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Rhyme Definition

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounding words occurring at the end of lines


in poems or songs.

A rhyme is a tool utilizing repeating patterns that brings rhythm or musicality in


poems which differentiate them from prose which is plain. A rhyme is
employed for the specific purpose of rendering a pleasing effect to a poem
which makes its recital an enjoyable experience. Moreover, it offers itself as a
mnemonic device smoothing the progress of memorization. For instance, all
nursery rhymes contain rhyming words in order to facilitate learning for
children as they enjoy reading them and the presence of repetitive patterns
enables them to memorize that particular poem effortlessly. We do not seem
to forget the nursery rhymes we learnt as a kid. Below are a few nursery
rhyme examples with rhyming words in bold and italics:

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?


Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for the master, one for the dame,
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,


Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses, And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!

Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow;


And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule;
It made the children laugh and play, to see a lamb at school.
And so the teacher turned it out, but still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about till Mary did appear.

Various Types of Rhyme

Poems written in English employ the following kinds of rhyme:

Perfect Rhyme

A perfect rhyme is a case in which two words rhyme in such a way that their
final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical e.g. sight and light,
right and might, rose and dose etc.

General Rhyme

The term general rhyme refers to a variety of phonetic likeness between


words.

 Bottle and fiddle, cleaver and silver, patter and pitter etc. are examples
of syllabic rhyme  i.e. words having a similar sounding last syllable but
without a stressed vowel
 Wing and caring, sit and perfect, reflect and subject etc, are examples
of imperfect rhyme i.e. a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed
syllable.
 Assonance  or Slant Rhyme exists in words having the same vowel
sound e.g. kill and bill, wall and hall, shake and hate etc.
 Consonance exist in words having the same consonant sound
e.g. rabbit and robber, ship andsheep
 Alliteration or Head Rhyme refers to matching initial consonant
sounds e.g. sea and seal, ship and short etc.
Eye Rhymes

Eye Rhymes, also called sight or spelling rhymes, refer to words having the


same spelling but different sounds. In such case, the final syllables have the
same spellings but are pronounce differently e.g. cough and bough, love and
move etc.

Types of Rhyme According to Position

Classification of rhymes may be based on their positions such as the following


examples of rhyme.

Example #1

“Twinkle, twinkle little star


How I wonder what you are”

Classification: Tail Rhyme
This is the most common type of rhyme. It occurs in the final syllable of
a verse or line.

Example #2

“Just turn me loose let me straddle my old saddle,


Underneath the western skies,
On my cayuse let me wander over yonder,
‘Til I see the mountains rise.”

Classification: Internal Rhyme 
This is a type of rhyme in which a word at the end of a verse rhymes with
another word in the same line.

Example #3
“In Ayrshire hill areas, a cruise, eh, lass?”
“Inertia, hilarious, accrues, hélas!”

Classification: Holo-rhyme 
This is a type of rhyme in which all the words of two entire lines rhyme.

Example #4

“Had I but lived a hundred years ago


I might have gone, as I have gone this year,
By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,
And Time have placed his finger on me there”

Classification: Cross rhyme
This refers to matching sounds at the end of intervening lines.

Function of Rhyme

As discussed above, a rhyme serves two distinct functions in the art of writing
poetry:

 1. It gives poetry a typical symmetry that differentiates poetry from


prose.
 2. It makes recital of poetry a pleasurable experience for the readers as
the repetitive patterns renders musicality and rhythm to it

W.H Auden gives his views on the function of rhyme and other tools
of prosody saying that these are like servants that a master uses in the ways
he wants
RHYME
Definition of Rhyme
Rhyme is a popular literary device in which the repetition of the same or similar
sounds occurs in two or more words, usually at the end of lines in poems or songs. In
a rhyme in English, the vowel sounds in the stressed syllables are matching, while the
preceding consonant sound does not match. The consonants after the stressed syllables
must match as well. For example, the words “gaining” and “straining” are rhyming
words in English because they start with different consonant sounds, but the first
stressed vowel is identical, as is the rest of the word.

Types of Rhyme
There are many different ways to classify rhyme. Many people recognize “perfect
rhymes” as the only real type of rhyme. For example, “mind” and “kind” are perfect
rhymes, whereas “mind” and “line” are an imperfect match in sounds. Even within the
classification of “perfect” rhymes, there are a few different types:

 Single: This is a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words
(“mind” and “behind”).
 Double: This perfect rhyme has the stress on the penultimate, or second-to-last,
syllable (“toasting” and “roasting”).
 Dactylic: This rhyme, relatively uncommon in English, has the stress on the
antepenultimate, or third-from-last, syllable (“terrible” and “wearable”).

Here are some other types of general rhymes that are not perfect:

 Imperfect or near rhyme: In this type of rhyme, the same sounds occur in two
words but in unstressed syllables (“thing” and “missing”).
 Identical rhymes: Homonyms in English don’t satisfy the rules of perfect
rhymes because while the vowels are matching, the preceding consonants also
match and therefore the rhyme is considered inferior. For example, “way,”
“weigh,” and “whey” are identical rhymes and are not considered to be good
rhymes. However, in French, this type of rhyming is actually quite popular and
has its own classification, rime riche.
 Eye rhyme: This is common in English because so many of our words are
spelled in the same way, yet have different pronunciations. For example, “good”
and food” look like they should rhyme, but their vowel sounds are different.

Common Examples of Rhyme


There are plenty of common phrases we say in English that contain rhymes. Here are
some examples:

 See you later, alligator.


 In a while, crocodile.
 You’re a poet and you didn’t know it.

There are also many conjugate words that we use in English that are rhymes, such as
the following:

 Hokey-pokey
 Namby-pamby
 Itsy-bitsy
 Teenie-weenie
 Silly-billy

Children’s songs and poems often contain rhymes, as they make lines easier to
remember and pleasant to listen to. The famous children’s author Dr. Seuss made
much use of rhyme in his books, such as the following lines:

 You have brains in your head; you have feet in your shoes. You can steer
yourself any direction you choose.
 And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed).
 Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.



Significance of Rhyme in Literature
Rhyme has played a huge part in literature over many millennia of human existence.
The earliest known example is from a Chinese text written in the 10 th century BC.
Indeed, rhyme has been found in many cultures and many eras. Rhyme also plays
different parts in different cultures, holding almost mystical meaning in some cultures.
Several religious texts display examples of rhyme, including the Qur’an and the Bible.
Interestingly, though, rhyme schemes go in and out of favor. The types of poetry that
were once popular in the English language, especially, are no longer very common.
For example, in Shakespeare’s day the sonnet form, with its rhyming quatrains and
final rhyming couplet was popular (indeed, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets himself).
However, it is very unusual for contemporary poets to adhere to such strict rhyme
schemes.

Rhyme is often easy for native speakers in a language to hear. It is used as a literacy
skill with young children for them to hear phonemes. Authors often use rhyme to
make their lines more memorable and to signal the ends of lines.

Examples of Rhyme in Literature


Example #1
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

(“Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare includes many rhyme examples in his plays. All of his sonnets
followed the very strict sonnet form of containing three rhyming quatrains and one
final rhyming couplet. The above excerpt comes from arguably his most famous
sonnet, “Sonnet 18.” The opening line is familiar to many English speakers. It is just
one of hundreds of examples of rhyme in his works. One interesting note is that due to
the way that the sound of English has changed over the past four to five hundred
years, some of Shakespeare’s rhymes no longer are perfect rhymes, such as the rhyme
between “temperate” and “date.” However, it is easy to hear countless examples of
rhymes in his works, such as the words “day” and “May” in this excerpt.

Example #2
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells–
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells–
Bells, bells, bells–
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

(“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe)

Edgar Allen employed rhyme in many of his poems. In “The Bells,” Poe uses rhyme
not only to end lines, but also in the middle of lines, such as his rhyme of “rolling”
and “tolling,” in the middle of two adjacent lines. He also uses the rhyme of
“moaning” and “groaning” in the same line. This example of rhyme adds to
the rhythm of the poem in that it impels the reader forward, just as the tolling of the
bells compels the listener to act.
Example #3
Fate hired me once to play a villain’s part.
I did it badly, wasting valued blood;
Now when the call is given to the good
It is that knave who answers in my heart.

(“Between the Acts” by Stanley Kunitz)

Stanley Kunitz had an interesting career in poetry. He was born in 1905 and died in
2006; his poetry changed with the times, paralleling the popularity of strict forms in
his early work while his later work was only written in free verse. This short poem,
“Between the Acts” was published in 1943 and is still indicative of the first half of his
career in which rhyme played a large part. However, he was already turning toward
more free verse and less rhyme at this time. In this poem Kunitz rhymes “part” with
“heart,” but also uses the near-rhyme “blood” and “good,” which can also be
considered an eye rhyme.
Example #4
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

(“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost)

Robert Frost is similar to Stanley Kunitz in that he used examples of rhyme in some of
his poetry while in others he forewent rhyme altogether. Many of his most famous
poems, such as “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Fire and Ice,” and “The
Road Not Taken” all contain rhyme. However, other famous poems such as “Mending
Wall” and “Birches” do not contain rhyme. In this excerpt, Frost rhymes the words
“know,” “though,” and “snow.”



Test Your Knowledge of Rhyme


1. What is the best rhyme definition from the following statements?
A. The repetition of the same or similar sounds in two or more words, often at the end
of lines.
B. The repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words.
C. The repetition of the same word at the end of a clause or line.

