During the Art-A-Thon event, I decided to go to the sonnet workshop, held by Professor Laura Kolb,  because it fit perfectly in my schedule. If I’m honest, I went into the event with low expectations because I already had small ideas of what sonnets were, so I thought that the workshop was not going to be so interesting. However, to my surprise, the workshop helped me realize that I am naive for thinking that my “small ideas” were enough to help me fully understand a sonnet. I found this out when Prof. Kolb asked questions about the basics of sonnets , and I knew the answers to almost none of them.

Theres a lot of new information that I learned about, that I did not know about before. For example, I didn’t know that sonnets were usually about romance and that sonnet meant “small sound.” One of the most surprising facts was that Rhymes have genders in sonnets, feminine rhymes have 2 or more syllables and masculine rhymes have only 1 syllable, and that stressed and unstressed syllables play a huge part in how we read the sonnet out loud. Even though sonnets are riddles, where peoples identities are meant to be hidden and not found out, they should be experienced physically first before mentally. This meaning sonnets should be read out loud first, before being interpreted.

The actual sonnet that was reviewed by Prof. Kolb and the class was Shakespeare’s sonnet 20. At first I had no idea as to what the sonnet meant, but with Prof. Kolb’s guidance it slowly became clear what the sonnets meaning was. I thought that the sonnet was for a woman, with Shakespeare expressing his love for her. However, by the end of class it became clear that the sonnet was for a man and Shakespeare was expressing both his satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the person. Shakespeare loved how the man was very feminine, but hated how the man was a man so they couldn’t love each other. Shakespeare was upset that the man had male genitalia, so they could not properly love each other in those times. I was shocked by the meaning because at first glance, the sonnet did not seem like it was written for a man.

Overall my experience with the sonnet workshop was very positive, because I learned new things and had a great Professor who guided us along the way. The professors passionate and enthusiastic way of teaching, I believe, helped make the experience more enjoyable for me. Before the workshop, I would not have known that some sonnets can take over an hour to analyze and they can be extremely complex. I am grateful to Prof. Kolb for helping me gain new knowledge regarding sonnets.

.