Lesson video

Hi, everybody.

I can't believe we've reached lesson four already.

So welcome.

Today we're going to continue looking at Sonnet 14.

But this time we're going to be looking at the building blocks of the poem.

And I love building blocks.

I don't know if you played with Lego, when you were smaller, you may still play with Lego.

There's something so satisfying about putting things together and then looking at how they make a whole.

And today this is what we're going to be doing.

Can that all the structural building blocks that go into making this poem.

So welcome.

In this lesson, you're going to need an exercise book or some paper to write on, you can either pen or pencils to write with.

And of course you going to need your brain really focused on what it is that we're doing.

So take some time to clear away any distractions.

Mute any notifications on your mobile devices, and then you'll be ready to go.

What do we already know about Elizabeth Barret-Browning and Sonnet 14? Well, actually we know quite a bit.

So let's start by reminding ourselves what we know about her.

And let's start as we always do by looking at her life.

So take a careful look at the statements on the screen.

They are four statements about Barrett Browning.

Two of them are true, and two of them are not.

They're slightly trickier than the ones you've done before.

So it makes sure that you read them really carefully.

On your paper, I'd like you to write the letters A to D underneath each other and next to each letter, a T, if it's true and an F, if you think it's false.

Remember two are true and two are not.

So press pause to start the task and play when you're ready to continue.

And here are the answers.

Statement a is true.

Statement b is not because we know that she was not sure In fact, she was quite unsure and conflicted about her feelings for him.

And because she wasn't confident about his feelings for her as well.

Statement C is false because she didn't dare to write about her love in letters to him.

Instead, she wrote them in poems, which she kept secret for a long time.

And statement D is true.

Press pause if you want to check your answers and then press play when you're ready to continue again.

And now, of course, it's time to recap what we know about Sonnet 14.

And we're going to start again by recapping what we know about her uncertainty, about her feelings.

And this is really important because it helps us to understand why she wrote Sonnet 14 in the way she did.

So of course, the first thing she was uncertain about, or the first reason that made her uncertain about falling in love with him was her age.

And the second one we know was her health.

And the third one, yes I can hear you shouting, was her beliefs.

Her age, her health, and her beliefs, and all of these things left her feeling conflicted.

So when you're ready, press pause to have a go at writing them in your book and then press play when you are ready to resume.

I know you don't even need to check because you know these really, really well.

So if you need to press pause, please do, and then press play, hen you're ready to go or just move on and go straight on to Sonnet 14 itself.

Our focus for today is going to be on the structure of the poem.

And as we always do, let's start by reading the poem.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought, except for love's sake only.

Do not say 'I love her for her smile, her look, her way of speaking gently, for a trick of thought that falls in well with mine, and certes brought a sense of pleasant ease on such a day.

' For these things in themselves, beloved, maybe changed or change for thee, and love so wrought, maybe un-wrought so.

Neither love me for thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry.

A creature might forget to weep.

Who bore thy comfort long and lose thy love thereby.

But love me for love's sake that evermore thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Now we've looked at Language features in the poem.

We did that in lesson three.

In lesson four, we're going to be looking at structural features of the poem.

We're going to be building a multicoloured structure power by the time we're done.

So the first thing we're going to look at is the form of the poem, and the fact that it is a sonnet.

Now it's a sonnet, because it has 14 lines.

It's a special kind of sonnet.

Two kinds of sonnets, One is Petrarchan and the other is Shakespearian and both the kinds of sonnets are named after the person who made them famous.

So Petrarch was the man who made this form of sonnet famous.

And so it's called the Petrarchan Sonnet.

And the first structural feature of the sonnet that we going to look at is the fact that it is written in Iambic pentameter.

But don't worry if you think, Oh my goodness, I have no idea what Iambic or Pentameter means because we're going to look at it right now.

So if we look at this part of the sonnet, you'll see that I've given you some symbols above each line and the symbols have to do with what makes it Iambic.

So Iambic simply means that when we read it through, or when we say things, the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed.

So if we were going to read it following structural feature, it might sound something like if thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake, do not say.

And you'll see how every single line in the poem, all 40 lines follow that same pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables.

Now this pattern of Iambic way of organising syllables is often used in love poetry, because it has to do or it resembles the sound of the heartbeat.

And so it's not unusual.

In fact, it's very common to see it our poetry, and Barrett Browning has done exactly that in this poem.