Answer to Question #1 Show


2. Which of the following lines from Robert Frost’s poem “After Apple Picking”
does not rhyme with the others?
A. Magnified apples appear and disappear,
B. Stem end and blossom end,
C. And every fleck of russet showing clear.

Answer to Question #2 Show


3. What kind of perfect rhyme is demonstrated by the words “mystical” and
“statistical”?
A. Single
B. Double
C. Dactylic

Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Debbie Notari

In this lesson, we will explore the idea of rhythm, or beat, in poetry. Every poem that is not free
verse has a type of rhythm. We also call that rhythm 'meter.' Rhythm is an important part of the
structure of a poem.

Definition of Rhythm
What is rhythm in poetry? Think of a song you like. What is it about that song that makes you
tap your feet or want to dance? It is the rhythm of the song. In a similar way, all poems that are
not written in free verse have rhythm, or a beat, as well. We also call that beat meter. Each
specific syllable in a line of poetry is called a foot. This is also referred to as a unit of meter.

Types of Meter
There are five main types of beats, or meter, that we use in poetry. Here, we will take a brief
look at each type. In poetry, rhythm is expressed through stressed and unstressed syllables.
Take the word, poetry, for example. The first syllable is stressed, and the last two are
unstressed, as in PO-e-try. Here are the most common types of meter in the English language:

1. Iamb: The Iamb is a pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed
syllable, as in the word: en-JOY.
2. Trochee: The trochee is one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable, as in
the word: CON-quer.
3. Spondee: Spondee is a pattern of two stressed syllables in poetry. The pattern may
cross over from word to word in a poem. An example of spondee might be: GO! GO!
Both 1-syllable words are stressed.
4. Anapest: The anapest is a combination of two unstressed syllables followed by one
stressed syllable. Take this phrase: to the NORTH. The first two syllables are unstressed,
while the final syllable is stressed.
5. Dactyl: The dactyl is the opposite of the anapest, in that it has one stressed syllable
followed by two unstressed syllables as in the phrase: FLY a-way.

These metrical units, or feet, make up the beat or rhythm of poetry. Now let's take a look at
how rhythm is used in actual poems.

Rhythm in Poetry
We will take a look at two poems, and analyze them for meter in order to discover their rhythm.
The first poem is by Emily Dickinson, entitled 'Will There Really Be a Morning?'

'Will there really be a morning?


Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
Oh, some wise man from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!'

The speaker in the poem is feeling despair and wondering if there will be a 'morning', or hope,
again. It takes a few minutes to find the rhythm in the poem. Can you see it? What type of
meter does Emily use? If you chose trochee, then you are absolutely right! Here is the first
stanza with the stressed syllables emphasized. Notice that the word 'I' is lower case to
emphasize that it is unstressed. Also, Emily does not complete the trochee at the end of all
lines.

'WILL there REALly BE a MORNing?


IS there SUCH a THING as DAY?
COULD i SEE it FROM the MOUNTains
IF i WERE as TALL as THEY?'

If we read the poem emphasizing the trochaic pattern, we feel its rhythm.

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Definition of rhythm

The word rhythm is derived from rhythmos (Greek) which means, “measured


motion”. Rhythm is a literary device which demonstrates the long and short
patterns through stressed and unstressed syllables particularly in verse form.

Types of rhythm

English poetry makes use of five important rhythms. These rhythms are of
different patterns of stressed (/) and unstressed (x) syllables. Each unit of
these types is called foot. Here are the five types of rhythm:

1. Iamb (x /)

This is the most commonly used. It consists of two syllables. The first syllable
is not stressed while the second syllable is stressed. Such as “compare” in

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

2. Trochee (/ x)

A trochee is type of poetic foot which is usually used in English poetry. It has
two syllables. The first syllable is strongly stressed while the second syllable is
unstressed, as given below.

“Tell me not, in mournful numbers”


(Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

3. Spondee (/ /)
Spondee is a poetic foot which has two syllables that are consecutively
stressed. For example:

“White founts falling in the Courts of the sun”


(Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton)

4. Dactyl (/ x x)

Dactyl is made up of three syllables. The first syllable is stressed and the
remaining two syllables are not stressed such as the word “marvelous”. For
example:

“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,”


(Evangeline by Longfellow)

The words “primeval” and “murmuring” show dactyls in this line.

5. Anapest (x x /)

Anapests are totally opposites of the dactyls. They have three syllables;
where the first two syllables are not stressed while the last syllable is
stressed. For example:

“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,”

Examples of Rhythm in Literature

English literature is full of rhythmical poems and pieces of prose. There are
many poets and authors who have used rhythm in their works. Just have a
look at some examples:

Example #1
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
(Romeo Juliet by  Shakespeare)

There are ten syllables in iamb pentameter, where the second syllable is


accented or stressed. As in above mentioned lines the stressed syllables are
expressed in bold.

Example #2

“And Life–blood streaming fresh; wide was the wound.”


(Paradise Lost by Milton)

Milton has used spondee in his entire epic poem. The spondaic meter is
explicitly visible in the words like “wide was”. However, the remaining line is
iambic pentameter.

Example #3

DOU-ble, / DOU-ble / TOIL and / TROU-ble;


FI-re / BURN, and / CAL-dron / BUB-ble.
(Macbeth  by Shakespeare)

These two lines are taken from Macbeth. The chorus of the witches’ spell
shows a perfect example of trochees. Stressed pattern is shown in capitals.

Example #4
Why so pale and wan, fond Lover?
Prithee why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee why so pale?
(Song by Sir John Suckling)

Sir John has written this poem in trochaic meter. Here the stressed or
accented syllables of trochaic pattern are shown in bold-face types. This
poem gives strong rhythmical effect.

Example #5

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
(Tiger by William Blake)

The trochees are perfectly used in this poem by William Blake; here first
syllables in the words “tygertyger burning, forests” are stressed; however the
second syllables are unstressed.

Example #6

“Half a League, Half a League”


(The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson)

This single line is an example of dactylic pattern as one stressed syllable is


followed by two unstressed syllables like “HALF a league, HALF a league”.

Function of Rhythm
Rhythm in writing acts as beat does in music. The use of rhythm in poetry
arises from the need that some words are to be produced more strongly than
others. They might be stressed for longer period of time. Hence, the repeated
use of rhythmical patterns of such accent produces rhythmical effect which
sounds pleasant to the mind as well as to the soul. In speech, rhythm is used
unconsciously to create identifiable patterns. Moreover, rhythm captivates the
audience and readers alike by giving musical effect to a speech or a literary
piece.

Sonnet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the form of poetry. For other uses, see Sonnet (disambiguation).

Literature

Major forms

 Novel
 Poem
 Drama
 Short story
 Novella

Genres
 Comedy
 Drama
 Epic
 Erotic
 Nonsense
 Lyric
 Mythopoeia
 Romance
 Satire
 Tragedy
 Tragicomedy

Media
 Performance 
 play
 Book

Techniques
 Prose
 Poetry

History and lists


 History 
 modern
 Outline
 Glossary of terms
 Books
 Writers
 Literary awards 
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Discussion
 Criticism
 Theory
 Sociology
 Magazines

 Literature portal

 v
 t
 e

A sonnet is a poetic form which originated in Italy; Giacomo Da Lentini is credited with its invention.
The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto (from Old Provençal sonet a little poem,
from son song, from Latin sonus a sound). By the thirteenth century it signified a poem of fourteen
lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Conventions associated with the
sonnet have evolved over its history. Writers of sonnets are sometimes called "sonneteers",
although the term can be used derisively.
Contents
  [hide] 

 1Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet


 2Dante's variation
 3Occitan sonnet
 4English (Shakespearean) sonnet
 5Spenserian sonnet
 6Urdu Sonnet
 7Modern sonnet
 8See also
o 8.1Groups of sonnets
o 8.2Forms commonly associated with sonnets
 9Notes
 10Bibliography
 11External links

Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet[edit]


Main article: Petrarchan sonnet
The sonnet was created by Giacomo da Lentini, head of the Sicilian School under Emperor
Frederick II.[1] Guittone d'Arezzo rediscovered it and brought it to Tuscany where he adapted it to his
language when he founded the Neo-Sicilian School (1235–1294). He wrote almost 250 sonnets.
[2]
 Other Italian poets of the time, including Dante Alighieri(1265–1321) and Guido Cavalcanti (c.
1250–1300), wrote sonnets, but the most famous early sonneteer was Petrarca (known in English as
Petrarch). Other fine examples were written by Michelangelo.
The structure of a typical Italian sonnet of the time included two parts that together formed a
compact form of "argument". First, the octave (two quatrains), forms the "proposition", which
describes a "problem", or "question", followed by a sestet (two tercets), which proposes a
"resolution". Typically, the ninth line initiates what is called the "turn", or "volta", which signals the
move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that don't strictly follow the problem/resolution
structure, the ninth line still often marks a "turn" by signaling a change in the tone, mood, or stance
of the poem.
Later, the abba, abba pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets. For the sestet there were two
different possibilities: cdd, cde and cdc, cdc. In time, other variants on this rhyming scheme were
introduced, such as cdcdcd. Petrarch typically used an abba, abba pattern for the octave, followed
by either cde, cde or cdc, cdc rhymes in the sestet. (The symmetries (abba vs. cdc) of these rhyme
schemes have also been rendered in musical structure in the late 20th century composition Scrivo in
Vento inspired by Petrarch's Sonnet 212, Beato in Sogno. [3]))

In English, both English type (Shakespearean) sonnets and Italian type (Petrarchan) sonnets are
traditionally written in iambic pentameter lines.
The first known sonnets in English, written by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,
used this Italian scheme, as did sonnets by later English poets including John Milton, Thomas
Gray, William Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Early twentieth-century American
poet Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote most of her sonnets using the Italian form.
This example, On His Blindness by Milton, gives a sense of the Italian rhyming scheme:
When I consider how my light is spent (a)
 Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
 And that one talent which is death to hide, (b)
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a)
 My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
 "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
 I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
 Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d)
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c)
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
 They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)

Dante's variation[edit]
Most Sonnets in Dante's La Vita Nuova are Petrarchan. Chapter VII[4] gives sonnet "O voi che per la
via", with two sestets (AABAAB AABAAB) and two quatrains (CDDC CDDC), and Ch. VIII, "Morte
villana", with two sestets (AABBBA AABBBA) and two quatrains (CDDC CDDC).

