The event that I attended was focused on how to read a sonnet. I had an interesting experience in this event because it taught me a lot. Before I went to the event, I had no idea what a sonnet was except that it had something to do with Shakespeare. I learned that each sonnet is the same size; it all has 14 lines that are the same length and 10 syllables that make up 140 in one sonnet. Sonnets are usually about love and romance. In Shakespeare’s sonnets, it is written to one person, usually a lady. The sonnets don’t give clear answers to who it is about because it is mainly consisted of riddles. I also learned that the word “sonnet” means little sound.
There is a way to read sonnets and it’s not the way you normally read a text. In order to read a sonnet, there are three steps; first, you have to listen to what it sounds like when you read. By sound, you have to focus on the syllables and which ones are stressed or unstressed. The sonnet rhymes in feminine rhymes and masculine rhymes. Feminine rhymes have two or more syllables, which is what Shakespeare uses most of the time. Masculine rhymes only have 1 syllable. The next thing you have to do when reading a sonnet is to think about what it means. The last thing you have to do is figure out how the sound affects the meaning of the sonnet.
We received a sonnet from Shakespeare and had some people read it out loud. It was frustrating for me because I didn’t understand what it was trying to say and it also sounded wrong in my head because there was no rhythm to it like a a poem. After we read it out loud, the professor played a recording of a man reading the sonnet and it sounded better to me because he knew how to emphasize on certain words. After that we broke down the sonnet into quatrains by looking at the words that rhymed. Overall, I enjoyed the event because it helped me learn how to read Shakespeare better.