So every line is written using the Iambic model of structure.

And all that pentameter means is that they are five pairs of syllables in every line.

Penta of course means five.

So it means there're five pairs of Iambic syllables in every line.

And here's the interesting Iambic, Barret Browning did it for every line.

So there's a lot of control there.

She thought about this really carefully.

Every single one of these 40 lines is written using the same model, the same structural feature, and that is using Iambic Pentameter.

So if we're thinking about the poem, we can say that Barrett Browning Sonnet 14 is a Petrarchan Sonnet.

Barret Browning uses the structures of the sonnet including the Iambic Pentameter metre to control her emotions, because she wants to be sure that he, Barret Browning loves her for the right reasons.

So I'm going to set you a bit of a challenge as we go through the structure of the poem.

We're going to ask you every time we look at a different feature to pause the video, I mean to run this out, filling in the gaps in your book.

So pause it do your writing, and then press play when you're ready to resume.

Welcome back.

And it's time to check what you have written.

Remember it's a Petrarchan sonnet.

And so you might want to make sure that you've spelled it correctly.

And of course if you used iambic pentameter.

So press pause to pause the video, check your answer, check your spellings, and then press play when you are ready to resume.

And that brings us to a second set of the building blocks.

This time, we going to look a little more closely at two different structural features of the sonnet.

So what can we say about the sonnet? It's divided into two parts.

And this is of course, how Petrarchan sonnet works.

The Petrarchan sonnet are divided into two parts.

So those two parts are called an octave and sestet.

And the clue there is in the words themselves, because octave means eight lines and sestet means six lines.

So the 14 lines are divided into two parts.

And each part has a very particular rhyme scheme.

So you can see how the parts work.

You can see that they separated because each part has its own rhyme scheme.

Now all of those letters may mean absolutely nothing to you, but don't worry because we're going to have a look at the poem itself, and you're going to see why we have ABBAABBA, CDCDCD as a rhyme scheme.

Let's have a look.

Now the rhyme scheme has to do with the last sound in every line.

So it has to do with whether they rhyme or not, and which words rhyme with each other.

So the first line ends with the word nought.

So that is the A in the rhyme scheme.

The second line ends in the word say, so that is rhyming sound B.

But then if you look at line three, it ends in way so say and way rhyme with each other So we can have another B.

And line four, thought rhymes with nought.

So we have an A.

So we can see that the rhyme scheme for the first four lines is ABBA.

And what often happens in a Petrarchan Sonnet is that, that rhyme scheme will be repeated in the next set of four lines.

So your octave have the rhyme scheme, ABBAABBA.

And this sonnet is no exception.

When we get to the sestet, all changes a little bit.

And there are many different ways that poets would use to make the sestet lines rhyme with each other.

The model that Browning has chosen is CDCDCD.

So the line nine, 11 and 13, they run with each other and lines 10, 12, and 14 they rhyme with each other.

So we have a Petrarchan model of the poem being divided into two parts, an octave and sestet.

And you can actually see the division really clearly because of the way the rhyme scheme works in those two parts of the poem.

So now it's time for you to have a go.

So we're going to continue writing about structure and you are going to have a go and writing about the rhyme scheme of the poem.

So press pause and give yourself some time to write and then press play when you're ready to resume.

Welcome back.

Let's check what you have written.

You may want to press pause just to check that you've got the rhyme scheme exactly right.

And of course also that you've spelled rhyme scheme correctly.

And press play when you are ready to resume.

Wow, we've reached the third set of building blocks.

The third set of building blocks is about something called a Volta.

And why a Volta helps us to think about a purpose in a poem.

So let's read through our three purple blocks and see what they say about the Volta.

So a Volta in a poem is a turning point, and it's often signalled by a word like 'but'.

We know that when we use the conjunction, but, in a sentence, it generally gives the listener a clue that whatever's going to follow is turning around from what went before.

So for instance, I like coffee, but I try not to drink too much of it.

So a Volta is often signalled by a word like that.

Normally in Petrarchan sonnet, the volta would sort of be at around line nine.

So you'd have one way of thinking maybe in the octave and then the sestet might be something slightly different, or it might build on the ideas of the octave.

The Barret Browning's Volta is not a typical one.

Let's have a look showing.

So what Barret Browning does that is unusual is that her Volta early arrives in line 13.