Occitan sonnet[edit]
The sole confirmed surviving sonnet in the Occitan language is confidently dated to 1284, and is
conserved only in troubadour manuscript P, an Italian chansonnier of 1310, now XLI.42 in
the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence.[5] It was written by Paolo Lanfranchi da Pistoia and is
addressed to Peter III of Aragon. It employs the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b, a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d-c-d. This
poem is historically interesting for its information on north Italian perspectives concerning the War of
the Sicilian Vespers, the conflict between theAngevins and Aragonese for Sicily.[5] Peter III and the
Aragonese cause was popular in northern Italy at the time and Paolo's sonnet is a celebration of his
victory over the Angevins and Capetians in the Aragonese Crusade:
   Valenz Senher, rei dels Aragones
a qi prez es honors tut iorn enansa,    Valiant Lord, king of the Aragonese
remembre vus, Senher, del Rei to whom honour grows every day closer,
franzes
remember, Lord, the French king[6]
qe vus venc a vezer e laiset Fransa
that has come to find you and has left France
   Ab dos sos fillz es ab aqel d'Artes;
   With his two sons[7] and that one of Artois;[8]
hanc no fes colp d'espaza ni de lansa
but they have not dealt a blow with sword or lance
e mainz baros menet de lur paes:
and many barons have left their country:
jorn de lur vida said n'auran
but a day will come when they will have some to
menbransa.
remember.
   Nostre Senhier faccia a vus
   Our Lord make yourself a company
compagna
in order that you might fear nothing;
per qe en ren no vus qal[la] duptar;
that one who would appear to lose might win.
tals quida hom qe perda qe
gazaingna.    Lord of the land and the sea,
   Seigner es de la terra e de la mar, as whom the king of England[9] and that of Spain[10]
per qe lo Rei Engles e sel d'Espangna are not worth as much, if you wish to help them.
ne varran mais, si.ls vorres aiudar.
An Occitan sonnet, dated to 1321 and assigned to one "William of Almarichi", is found in Jean de
Nostredame and cited in Giovanni Crescembeni, Storia della volgar Poesia. It congratulates Robert
of Naples on his recent victory. Its authenticity is dubious. There are also two poorly regarded
sonnets by the Italian Dante de Maiano.

English (Shakespearean) sonnet[edit]

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, c.1542 by Hans Holbein

William Shakespeare, in the famous "Chandos" portrait. Artist and authenticity unconfirmed.National Portrait
Gallery (UK).

See also: Shakespeare's sonnets


When English sonnets were introduced by Thomas Wyatt in the early 16th century, his sonnets and
those of his contemporary the Earl of Surreywere chiefly translations from the Italian of Petrarch and
the French of Ronsard and others. While Wyatt introduced the sonnet into English, it was Surrey
who gave it a rhyming meter, and a structural division into quatrains of a kind that now characterize
the typical English sonnet. Having previously circulated in manuscripts only, both poets' sonnets
were first published in Richard Tottel's Songes and Sonnetts, better known as Tottel's
Miscellany (1557).
It was, however, Sir Philip Sidney's sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591) that started the English
vogue for sonnet sequences. The next two decades saw sonnet sequences by William
Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Fulke Greville, William
Drummond of Hawthornden, and many others. This literature is often attributed to the Elizabethan
Age and known as Elizabethan sonnets. These sonnets were all essentially inspired by the
Petrarchan tradition, and generally treat of the poet's love for some woman, with the exception of
Shakespeare's sequence of 154 sonnets. The form is often named after Shakespeare, not because
he was the first to write in this form but because he became its most famous practitioner. The form
consists of fourteen lines structured as three quatrains and a couplet. The third quatrain generally
introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic "turn", the volta. In Shakespeare's sonnets,
however, the volta usually comes in the couplet, and usually summarizes the theme of the poem or
introduces a fresh new look at the theme. With only a rare exception, the meter is iambic
pentameter, although there is some accepted metrical flexibility (e.g., lines ending with an extra-
syllable feminine rhyme, or a trochaic foot rather than an iamb, particularly at the beginning of a
line). The usual rhyme scheme is end-rhymed a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.
This example, Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116", illustrates the form (with some typical variances one
may expect when reading an Elizabethan-age sonnet with modern eyes):
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)*
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a)
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)*
O no, it is an ever fixèd mark (c)**
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)***
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c)**
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)***
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)*
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)*
If this be error and upon me proved, (g)*
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)*
*  PRONUNCIATION/RHYME: Note changes in pronunciation since composition.
**  PRONUNCIATION/METER: "Fixed" pronounced as two-syllables, "fix-ed".
***  RHYME/METER: Feminine-rhyme-ending, eleven-syllable alternative.
The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet is also a sonnet, as is Romeo and Juliet's first exchange in Act
One, Scene Five, lines 104–117, beginning with "If I profane with my unworthiest hand" (104) and
ending with "Then move not while my prayer's effect I take" (117). [11] The Epilogue to Henry V is also
in the form of a sonnet.
In the 17th century, the sonnet was adapted to other purposes, with John Donne and George
Herbert writing religious sonnets, and John Milton using the sonnet as a general meditative poem.
Both the Shakespearean and Petrarchan rhyme schemes were popular throughout this period, as
well as many variants.
The fashion for the sonnet went out with the Restoration, and hardly any sonnets were written
between 1670 and Wordsworth's time. However, sonnets came back strongly with the French
Revolution. Wordsworth himself wrote hundreds of sonnets, of which amongst the best-known are
"Upon Westminster Bridge", "The world is too much with us" and the sonnet "London, 1802"
addressed to Milton; his sonnets were essentially modelled on Milton's. Keats and Shelley also wrote
major sonnets; Keats's sonnets used formal and rhetorical patterns inspired partly by Shakespeare,
and Shelley innovated radically, creating his own rhyme scheme for the sonnet "Ozymandias".
Sonnets were written throughout the 19th century, but, apart from Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese and the sonnets of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, there were few
very successful traditional sonnets. In Canada during the last decades of the century,
the Confederation Poets and especially Archibald Lampman were known for their sonnets, which
were mainly on pastoral themes. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote several major sonnets, often
in sprung rhythm, such as "The Windhover", and also several sonnet variants such as the 10½-
line curtal sonnet "Pied Beauty" and the 24-line caudate sonnet "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire".
By the end of the 19th century, the sonnet had been adapted into a general-purpose form of great
flexibility.
This flexibility was extended even further in the 20th century. Among the major poets of the early
Modernist period, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay and E. E. Cummings all used the sonnet
regularly. William Butler Yeats wrote the major sonnet "Leda and the Swan", which used half
rhymes. Wilfred Owen's sonnet "Anthem for Doomed Youth" was another sonnet of the early 20th
century. W. H. Auden wrote two sonnet sequences and several other sonnets throughout his career,
and widened the range of rhyme-schemes used considerably. Auden also wrote one of the first
unrhymed sonnets in English, "The Secret Agent" (1928). Robert Lowell wrote five books of
unrhymed "American sonnets", including his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume The Dolphin (1973). Half-
rhymed, unrhymed, and even unmetrical sonnets have been very popular since 1950; perhaps the
best works in the genre are Seamus Heaney's Glanmore Sonnets and Clearances, both of which
use half rhymes, and Geoffrey Hill's mid-period sequence "An Apology for the Revival of Christian
Architecture in England". The 1990s saw something of a formalist revival, however, and several
traditional sonnets have been written in the past decade.

