Renaissance+Poetry+Review+Sheets

Reggie Ford Review Sheet for Poetry

I. Surrey A. Bio 1. Worked as a courtier for King Henry VII. 2. First used iambic pentameter in a translation in parts of Virgil’s //Aeneid//. 3. Never published his poems because he was expected to entertain the king by songs not poetry.

B. Form 1. Translations of Petrarchean sonnet 2. English sonnet 3. abab cdcd efef gg 4. Octave, turn, sestet (3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet) C. Content 1. Octave- He loves but she does not love back 2. Turn- Love leaves 3. Couplet- good to die by love D. Themes 1. Love as conceit II. Wyatt A. Bio 1. Worked as a courtier for King Henry VII. 2. Traveled abroad and brought love sonnets to England from Italy. 3. Never published his poems because he was expected to entertain the king by songs not poetry. B. Form 1. Traditional English sonnet 2. abba abba cddc ee/ ababbcc 3x 3. Octave, turn, sestet (stops hunting hind) 4. Three 7 line stanzas (continual) C. Content 1. Writes about women being deer 2. Women are objects that belong to certain people D. Themes 1. Love- women don’t love him but they used to need him, dump him 2. Women as animals III. Spenser A. Bio 1. Spenser graduates B.A. from Pembroke, eleventh in a list of one hundred and twenty students. 2. Spenser serving as Queen's Justice for County Cork 3. Spenser marries Elizabeth Boyle, June 11th 4. //Amoretti and Epithalamion// entered in Stationers' Register

B. Form 1. Spenserian sonnet 2. abab bcbc cdcd ee 3. Develops ideas no turn

C. Content 1. Women don’t analyze his poem correctly 2. Love will last forever if he writes it

D. Themes 1. Poetry as a conceit

IV. Shakespeare A. Bio 1. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small 2. Wrote many tragedies and other plays

B. Form 1. Shakespearean sonnet 2. Octave, sestet 3. No turn, develops ideas 4. abab cdcd efef gg C. Content 1. Poem will live forever 2. Time 3. Ugly girl but he still loves her

D. Themes 1. Theme occurs in the couplet 2. Love- like Petrarchean sonnets 3. Poems as conceit- beauty will last forever if it is in writing 4. Time makes old but word will last all time