Write a humorous sonnet or a parody that a famous couple would write to one another.

Question

jagatuba · Answer

Are you familiar with sonnet structure?

anonymous · Answer

NOPE wanna explain it?

jagatuba · Answer

Sonnets are 14 line poems of 4 stanzas. The first 3 stanzas have 4 lines each and the last stanza has two lines. The rhyming scheme for a sonnet goes, abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Traditional English sonnets use iambic pentameter. Do you know what that is?

anonymous · Answer

no

anonymous · Answer

Try writing a sonnet about Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. They are a well known couple.

jagatuba · Answer

Iambic pentameter is a type meter (rhythm) used in many poems. There are two parts to iambic pentameter. The first part is that each line starts with an unstressed syllable and then alternates back and forth between stressed and unstressed syllables. For example:

To BE or NOT to BE, that IS the QUEStion.

This is iamb, where each foot contains an unstressed and then stressed syllable.

The second part is the number of feet in the line. Pentameter means the line has five feet. Using the example:

To be/or not/to be,/that is/the ques/tion.

As you can see the line has five feet so it is pentameter. Technically it is not perfect pentameter since it really has five and a half feet, but there is some flexibility in this respect as long as the rhythm is not messed up by the extra syllable. An example of perfect iambic pentameter would be:

If I/don't GO/aWAY/toDAY/I'm DOOMED.

Does this make sense so far?