Spenserian sonnet[edit]
A variant on the English form is the Spenserian sonnet, named after Edmund Spenser (c.1552–
1599), in which the rhyme scheme is abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. The linked rhymes of his quatrains
suggest the linked rhymes of such Italian forms as terza rima. This example is taken from Amoretti:
Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands

Happy ye leaves. whenas those lily hands, (a)


Which hold my life in their dead doing might, (b)
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands, (a)
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight. (b)
And happy lines on which, with starry light, (b)
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,(c)
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite, (b)
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book. (c)
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook (c)
Of Helicon, whence she derived is, (d)
When ye behold that angel's blessed look, (c)
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss. (d)
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone, (e)
Whom if ye please, I care for other none. (e)

Urdu Sonnet[edit]
In the Indian subcontinent, sonnets have been written in the Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, English,
Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Sindhi and Urdu languages.
[12]
Urdu poets, also influenced by English and other European poets, took to writing sonnets in the
Urdu language rather late.[13] Azmatullah Khan (1887–1923) is believed to have introduced this
format to Urdu literature in the very early part of the 20th century. The other renowned Urdu poets
who wrote sonnets were Akhtar Junagarhi, Akhtar Sheerani, Noon Meem Rashid, Mehr Lal Soni Zia
Fatehabadi, Salaam Machhalishahari and Wazir Agha.[14] This example, a sonnet by Zia
Fatehabadi taken from his collection Meri Tasveer,[15] is in the usual English (Shakespearean) sonnet
rhyme-scheme.
          ‫ڈبکںی‬
‫پس پردہ کِسی نے میرے ارمانوں کی محفِل کو‬،
ِ
‫ کچھ ایسے طور سے دیکھا‬،‫کچھ اِس انداز سے دیکھا‬،
ِ ‫ ُغ‬،
‫بار آہ سے دے کر جال آئینۂ دل کو‬
‫ غور سے دیکھا‬،‫ہر اِک صورت کو میں نے خوب دیکھا‬
‫ مجھے جس کی تم ّنا تھی‬، ‫نظر آئی نہ وہ صورت‬
‫ بستی میں‬،‫ ویرانے میں‬،‫بہت ڈھُونڈا کیا گلشن میں‬
‫شمع مہر و ماہ سے دِن رات دُنیا تھی‬
ِ ‫م ّنور‬
‫مگر چاروں طرف تھا ُگھپ اندھیرا میری ہستی میں‬
‫مجروح اُلفت کر دیا کِس نے‬
ِ ‫دل مجبور کو‬ِ
‫مرے احساس کی گہرایوں میں ہے چُبھن غم کی‬
‫ میری روح کو اپنا لیا کس نے‬،‫مٹا کر جسم‬
‫ت پیہم کی‬ ِ ‫جوانی بن گئی آما جگہ صدما‬
‫ت نظر کا سلسلہ توڈ اور آ بھی جا‬ِ ‫حجابا‬
‫مجھے اِک بار اپنا جلوۂ رنگیں دکھا بھی جا‬



Sonnet 'Dubkani' ‫ ڈبکںی‬by Zia Fatehabadi taken from his book titled  Meri Tasveer

"Dubkani"
Pas e pardaa kisii ne mere armaanon kii mehfil ko (a)
Kuchh is andaaz se dekhaa, kuchh aise taur se dekhaa (b)
Ghubaar e aah se de kar jilaa aainaa e dil ko (a)
Har ik soorat ko maine khoob dekhaa, ghaur se dekhaa (b)
Nazar aaii na woh soorat, mujhe jiskii tamanaa thii (c)
Bahut dhoondaa kiyaa gulshan mein, veeraane mein, bastii mein (d)
Munnawar shamma e mehar o maah se din raat duniyaa thii (c)
Magar chaaron taraf thaa ghup andheraa merii hastii mein (d)
Dil e majboor ko majrooh e ulfat kar diyaa kisne (e)
Mere ahsaas kii ghahraiion mein hai chubhan gham kii (f)
Mitaa kar jism, merii rooh ko apnaa liyaa kisne (e)
Jawanii ban gaii aamaajagaah sadmaat e paiham kii (f)
Hijaabaat e nazar kaa sisilaa tod aur aa bhii jaa (g)
Mujhe ik baar apnaa jalwaa e rangiin dikhaa bhii jaa. (g)

Modern sonnet[edit]
With the advent of free verse, the
sonnet was seen as somewhat old-
fashioned and fell out of use for a time
among some schools of poets.[citation
needed]
 However, a number of modern
poets, including Don
Paterson, Federico García Lorca, E.E.
Cummings, Joan Brossa, Paul
Muldoon and Seamus
Heaney continued to use the
form. Wendy Cope's poem "Stress" is
a sonnet. Elizabeth Bishop's inverted
"Sonnet" was one of her last poems.
Ted Berrigan's book, The Sonnets, is
an arresting and curious take on the
form. Paul Muldoon often experiments
with 14 lines and sonnet rhymes,
though without regular sonnet meter.
The advent of the New
Formalism movement in the United
States has also contributed to
contemporary interest in the sonnet.
The sonnet sees its revival with
the word sonnet. Concise and visual in
effect, word sonnets are fourteen line
poems, with one word per line.
Frequently allusive and imagistic, they
can also be irreverent and playful. The
Canadian poet Seymour
Mayne published a few collections of
word sonnets, and is one of the chief
innovators of the form.
[16]
 Contemporary word sonnets
combine a variation of styles often
considered to be mutually exclusive to
separate genres, as demonstrated in
works such as An Ode to Mary.
[17]
 Also, the contemporary Greek
poet Yannis Livadas invented the
"fusion sonnet", consisting of 21 lines,
essentially a variable half of a "jazz"
sonnet, accompanied by a half sonnet
as a coda. Both parts of the poem
appear as a whole in a dismantled
form of a series of 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, and 5-
lined stanzas

Basic Sonnet Forms


Nelson Miller
From the Cayuse Press Writers Exchange Board

Return to Sonnet Central home.

A sonnet is fundamentally a dialectical construct which allows the poet to examine the
nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas,emotions, states of mind,
beliefs, actions, events, images, etc., byjuxtaposing the two against each other, and
possibly resolving or justrevealing the tensions created and operative between the two.
O. K., so much for the fancy language. Basically, in a sonnet, youshow two related
but differing things to the reader in order to communicatesomething about them. Each
of the three major types of sonnets accomplishesthis in a somewhat different way.
There are, of course, other types of sonnets,as well, but I'll stick for now to just the
basic three (Italian, Spenserian, English), with a brief look at some non-standard
sonnets.

I. The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet:


The basic meter of all sonnets in English is iambic pentameter (basic information on
iambic pentameter),although there have been a few tetrameter and even
hexametersonnets, as well.

The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two differentgroups of rhyming
sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octaveand rhymes:

abbaabba

The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can haveeither two or three rhyming
sounds, arranged in a variety ofways:

cdcdcd
cddcdc
cdecde
cdeced
cdcedc

The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern)is flexible. In strict
practice, the one thing that is to be avoidedin the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or
ee), as this wasnever permitted in Italy, and Petrarch himself (supposedly) never used
a couplet ending; in actual practice, sestets aresometimes ended with couplets
(Sidney's "Sonnet LXXI givenbelow is an example of such a terminal couplet in an
Italiansonnet).

The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections bythe two differing rhyme
groups. In accordance with the principle(which supposedly applies to all rhymed
poetry but oftendoesn't), a change from one rhyme group to another signifiesa
change in subject matter. This change occurs at thebeginning of L9 in the Italian
sonnet and is called the volta,or "turn"; the turn is an essential element of the sonnet
form, perhaps the essential element. It is at the volta thatthe second idea is introduced,
as in this sonnet by Wordsworth:
"London, 1802"
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

Here, the octave develops the idea of the decline and corruption of the English race,
while the sestet opposes to that loss the qualities Milton possessed which the race now
desperately needs.

A very skillful poet can manipulate the placement of the volta for dramatic effect,
although this is difficult to do well. An extremeexample is this sonnet by Sir Philip
Sidney, which delays the voltaall the way to L 14:

"Sonnet LXXI"
Who will in fairest book of Nature know
How Virtue may best lodged in Beauty be,
Let him but learn of Love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines, which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices' overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And not content to be Perfection's heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy Virtue bends that love to good.
"But, ah," Desire still cries, "give me some food."

Here, in giving 13 lines to arguing why Reason makes clearto him that following
Virtue is the course he should take, he seems to be heavily biassing the argument in
Virtue'sfavor. But the volta powerfully undercuts the arguments of Reason in favor of
Virtue by revealing that Desire isn't amenableto Reason.

There are a number of variations which evolved over time to make iteasier to write
Italian sonnets in English. Most common is a changein the octave rhyming pattern
from a b b a a b b a to a b b a a c c a,eliminating the need for two groups of 4 rhymes,
something not alwayseasy to come up with in English which is a rhyme-poor
language.Wordsworth uses that pattern in the following sonnet, along with aterminal
couplet:

"Scorn Not the Sonnet"


Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress wtih which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

Another variation on the Italian form is this one, byTennyson's older brother Charles
Tennyson-Turner,who wrote 342 sonnets, many in variant forms.Here, Turner uses an
a b b a c d c d e f f e f epattern, with the volta delayed until the middleof L9:

"Missing the Meteors"


A hint of rain--a touch of lazy doubt--
Sent me to bedward on that prime of nights,
When the air met and burst the aerolites,
Making the men stare and the children shout:
Why did no beam from all that rout and rush
Of darting meteors, pierce my drowsed head?
Strike on the portals of my sleep? and flush
My spirit through mine eyelids, in the stead
Of that poor vapid dream? My soul was pained,
My very soul, to have slept while others woke,
While little children their delight outspoke,
And in their eyes' small chambers entertained
Far notions of the Kosmos! I mistook
The purpose of that night--it had not rained.
II. The Spenserian Sonnet:
The Spenserian sonnet, invented by Edmund Spenseras an outgrowth of the stanza
pattern he used in TheFaerie Queene (a b a b b c b c c), has the pattern:

ababbcbccdcdee

Here, the "abab" pattern sets up distinct four-linegroups, each of which develops a
specific idea;however, the overlapping a, b, c, and d rhymes form thefirst 12 lines into
a single unit with a separated finalcouplet. The three quatrains then develop
threedistinct but closely related ideas, with a differentidea (or commentary) in the
couplet. Interestingly,Spenser often begins L9 ofhis sonnets with "But" or "Yet,"
indicating a voltaexactly where it would occur in the Italian sonnet;however, if one
looks closely, one often finds that the "turn" here really isn't one at all, that the
actualturn occurs where the rhyme pattern changes, withthe couplet, thus giving a 12
and 2 line pattern very different from the Italian 8 and 6 line pattern
(actualvolta marked by italics):

"Sonnet LIV"
Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectator idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising diversely my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in mirth like to a Comedy;
Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I wail and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone.

