A Pretty Good Explanation of Sonnets

I took a couple of weeks off to think about the future of this site, and to figure out if I want to continue.  I do, at least for now.  I am enjoying reading these sonnets, and like making them more accessible, and work at reading them.  Would love to have more listeners/commenters, but that will hopefully come with time.

In the interest of making the work more accessible, here’s a high school teacher, teaching Senior English, all about Sonnets.  He does a great job of explaining sonnets to high school students, where people are most likely to first experience or encounter sonnets.

I don’t know what book he is referring to, but it does not matter.  He explains iambic pentameter, the rhyme scheme, quatrains, couplets, and the structure of sonnets.    He does a pretty good job of explaining it.  It’s a little nostalgic for me, not because I took his class, but because you can hear the kids in the background whispering to each other, and being a little bored.  My teacher was very different, but I recognize that high school vibe completely.

He also is teaching the sonnets of Spenser, who is the next poet we are going to explore next week.  We will start with Sonnet 1, which he also discusses, but we will then go further and read some he doesn’t discuss.

In the meantime, enjoy this blast of the past  back into high school with a pretty good high school English teacher.  (Although I’m not fond of the way he says Renaissance.  He kind of says “Rennysaunce”)