Sonnet For The Structure Of His Poem example essay topic

Having examined a variety of sonnets, I singled out the following three because, as well as dealing with entirely different subject matter, they show a wide range of different techniques in using the sonnet form. The sonnets I have chosen are, 'The Silken Tent' by Robert frost, 'On His Blindness' by John Milton and 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' by Wilfred Owen. In 'The Silken Tent', Robert Frost writes admiringly about a woman he has strong feelings for. He uses the extended simile of a 'silken tent' to describe the qualities in this woman.

She is a graceful, confident and beautiful woman, as the phrase 'gently sways at ease's suggests. The tent has fluidity and a lack of restriction. The fact that the tent is silken, made of a beautiful and sensual material also reflects this image. The image of the 'supporting central cedar pole' depicts the security and sureness of her soul.

She is a levelheaded woman. The 'ties of love's ymbolise the numerous close friends she gathers about her. But as she 'seems to owe naught to any single chord' it suggests she is not attached to any one person but instead, is supported equally by many. Within these relationships she has flexibility. The pole, her soul, is 'strictly held by none's uggesting that all her 'ties', maybe husband, children, friends are her commitments. They limit her but also allow her room for manoeuvre.

The ropes both restrict her and make her what she is. If the ropes were removed the tent would collapse unsupported. Frost uses repetition to reinforce his point. In the same line he writes 'strictly held by none' and 'loosely bound' which both mean the same thing. As well as this obvious simile there is an underlying one in the sonnet form. Frost has chosen this form to mirror the content.

He uses the constriction of the fourteen lines to reflect the constricting 'ties of love' that hold the tent rigid. Yet as the sonnet form is not totally fixed the guys 'gently sway'. Like the sonnet she has the flexibility and freedom to be graceful within the structure of her life just as Frost can write within the sonnet's structure. There are also contrasting words and phrases in the sonnet that suggest this such as 'bondage', 'taught' and 'strictly held' and 'gently sways', 'loosely bound' and 'ropes relent'. All these words can also be used when referring to the sonnet form and show paradoxically both fixity and a lack of restriction. The last two lines suggest that when these relationships are even slightly 'taught', this 'bondage's he has to all her friends becomes visible.

Another usual feature of the Shakespearian sonnet is a turn coming before the closing rhyming couplet. The lack of this in this sonnet suggests sureness about this woman. There is no flaw in her character. She is perfection in Frosts eyes. John Milton uses the turn in an entirely different way in 'On His Blindness'. The turn in the petrarchan form is expected to come after the octave, but here Milton positions the turn in the middle of the previous line with 'Patience to prevent'.

This emphasises his sense of impatience, his yearning to find an answer to his dilemma. The structure of the sonnet is a dialogue in the form of a question and answer. It is divided into the octave, which introduces the problematic situation and leads to the question, and into the sestet, which offers a kind of answer to the problem. The difficult dilemma is that now Milton is blind he is questioning his religious beliefs, should he carry on his writing and poetry as the Parable of the Talents from the bible suggests so that he may 'serve therewith [his] maker'.

He asks: 'doth God exact day labour, light denied?' In answer to this he gives a conflicting message in which he challenges the usefulness of his talent. Contradicting the earlier view presented in the parable that he may be punished if he does not sow his talent for God he writes in answer that 'God doth not need / Either man's work or his own gifts'. The answer in the sestet tries to console the narrator who can no longer do 'day-labour' for God by suggesting that he need only to 'stand and wait' in order to serve. This does not resolve Milton's doubt as as he finishes the sonnet it is not certain what he should do to best please and serve God. As this is a very emotional and physical turning point in Milton's life this may have been the reason for his choice of the sonnet form to channel his thoughts into a relatively ordered form. The octave is composed in one long sentence that suggests the feeling of being on this searching emotional journey.

When making his most radical suggestion in the sestet he draws attention to it by disrupting the iambic pentameter. In the line 'his state / Is kingly: Thousands at his bidding speed, there are double stresses on important words which best portray his point of the extent of worshiping God, for instance 'kingly', 'thousands' and 'bidding'. After this the rhythm returns to iambic pentameter. Another poem in which the sonnet form is chosen for the security to express such feelings is 'Anthem for Doomed Youth,' a wartime Sonnet by Wilfred Owen. It is a sonnet in which the pattern of a funeral service is compared to the mourning of the men 'who die [d] as cattle' on the battle fields. By using a sonnet for the structure of his poem, WIlfred Owen introduces a touch of irony.

The conventional function for the sonnet is love, but this poem has a sort of anti-love, or rather, a love that turns bad. The young male population have so much patriotic love, and are so eager to serve, but this love turns sour. They spend time rotting in the wastes of the trenches, only to be mown down in the blink of an eye by a machine-gun nest. Not only are their lives wasted, going without the holy rite of funeral, but the lives of their loved ones at home are also ruined... Owen explores the monstrosity of war in various examples of comparison.

The boys "die as cattle", slaughtered mercilessly. Through Personification, the guns responsible for taking so much human life are made out to be monstrous, even evil. The poem also likens their deaths to a funeral, but one where the bells are shots, and the mourning choirs are the army's bugles. The drawing down of the blinds, the traditional sign to show that the family is in mourning, has been likened to the drawing of a sheet to cover the dead. Through various literary devices, Wilfred Owen enhances the meaning of the poem. The title itself has significant use of assonance.

"Doomed Youth". The sound is intended to be drawn out, long and melancholy, as melancholy as the subject of war itself. Onomatopoeia is used to make the sounds real: as if we were really there. We hear the "stuttering rifles" and the "patter of orisons hastily uttered". Repetition and alliteration for example, 'rifle's rapid rattle', have also been used to make the poem reflect the ordeal that the army face: monotonous boredom in the terrible conditions, then their death, inevitable from the start, will come. The usual rhyme pattern of an English sonnet favours a problem or incident in the first octaves, with a resolution in the final sestet as in the earlier sonnet 'On His Blindness'.

Wilfred Owen departs from this approach. In this sonnet the problem is posed yet it is never answered, as it is already too late in the sestet the idea of unmourned loss is continued. What real funeral will our boys have? No passing bells for the dead - only rifle and machine gun fire. No mourning voice - except for "choirs of wailing shells and bugles calling". The sestet continues this, with the glimmer of tears in eyes funeral candles, and the funeral pall the colour of their loved one's foreheads.

The ending can be perceived in two ways, either with the family getting the news of their son's death - the blinds are drawn as a sign of mourning or it is a sign that life still goes on so the people left at home must carry on and shut out the boys in battle so many miles away. So in the first sonnet 'The silken tent' the sonnet form is chosen both to immortalise the woman he writes of and as a structure for the extended simile. In the second poem 'On his blindness' he chooses the form to pose and answer a question and in the last poem I have looked at by Wilfred Owen the form is chosen to both immortalise the boys who died in the lines and for the security of the structure in expressing such high emotions..