III. The English (or Shakespearian) Sonnet:


The English sonnet has the simplest and most flexiblepattern of all sonnets, consisting
of 3 quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet:

abab
c d c d
efef
g g 

As in the Spenserian, each quatrain develops aspecific idea, but one closely related to
the ideasin the other quatrains.

Not only is the English sonnet the easiest in termsof its rhyme scheme, calling for
only pairs ofrhyming words rather than groups of 4, but it isthe most flexible in terms
of the placement of thevolta. Shakespeare often places the "turn,"as in the Italian, at
L9:

"Sonnet XXIX"
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Equally, Shakespeare can delay the volta tothe final couplet, as in this sonnet where
eachquatrain develops a metaphor describing theaging of the speaker, while the
couplet thenstates the consequence--"You better love menow because soon I won't be
here":

"Sonnet LXXIII"
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed by that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

IV. The Indefinables


There are, of course, some sonnets that don't fit any clear recognizablepattern but still
certainly function as sonnets. Shelley's "Ozymandias"belongs to this category. It's
rhyming pattern of a b a b a c d c e d e f e fis unique; clearly, however, there is
a volta in L9 exactly as in anItalian sonnet:
"Ozymandias"
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, (stamped on these lifeless things,)
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman wrote sonnets with free abandonand with virtually no
regard for any kind of pattern at all, his rhymesafter the first few lines falling
seemingly at random, as in this sonnetfrom his "Sonnets, First Series," which rhymes
a b b a b c a b a d e c e d,with a volta at L10:

"Sonnet XXVIII"
Not the round natural world, not the deep mind,
The reconcilement holds: the blue abyss
Collects it not; our arrows sink amiss
And but in Him may we our import find.
The agony to know, the grief, the bliss
Of toil, is vain and vain: clots of the sod
Gathered in heat and haste and flung behind
To blind ourselves and others, what but this
Still grasping dust and sowing toward the wind?
No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead,
But leave straining thought and stammering word,
Across the barren azure pass to God:
Shooting the void in silence like a bird,
A bird that shuts his wings for better speed.

One wonders if the "sod"/"God" rhyme, being six lines apart,actually works, if the
reader's ear can pick it up across thatdistance. Still, the poem has the dialectical
structure thata sonnet is supposed to have, so there is justification for infact
considering it one.

A sonnet takes different forms with the classical sonnet poets but there are two things
that are common and they are the things that make a sonnet instantly recognisable.
 A sonnet has fourteen lines
 A sonnet is written in iambic pentameter
The fourteen lines required for a poem to be a sonnet are made up of rhyme patterns.
There are different ways of organising the rhyme patterns. For example, the sonnet can
be divided into two sections, each section having its own rhyme pattern. They are an
eight line section, called an octet, and a six line section, called a sestet. That is the form
used by the Italian poet, Petrarch, the most famous sonnet writer apart from
Shakespeare. It’s known as thePetrarchan Sonnet or the Italian Sonnet.
The sonnet can also be divided into three four line sections, called quatrains, and a two
line section called a couplet. This is the form Shakespeare uses and the form has become
known as the Shakespearean Sonnet or the Elizabethan Sonnet.
The sonnet expresses a single idea but the division into octaves, sestets, quatrains and
couplets allows the poet to switch the focus, dealing with a different aspect of the idea
in each section..
The rhyme patters look like this. The octet is aabbaabba. All the ‘a’s rhyme with each
other and all the ‘b’s rhyme with each other. The sestet is cdecde or cdcdcd or cddece.
All the words ending the lines with the same letter rhyme with each other.

In Shakespeare’s sonnets, the quatrain patterns look like this. Abab cdcd efef and the
couplet is gg. All the sonnets follow that pattern.

Iambic pentameter refers to the structure of the line. Iambic refers to the name of the foot,
which is composed of a weaker syllable followed by an accented syllable.  For example
the word away has two syllables with a weak stress on the first, a, and a strong stress
on the second, way. The word constitutes a foot or an iambus. Pentameter simply refers
to the number of feet, in the case of the sonnet, five. So if you look at this line from a
Shakespeare sonnet you will see how it works:
I  never writ  nor no  man ever loved

There you have an iambic pentameter. All sonnets use that model and almost all the
lines in Shakespeare’s plays are written in iambic pentameter as well.

So how do poets use this form? This is an example of a Petrarchan Sonnet written by
William Wordsworth. Like other sonnet writers he uses iambic pentameter but, like
Shakespeare, he sometimes disguises it to get the rhythm he wants to make it sound
like everyday speech.

The Octave

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: – A

England hath need of thee: she is a fen – B

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, – B

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, – A


Have forfeited their ancient English dower – A

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; – B

Oh! raise us up, return to us again; – B

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. – A

The Sestet

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; – C


Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: – D

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, – D

So didst thou travel on life’s common way, – E

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart – C

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. – E

Wordsworth invokes the spirit of Milton who he thinks lived in a better time and the
octet is concerned with all the faults he sees in the England of his own time. He
switches the focus onto Milton himself in the sestet to show what greatness was in a
past age.

This is Shakespeare writing about love:

First Quotrain

Let me not to the marriage of true minds -A

Admit impediments. Love is not love – B

Which alters when it alteration finds, – A

Or bends with the remover to remove: – B

Second Quotrain

Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark, – C

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; D

It is the star to every wandering bark, -C

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. – D

Third Quotrain

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks – E

Within his bending sickle’s compass come’ – F

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, – E

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. – F


Couplet

If this be error and upon me proved, – G

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. – G

The first quatrain announces that love is perfect and can’t be affected by anything. The
second quatrain elaborates on that, showing that love is something absolutely stable in
a tumultuous world. The third quatrain switches the focus on to time and suggests that
love lasts forever. The couplet is a final summing up in which the poet stakes his career
on the truth of what he’s revealed about love.

That’s the answer to the question “what is a sonnet?“!


If you want to know more read about the history of the Sonnet. If you want to try writing
your own sonnet find outhow to write your own sonnet.

Read Shakespeare sonnets in modern English >>

THE LOTTERY
Shirley Jackson


Plot Overview

The villagers of a small town gather together in the square on June 27, a
beautiful day, for the town lottery. In other towns, the lottery takes longer, but
there are only 300 people in this village, so the lottery takes only two hours.
Village children, who have just finished school for the summer, run around
collecting stones. They put the stones in their pockets and make a pile in the
square. Men gather next, followed by the women. Parents call their children over,
and families stand together.

Mr. Summers runs the lottery because he has a lot of time to do things for the
village. He arrives in the square with the black box, followed by Mr. Graves, the
postmaster. This black box isn’t the original box used for the lottery because the
original was lost many years ago, even before the town elder, Old Man Warner,
was born. Mr. Summers always suggests that they make a new box because the
current one is shabby, but no one wants to fool around with tradition. Mr.
Summers did, however, convince the villagers to replace the traditional wood
chips with slips of paper.

Mr. Summers mixes up the slips of paper in the box. He and Mr. Graves made
the papers the night before and then locked up the box at Mr. Summers’s coal
company. Before the lottery can begin, they make a list of all the families and
households in the village. Mr. Summers is sworn in. Some people remember that
in the past there used to be a song and salute, but these have been lost.

Tessie Hutchinson joins the crowd, flustered because she had forgotten that
today was the day of the lottery. She joins her husband and children at the front
of the crowd, and people joke about her late arrival. Mr. Summers asks whether
anyone is absent, and the crowd responds that Dunbar isn’t there. Mr. Summers
asks who will draw for Dunbar, and Mrs. Dunbar says she will because she
doesn’t have a son who’s old enough to do it for her. Mr. Summers asks whether
the Watson boy will draw, and he answers that he will. Mr. Summers then asks to
make sure that Old Man Warner is there too.

Mr. Summers reminds everyone about the lottery’s rules: he’ll read names, and
the family heads come up and draw a slip of paper. No one should look at the
paper until everyone has drawn. He calls all the names, greeting each person as
they come up to draw a paper. Mr. Adams tells Old Man Warner that people in
the north village might stop the lottery, and Old Man Warner ridicules young
people. He says that giving up the lottery could lead to a return to living in caves.
Mrs. Adams says the lottery has already been given up in other villages, and Old
Man Warner says that’s “nothing but trouble.”

Mr. Summers finishes calling names, and everyone opens his or her papers.
Word quickly gets around that Bill Hutchinson has “got it.” Tessie argues that it
wasn’t fair because Bill didn’t have enough time to select a paper. Mr. Summers
asks whether there are any other households in the Hutchinson family, and Bill
says no, because his married daughter draws with her husband’s family. Mr.
Summers asks how many kids Bill has, and he answers that he has three. Tessie
protests again that the lottery wasn’t fair.

Mr. Graves dumps the papers out of the box onto the ground and then puts five
papers in for the Hutchinsons. As Mr. Summers calls their names, each member
of the family comes up and draws a paper. When they open their slips, they find
that Tessie has drawn the paper with the black dot on it. Mr. Summers instructs
everyone to hurry up.

The villagers grab stones and run toward Tessie, who stands in a clearing in the
middle of the crowd. Tessie says it’s not fair and is hit in the head with a stone.
Everyone begins throwing stones at her.

Character List

Tessie Hutchinson -  The unlucky loser of the lottery. Tessie draws the paper
with the black mark on it and is stoned to death. She is excited about the lottery
and fully willing to participate every year, but when her family’s name is drawn,
she protests that the lottery isn’t fair. Tessie arrives at the village square late
because she forgot what day it was.
Read an in-depth analysis of Tessie Hutchinson.

