external structure; as with the Italian form, the octet part (here the first two quartets) and the sextet part (here the third quartet and the final pair of rhymes) can differ in content or different rhetorical positions take, for example, that in the octet a contrast in the sense of thesis and antithesis is built up, which is then resolved in the sextet in the synthesis . However, a problem or a situation can also be set up or described in the three quartets, which is then pointedly resolved in the final pair of rhymes.
An important variant of the English sonnet is the so-called Spenser sonnet , which also realizes the external similarity of the three quartets in terms of content by linking them through rhyming changes:
- [abab bcbc cdcd ee]
Examples
As an example, the first of the Shakespeare sonnets:
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou, that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
As a German equivalent, initially a conventional translation by Ludwig Reinhold Walesrode , published in 1840 under the pseudonym Emil Wagner:
We wish to grow from the most beautiful being,
So that the rose of beauty may stay young forever,
And when the Reifre one day parted from here,
His heir will keep his memory alive.
But you, limited to your flaming
gaze , nourish embers through your own fire of the flame,
And bring happiness in abundance to distress,
you yourself your own enemy in rare fury.
You, who now give the world fresh jewelry,
The only herald of the charm of spring,
Bury self-satisfaction in your own bud,
And - tender youth! - you waste by avarice.
Have mercy on the world, otherwise you will tumble down
What is her due, through you and through your grave.
For comparison, a free translation by Stefan George :
One wishes a scion from the most beautiful creatures
That this means that the beauty rose never dies:
And when the more mature
ones over time have faded away , their memories will bear a delicate legacy.
But who clears his own bright eye.
You feed your light with your own essence.
Make expensive time out of excess.
You enemy and too raw for your sweet things.
You are now a fresh ornament for the world
And only the herald before the charm of spring:
In your own bud you dig a grave for yourself
And · tender envious · fling away in avarice.
Treat yourself to the world! Not like a gourmet do:
Don't eat the world's authority · the grave and you!
literature
- Ivo Braak : Poetics in a nutshell. 8th edition. Bornträger, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-443-03109-9 , p. 175.
- Hans-Jürgen Diller: Metrics and Verslehre. Bagel, Düsseldorf 1978, ISBN 3-513-02268-9 , pp. 138-143.
- Walter Mönch : The sonnet. Shape and history. Kerle, Heidelberg 1955, p. 16.