Old Man Warner -  The oldest man in the village. Old Man Warner has
participated in seventy-seven lotteries. He condemns the young people in other
villages who have stopped holding lotteries, believing that the lottery keeps
people from returning to a barbaric state.
Read an in-depth analysis of Old Man Warner.

Mr. Summers -  The man who conducts the lottery. Mr. Summers prepares the
slips of paper that go into the black box and calls the names of the people who
draw the papers. The childless owner of a coal company, he is one of the village
leaders.
Read an in-depth analysis of Mr. Summers.

Bill Hutchinson -  Tessie’s husband. Bill first draws the marked paper, but he
picks a blank paper during the second drawing. He is fully willing to show
everyone that his wife, Tessie, has drawn the marked paper.

Mr. Harry Graves -  The postmaster. Mr. Graves helps Mr. Summers prepare
the papers for the lottery and assists him during the ritual.

Analysis of Major Characters


Tessie Hutchinson

When Tessie Hutchinson arrives late to the lottery, admitting that she forgot what
day it was, she immediately stands out from the other villagers as someone
different and perhaps even threatening. Whereas the other women arrive at the
square calmly, chatting with one another and then standing placidly by their
husbands, Tessie arrives flustered and out of breath. The crowd must part for her
to reach her family, and she and her husband endure good-natured teasing as
she makes her way to them. On a day when the villagers’ single focus is the
lottery, this breach of propriety seems inappropriate, even unforgivable; everyone
comes to the lottery, and everyone comes on time. The only person absent is a
man whose leg is broken. Although Tessie quickly settles into the crowd and
joins the lottery like everyone else, Jackson has set her apart as a kind of free
spirit who was able to forget about the lottery entirely as she performed her
chores.
Perhaps because she is a free spirit, Tessie is the only villager to protest against
the lottery. When the Hutchinson family draws the marked paper, she exclaims,
“It wasn’t fair!” This refrain continues as she is selected and subsequently stoned
to death, but instead of listening to her, the villagers ignore her. Even Bill tells her
to be quiet. We don’t know whether Tessie would have protested the fairness of
the lottery if her family had not been selected, but this is a moot point. Whatever
her motivation is for speaking out, she is effectively silenced.
Old Man Warner

Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, has participated in seventy-seven
lotteries and is a staunch advocate for keeping things exactly the way they are.
He dismisses the towns and young people who have stopped having lotteries as
“crazy fools,” and he is threatened by the idea of change. He believes, illogically,
that the people who want to stop holding lotteries will soon want to live in caves,
as though only the lottery keeps society stable. He also holds fast to what seems
to be an old wives’ tale—“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”—and fears that if
the lottery stops, the villagers will be forced to eat “chickweed and acorns.”
Again, this idea suggests that stopping the lottery will lead to a return to a much
earlier era, when people hunted and gathered for their food. These illogical,
irrational fears reveal that Old Man Warner harbors a strong belief in superstition.
He easily accepts the way things are because this is how they’ve always been,
and he believes any change to the status quo will lead to disaster. This way of
thinking shows how dangerous it is to follow tradition blindly, never questioning
beliefs that are passed down from one generation to the next.
Mr. Summers

Despite his breezy, light-hearted name, Mr. Summers wields a frightening


amount of power in the village, power that seems to have been assigned to him
arbitrarily. A married, childless business owner, Mr. Summers is “jovial” and
pitied by the townspeople for having a nagging wife. No one seems to question
his leadership of the lottery, and it seems to have never been challenged.
Perhaps he took on the role himself, or perhaps someone offered it to him.
Whatever the case, he now has complete control. Mr. Summers not only draws
the names on the day of the lottery, but he also makes up the slips of paper that
go into the black box. It’s up to him to make the black circle that ultimately
condemns someone to death. Jackson never explains why the villagers put such
pure faith in Mr. Summers, and the assumption that he will continue to conduct
the lottery is just one more inexplicable but universally accepted part of the ritual.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols


Themes

The Danger of Blindly Following Tradition

The village lottery culminates in a violent murder each year, a bizarre ritual that
suggests how dangerous tradition can be when people follow it blindly. Before we
know what kind of lottery they’re conducting, the villagers and their preparations
seem harmless, even quaint: they’ve appointed a rather pathetic man to lead the
lottery, and children run about gathering stones in the town square. Everyone is
seems preoccupied with a funny-looking black box, and the lottery consists of
little more than handmade slips of paper. Tradition is endemic to small towns, a
way to link families and generations. Jackson, however, pokes holes in the
reverence that people have for tradition. She writes that the villagers don’t really
know much about the lottery’s origin but try to preserve the tradition
nevertheless.

The villagers’ blind acceptance of the lottery has allowed ritual murder to become
part of their town fabric. As they have demonstrated, they feel powerless to
change—or even try to change—anything, although there is no one forcing them
to keep things the same. Old Man Warner is so faithful to the tradition that he
fears the villagers will return to primitive times if they stop holding the lottery.
These ordinary people, who have just come from work or from their homes and
will soon return home for lunch, easily kill someone when they are told to. And
they don’t have a reason for doing it other than the fact that they’ve always held a
lottery to kill someone. If the villagers stopped to question it, they would be forced
to ask themselves why they are committing a murder—but no one stops to
question. For them, the fact that this is tradition is reason enough and gives them
all the justification they need.

The Randomness of Persecution

Villagers persecute individuals at random, and the victim is guilty of no


transgression other than having drawn the wrong slip of paper from a box. The
elaborate ritual of the lottery is designed so that all villagers have the same
chance of becoming the victim—even children are at risk. Each year, someone
new is chosen and killed, and no family is safe. What makes “The Lottery” so
chilling is the swiftness with which the villagers turn against the victim. The
instant that Tessie Hutchinson chooses the marked slip of paper, she loses her
identity as a popular housewife. Her friends and family participate in the killing
with as much enthusiasm as everyone else. Tessie essentially becomes invisible
to them in the fervor of persecution. Although she has done nothing “wrong,” her
innocence doesn’t matter. She has drawn the marked paper—she has herself
become marked—and according to the logic of the lottery, she therefore must
die.

Tessie’s death is an extreme example of how societies can persecute innocent


people for absurd reasons. Present-day parallels are easy to draw, because all
prejudices, whether they are based on race, sex, appearance, religion, economic
class, geographical region, family background, or sexual orientation, are
essentially random. Those who are persecuted become “marked” because of a
trait or characteristic that is out of their control—for example, they are the “wrong”
sex or from the “wrong” part of the country. Just as the villagers in “The Lottery”
blindly follow tradition and kill Tessie because that is what they are expected to
do, people in real life often persecute others without questioning why. As
Jackson suggests, any such persecution is essentially random, which is why
Tessie’s bizarre death is so universal.

Motifs

Family

Family bonds are a significant part of the lottery, but the emphasis on family only
heightens the killing’s cruelty because family members so easily turn against one
another. Family ties form the lottery’s basic structure and execution. In the town
square, families stand together in groups, and every family member must be
present. Elaborate lists of heads of families, heads of households within those
families, and household members are created, and these lists determine which
member draws from the box. Family relationships are essential to how the
actions of the lottery are carried out, but these relationships mean nothing the
moment it’s time to stone the unlucky victim. As soon as it’s clear that Tessie has
drawn the marked paper, for example, her husband and children turn on her just
as the other villagers do. Although family relationships determine almost
everything about the lottery, they do not guarantee loyalty or love once the lottery
is over.

Rules

The lottery is rife with rules that are arbitrarily followed or disregarded. The
intricate rules the villagers follow suggest that the lottery is an efficient, logical
ritual and that there is an important purpose behind it, whereas the rules that
have lapsed, however, reveal the essential randomness of the lottery’s dark
conclusion. Mr. Summers follows an elaborate system of rules for creating the
slips of paper and making up the lists of families. When the lottery begins, he
lays out a series of specific rules for the villagers, including who should draw
slips of paper from the black box and when to open those papers. When
someone is unable to draw, the lottery rules determine who should be next in
line. At the same time, there are ghosts of rules that have been long forgotten or
willfully abandoned altogether, such as those for salutes and songs that
accompany Mr. Summer’s induction as the chairman of the lottery. The fact that
some rules have remained while others have disappeared underscores the
disturbing randomness of the murder at the end of the lottery.

Symbols

The Black Box

The shabby black box represents both the tradition of the lottery and the illogic of
the villagers’ loyalty to it. The black box is nearly falling apart, hardly even black
anymore after years of use and storage, but the villagers are unwilling to replace
it. They base their attachment on nothing more than a story that claims that this
black box was made from pieces of another, older black box. The lottery is filled
with similar relics from the past that have supposedly been passed down from
earlier days, such as the creation of family lists and use of stones. These are part
of the tradition, from which no one wants to deviate—the lottery must take place
in just this way because this is how it’s always been done. However, other lottery
traditions have been changed or forgotten. The villagers use slips of paper
instead of wood chips, for example. There is no reason why the villagers should
be loyal to the black box yet disloyal to other relics and traditions, just as there is
no logical reason why the villagers should continue holding the lottery at all.

The Lottery

The lottery represents any action, behavior, or idea that is passed down from one
generation to the next that’s accepted and followed unquestioningly, no matter
how illogical, bizarre, or cruel. The lottery has been taking place in the village for
as long as anyone can remember. It is a tradition, an annual ritual that no one
has thought to question. It is so much a part of the town’s culture, in fact, that it is
even accompanied by an old adage: “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” The
villagers are fully loyal to it, or, at least, they tell themselves that they are, despite
the fact that many parts of the lottery have changed or faded away over the
years. Nevertheless, the lottery continues, simply because there has always
been a lottery. The result of this tradition is that everyone becomes party to
murder on an annual basis. The lottery is an extreme example of what can
happen when traditions are not questioned or addressed critically by new
generations.

Specific Details


The specific details Jackson describes in the beginning of “The Lottery” set us up for the
shocking conclusion. In the first paragraph, Jackson provides specific details about the
day on which the lottery takes place. She tells us the date (June 27), time (about 10 A . M . ),
and temperature (warm). She describes the scene exactly: there are flowers and green
grass, and the town square, where everyone gathers, is between the bank and post office.
She provides specifics about the town, including how many people live there and how
long the lottery takes, as well as about neighboring towns, which have more people and
must start the lottery earlier. In the paragraphs that follow this introduction, Jackson gives
us characters’ full names—Bobby Martin, Harry Jones, and Dickie Delacroix, among
others—and even tells us how to pronounce “Delacroix.”

Far from being superfluous or irrelevant, these initial specific details ground the story in
reality. Because she sets the story firmly in a specific place and time, Jackson seems to
suggest that the story will be a chronicle of sorts, describing the tradition of the lottery.
The specifics continue throughout the story, from the numerous rules Mr. Summers
follows to the names of the people who are called up to the box. In a way, there is safety
in these details—the world Jackson creates seems much like the one we know. And then
the stoning begins, turning reality on its head. Because Jackson is so meticulous in
grounding us in realistic, specific details, they sharpen the violence and make the ending
so incredibly surprising.

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Foreshadowing and Suspense



Many of the seemingly innocuous details throughout “The Lottery” foreshadow
the violent conclusion. In the second paragraph, children put stones in their
pockets and make piles of stones in the town square, which seems like innocent
play until the stones’ true purpose becomes clear at the end of the story. Tessie’s
late arrival at the lottery instantly sets her apart from the crowd, and the
observation Mr. Summers makes—“Thought we were going to have to get on
without you”—is eerily prescient about Tessie’s fate. When Mr. Summers asks
whether the Watson boy will draw for him and his mother, no reason is given for
why Mr. Watson wouldn’t draw as all the other husbands and fathers do, which
suggests that Mr. Watson may have been last year’s victim.

Jackson builds suspense in “The Lottery” by relentlessly withholding explanation


and does not reveal the true nature of the lottery until the first stone hits Tessie’s
head. We learn a lot about the lottery, including the elements of the tradition that
have survived or been lost. We learn how important the lottery is to the villagers,
particularly Old Man Warner. We go through the entire ritual, hearing names and
watching the men approach the box to select their papers. But Jackson never
tells us what the lottery is about, or mentions any kind of prize or purpose. She
begins to reveal that something is awry when the lottery begins and the crowd
grows nervous, and she intensifies the feeling when Tessie hysterically protests
Bill’s “winning” selection. And she gives a slight clue when she says that the
villagers “still remembered to use stones.” But not until the moment when a rock
actually hits Tessie does Jackson show her hand completely. By withholding
information until the last possible second, she builds the story’s suspense and
creates a shocking, powerful conclusion.

Important Quotations Explained



1. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as
much tradition as was represented by the black box. 

This quotation, from the fifth paragraph of the story, reveals how firmly entrenched the
villagers are in the lottery’s tradition and how threatening they find the idea of change.
The villagers have no good reason for wanting to keep the black box aside from a vague
story about the box’s origins, and the box itself is falling apart. Beyond shabby, it barely
resembles a box now, but the villagers, who seem to take such pride in the ritual of the
lottery, do not seem to care about the box’s appearance. They just want the box to stay
the same. Their strident belief that the box must not change suggests that they fear change
itself, as though one change might lead to other changes. Already, some towns have
stopped holding lotteries, but these villagers do not seem to be headed in that direction.
Instead, they hold firm to the parts of the tradition that remain, afraid to alter even this
seemingly insignificant part of it for fear of starting down a slippery slope.

2. Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business
of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. 

This quotation appears about halfway through the story, just before the drawing of names
begins. Mr. Summers has asked Mrs. Dunbar whether her son, Horace, will be drawing
for the family in Mr. Dunbar’s absence, even though everyone knows Horace is still too
young. There is no purpose to the question, other than that the question is part of the
tradition, and so Mr. Summers adheres to the rule despite the fact that it seems absurd.
Even though other parts of the ritual have changed or been discarded over the years, this
rule holds firm for absolutely no logical reason. Large things, such as songs and salutes,
have slipped away, and wood chips have been replaced with slips of paper. Yet this silly,
pointless questioning continues. The villagers seem strident in their adherence to the
tradition. Old Man Warner, in particular, is adamant that tradition must be upheld and the
lottery must continue. But the reality is that there is no consistency among what rules are
followed and which are discarded. This lack of logic makes the villagers’ blind
observance of the ritual even more problematic because the tradition they claim to be
upholding is actually flimsy and haphazard.

3. Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use
stones. 

This quotation, which appears near the end of the story, distills the lottery down to its
essence: murder. The villagers may talk of tradition, ritual, and history, but the truth—as
this quotation makes clear—is that the traditional parts of it have long been discarded.
The original ritual and box may indeed have borne along a tradition, violent and bizarre
as it may be, but now, without the original trappings, songs, and procedures, all that
remains is the violence. The haphazard ritual, the bits and pieces that have been slapped
together into some semblance of the original, have led to this essential moment of killing.
The villagers are all too eager to embrace what remains, eagerly picking up the stones
and carrying on the “tradition” for another year.

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11 Facts About Shirley Jackson's "The


Lottery"
     21.2K   Share   
Erin McCarthy
filed under: books, Lists

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On June 26, 1948, subscribers to The New Yorker received a new issue of the magazine in the mail.
There was nothing to outwardly indicate that it would be any different, or any more special, than any
other issue. But inside was a story that editors at the magazine would, more than half a century later,
call “perhaps the most controversial short story The New Yorker has ever published”: Shirley
Jackson’s “The Lottery.”
Though now a classic, the story—about a small New England village whose residents follow an
annual rite in which they draw slips of paper until, finally, one of them is selected to be stoned to
death—caused an immediate outcry when it was published, and gave Jackson literary notoriety. “It
was not my first published story, nor my last,” the writer recounted in a 1960 lecture, “but I have
been assured over and over that if it had been the only story I ever wrote and published, there would
still be people who would not forget my name.” Here are a few things you might not have known
about the story.
1. WRITING IT WAS A SNAP.
Jackson, who lived in North Bennington, Vermont, wrote the story on a warm June day after running
errands. She remembered later that the idea “had come to me while I was pushing my daughter up the
hill in her stroller—it was, as I say, a warm morning, and the hill was steep, and beside my daughter,
the stroller held the day’s groceries—and perhaps the effort of that last 50 yards up the hill put an
edge to the story.”
The writing came easily; Jackson dashed out the story in under two hours, making only “two minor
corrections” when she read it later—“I felt strongly that I didn’t want to fuss with it”—and sent it to
her agent the next day. Though her agent didn’t care for "The Lottery," she sent it off to The New
Yorker anyway, telling Jackson in a note that it was her job to sell it, not like it.
2. WHEN THE STORY CAME IN, THE DECISION TO PUBLISH IT WAS
NEARLY UNANIMOUS.
According to Ruth Franklin, who is writing a new biography about Jackson, there was only
oneexception—editor William Maxwell, who said the story was “contrived” and “heavy-handed.”
The rest, though, were in agreement. Brendan Gill, a young staffer at the time, would later say that
"The Lottery" was “one of the best stories—two or three or four best—that the magazine ever
printed.”
3. BUT THEY WERE PUZZLED BY THE STORY.
Even Harold Ross, editor of the magazine at the time, copped to not understanding it. Jackson later
recalled that the magazine’s fiction editor asked if she had an interpretation of the story, telling her
that Ross “was not altogether sure that he understood the story, and asked if I cared to enlarge about
its meaning. I said no.” When the editor asked if there was something the magazine should tell
people who might write in or call, Jackson again responded in the negative, saying, “It was just a
story that I wrote.” 
4. THE EDITORS ASKED TO MAKE A MINOR TWEAK.
The editors did ask for permission to make one small change: They wanted to alter the date in the
story’s opening so it coincided with the date on the new issue—June 27. Jackson said that was fine.

5. THE BACKLASH WAS INSTANT.


“The Lottery” appeared three weeks after Jackson’s agent had submitted it, and there was instant
controversy: Hundreds of readers cancelled their subscriptions and wrote letters expressing their rage
and confusion about the story. In one such letter, Miriam Friend, a librarian-turned-
housewife, wrote “I frankly confess to being completely baffled by Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery.’
Will you please send us a brief explanation before my husband and I scratch right through our scalps
trying to fathom it?” Others called the story “outrageous,” “gruesome,” and “utterly pointless.” “I
will never buy The New Yorker again,” one reader from Massachusetts wrote. “I resent being tricked
into reading perverted stories like ‘The Lottery.’” There were phone calls, too, though The New
Yorker didn’t keep a record of what was said, or how many calls came in.
6. JACKSON GOT A LOT OF HATE MAIL...
Jackson later said that June 26, 1948 was “the last time for months I was to pick up the mail without
an active feeling of panic.” The New Yorker forwarded the mail they received about her story—
sometimes as many as 10 to 12 letters a day—which, according to Jackson, came in three main
flavors: “bewilderment, speculation, and plain old-fashioned abuse.” Jackson was forced to switch to
the biggest possible post office box; she could no longer make conversation with the postmaster, who
wouldn’t speak to her.
Shortly after the story was published, a friend sent Jackson a note, saying, “Heard a man talking
about a story of yours on the bus this morning. Very exciting. I wanted to tell him I knew the author,
but after I heard what he was saying, I decided I’d better not.”

7. … EVEN FROM HER PARENTS.


Her mother wrote to her that “Dad and I did not care at all for your story in The New Yorker … [I]t
does seem, dear, that this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people think about these days.
Why don't you write something to cheer people up?”
“It had simply never occurred to me that these millions and millions of people might be so far from
being uplifted that they would sit down and write me letters I was downright scared to open,”
Jackson said later. “[O]f the three-hundred-odd letters that I received that summer I can count only
thirteen that spoke kindly to me, and they were mostly from friends.”

Jackson kept all of the letters, kind and not-so-kind, and they’re currently among her papers at the
Library of Congress.

8. SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT THE STORY WAS NON-FICTION.


Jackson received a number of letters asking her where these rituals took place—and if they could go
watch them. “I have read of some queer cults in my time, but this one bothers me,” wrote one person
from Los Angeles. “Was this group of people perhaps a settlement descended from early English
colonists? And were they continuing a Druid rite to assure good crops?” a reader from Texas asked.
“I’m hoping you’ll find time to give me further details about the bizarre custom the story describes,
where it occurs, who practices it, and why,” someone from Georgia requested.

Franklin noted that among those fooled were Stirling Silliphant, a producer at Twentieth Century Fox
(“All of us here have been grimly moved by Shirley Jackson’s story.… Was it purely an imaginative
flight, or do such tribunal rituals still exist and, if so, where?”), and Harvard sociology professor
Nahum Medalia (“It is a wonderful story, and it kept me very cold on the hot morning when I read
it.”).
It might seem strange that so many people thought the story was factual, but, as Franklin notes, “at
the time The New Yorker did not designate its stories as fact or fiction, and the ‘casuals,’ or
humorous essays, were generally understood as falling somewhere in between.”
9. THE NEW YORKER HAD A BOILERPLATE RESPONSE TO LETTERS
ABOUT "THE LOTTERY."
It went something like this: “Miss Jackson’s story can be interpreted in half a dozen different ways.
It’s just a fable.… She has chosen a nameless little village to show, in microcosm, how the forces of
belligerence, persecution, and vindictiveness are, in mankind, endless and traditional and that their
targets are chosen without reason.”
10. JACKSON DID WEIGH IN ON THE LOTTERY’S MEANING.
“Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult,” she wrote in the San Francisco
Chronicle in July 1948. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present
and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless
violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.”
11. THE STORY HAS BEEN ADAPTED MANY TIMES.
Though it's most famous for its place on high school reading lists, “The Lottery” has also been
adapted into a number of formats, including a radio broadcast in 1951, a ballet in 1953, a short film
in 1969, and a 1996 TV movie starring Keri Russel that followed the son of the story’s murdered
character. "The Lottery" has also been featured on The Simpsons.
June 26, 2014 - 2:00pm

The Lottery
by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery was published in 1948 and is not in


the public domain.

Accordingly, we are prohibited from presenting the full text here in our short
story collection, but we can present summary of the story, along with by some
study questions, commentary and explanations.
It is important to have some historical context to understand this story and the negative
reaction that it generated when it was published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New
Yorker. The setting for the story, a gathering in a small rural village, wasn't a fictional
construct in America in the summer of 1948. The setting was emblematic of "small town
America" and many people identified directly with the setting and the gathering
depicted. It was customary at that time for rural community leaders to organize
summertime gatherings to draw people together in town centers to socialize, and to
frequent and support some of the town's business establishments. It was thought to be
good for the businesses and good for the community. These gatherings were usually
organized by the city council and featured lotteries with modest cash-prizes to help lure
people into their vehicles for the long drive to town. So the scene was instantly
recognizable to readers -- especially rural readers -- when the story was published, and
they did not like the way that this particular story developed and concluded. Many
interpreted the story to be an attack on the values of rural communities. As a result the
story engendered a great deal of anger and criticism.

Here is a summary of the story, which will be followed by additional commentary.

On a warm summer day, villagers gather in a town square to participate in a


lottery. The village is small with about 300 residents and they are in an excited
but anxious mood. We learn that this is an annual event and that some
surrounding towns are thinking about abandoning the lottery. Mrs. (Tess)
Hutchinson makes an undramatic entrace and chats briefly with Mrs.
Delacroix, her friend.

The night before Mr. Summers, a town leader who officiates the lottery, had
made paper slips listing all the families with the help of Mr. Graves (subtle
name choice?). The slips were stored overnight in a safe at the coal company.
The villagers start to gather at 10 a.m. so that they may finish in time for
lunch. Children busy themselves collecting stones -- one of those odd details
that will later emerge loaded with meaning -- until the proceedings get
underway and they are called together by their parents.

Mr. Summers works down the list of families, summoning the head man of
each household. A male sixteen years or older comes forward and draws a
slip of paper. When every family has a slip of paper, Mr. Summers has
everyone look at the slip and we discover that Bill Hutchinson has drawn the
one slip with a black spot. It's his family that has been chosen. Mrs.
Hutchinson begins to protest. With tension mounting it becomes clear that
"winning" this lottery isn't going to be what we expected, and that the "winner"
isn't going to walk away with a pile of cash.

Once a family is chosen, the second round begins. In this round, each family
member, no matter how old or young, must draw a slip of paper. It is Tess
Hutchinson who draws the slip with the black circle. While Mrs. Hutchinson
protests the unfairness of the situation, each of the villagers picks up a stone
-- "And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles" -- and closes in
on her. The story ends with Mrs. Hutchinson being stoned to death while
protesting, "It isn't fair, it isn't right." The story concludes with six of the most
famous words in short story history, "And then they were upon her."

When the story was released it engendered a very strong negative reaction and backlash
that manifested itself in subscribtion cancellations for The New Yorkerand large amounts of
what could be described as "hate mail" for both the magazine and the author. Shirley
Jackson and the editors at The New Yorker were both surprised by the reaction. Even
Jackson's mother was critical of the work. Here is an excerpt from Jackson herself:

'It had simply never occurred to me that these millions and millions of people
might be so far from being uplifted that they would sit down and write me letters I
was downright scared to open; of the three-hundred-odd letters that I received
that summer I can count only thirteen that spoke kindly to me, and they were
mostly from friends. Even my mother scolded me: "Dad and I did not care at all
for your story in The New Yorker," she wrote sternly; "it does seem, dear, that
this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people think about these days.
Why don't you write something to cheer people up?"'

One literary critic described the story as "a chilling tale of conformity gone
mad." Yes, that's a nice sound-bite to release in a classroom discussion, a
book club gathering or a short story seminar but I honestly doubt that the
letters received by Jackson in 1948 cursed her for writing a tale of 'conformity
gone mad.' I do suspect that some people picked up and reacted strongly to
the idea that Jackson might be suggesting that underneath the idyllic image of
rural communities peopled by wholesome citizens, that there might be a
sinister force waiting to be unleashed. The people in those communities
certainly didn't see themselves that way. I suspect that some folks made
simpler inferences about the story that they still found offensive; that the
stones represented harmful gossip and insults, that these gatherings were a
place where unfounded rumors could be born by chance and inflict real
damage on those targeted; as gathering by gathering, a new "target" might
become subject to slander earned or unearned.

Jackson kept her intended meaning to herself, believing that it would emerge
more clearly with the passage of time. But considering that she was genuinely
surprised by the reaction, it seems logical to conclude that she intended to
make a commentary on general human nature rather than a specific criticism
of rural American communities in the mid-20th century.

Personally, I think the questions of permission and participation make for a


great discussion or essay about this particular short story. As small as the
gathering is, it is an official event and an act of governance. The American
writer and intellectual Henry David Thoreau suggested that you have a moral
responsibility for your government; that when the government does something
wrong -- say, handing out "free" small-pox infected blankets to Native
American Indian tribes -- that it's not right to simply blame the government,
because by extension that government belongs to you and acts on your
behalf. So the blame belongs to you as well. That is part of the foundation for
many of the ideas he advocates in his essay On Civil Disobedience.

In The Lottery, I see questions regarding the use of force: would you voluntarily


participate in an annual lottery like this? Yet the people come every year. Why? I also
see questions about permission and consent. Are people willing to tolerate the
possibility of bad things happening in their community as long as the odds of it
happening to them are low and the cost of speaking out and protesting against it might
be high? What are we willing to trade off or compromise in order to be part of a
community? How do these questions relate to modern American culture and politics
where some people -- an increasing number -- believe that some individual liberty
should be sacrificed for the good of the community while others believe that individual
liberty and the freedom to make personal choices is the highest consideration. That can
be a difficult question for some, and they wish to answer it with compromise: "Of course
*some* individual liberty must be sacrificed." This story may be useful for removing the
middle ground and raising guiding principals to the surface for consideration.

For those of you that have landed on this page looking for the secret to
winning the lottery, I have a few thoughts . . .

First, good luck to you. I hope you win.

Second, there is no magic formula and the odds of winning are extremely low.
So balance your participation modestly, never spend more than you can
afford. Enjoy dreaming about what you will do if you win.
Lastly, keep in mind, that no matter how often you play and lose, your worst
loss is better than Tess Hutchinson's win!

                 

8.0

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