But she's being generous to the reader.

She makes it really clear to us that it's coming because line 13 starts with the word 'but'.

And the reason that it comes so late in the poem is because she's stealing an idea from Shakespeare.

She's using an idea that Shakespeare often used in his summons, which is where the last two lines sort of sum up your ideas for the whole poem.

So though it's a Petrarchan sonnet, she's doing something a little bit different and she leaves the Volta watch to line 13.

She gives us a clue because nine 13 starts with the word 'but' and in the Volta, she is summing up her beliefs about love.

'Love me for love's sake, that evermore thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

' This is her belief about love.

Then it's something that flows freely forever.

So now it's your turn to do some writing, press pause, have a go and then press play, when you're ready to resume Welcome back.

You may have noticed that the challenge is getting a bit greater.

I've given you a few more things to think about in this piece of writing.

So press pause to check what you've written, and press play when you are ready to continue.

And just like that, we're at our final set of building blocks.

And here we've got a lovely word, Enjambment.

So you can hear it comes from French.

Enjambment is something that's peculiar to poetry.

In other words, we only find it when things are written in verse.

It's not in novels, it's not in prose.

It's something that's all about writing in verse.

And what it means is that there is no punctuation at the end of the line.

So in poetry, when there's no punctuation at the end of the line, it's called enjambment.

And it means that the lines run into other.

So let's have a look at how Barrett Browning used enjambment.

And it's line 13 and 14 again, isn't it? So let's see.

So she says, 'but love me for love's sake, that evermore thou mayst love on' So there's no punctuation at the end of line 13.

So we run straight into line 14, and we're not meant to stop.

So the enjambment, there's no stopping at the end of line 13, reflects her idea of the love never ending.

So what she's done that's really, really clever is she's got her Volta and her enjambment to work together in these two lines.

To reflect her beliefs about love and her belief or her idea is, his love will flow freely forever.

So now it's time for you to have a go at writing.

Some more gaps to filling.

A lot of gaps in this one.

So something is used in poems when the writer does not, something at the So press pause and have a go, then press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Oh, well done.

If you've managed to fill in all the gaps, lots of words, lots of tricky words to spell.

So press pause to check that you've got the words correct, but also that you've spelled things correctly and then press play, when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

So now we've built our tower.

We've got four sets of blocks in different colours.

Each set has got three mini blocks, so let's go through them together.

Shall we? We'll start with four.

So sonnet 14 has 14 lines, no surprise it's a sonnet, but it's a Petrarchan sonnet named after Petrarch.

And it's written in Iambic pentameter.

The second set of building blocks is about how it's divided.

It's divided into two parts, the two parts are the Octave and the sestet.

And each part has its own rhyme scheme.

That's really important.

Sets it apart from the others.

The third set of structural building blocks has to do with the Volta.

And a Volta is a turning point after a signal by a word like, but.

In this poem, the volta is not typical, because it's really close to the end of the poem.

And the final feature is enjambment.

There is no punctuation at the end of the line.

And the lines run on into each other.

So I've got a bit of a challenge for you.

I want you to pause the video and have a go at copying this table into your books and filling in all the bits that are missing.

Sometimes it's a whole statement and sometimes it's just words in a statement.

So press pause to have a go and then press play when you're ready to check your work.

Welcome back.

How many of those did you manage to fill in? I'm sure that most of you have managed to fill in all of them, but you know what, if you didn't, that's okay.

It's always good to practise.

So it's good to check what we know.

And this is something you could practise again and again, after the lesson.

But for now, press pause to check your answers, filling in anything that you might've missed and then press play when you're ready to go.

And just like that, we're at the last task in the lesson.

So now, it's a chance for you to write a paragraph on the structure of Sonnet 14.

Don't forget, you've got all the tools you need.

You just need to put it together into a paragraph.

So pause the video to complete your task and press play to resume once you've finished.

See here we have an example of what you could have written.

Now, remember your words.

Don't have to be exactly the same as mine, but it's really useful if all the bits that I've got in different colour type on your paragraph.

So the fact that it's a Petrarchan sonnet, the fact that she uses Iambic pentameter and that rhyme scheme, which you may have mentioned in your paragraph, the Volta, why it's unusual and the use of enjambment.

So press pause to check your answer and then press play, when you're ready to resume.

Thank you for joining me for lesson four in our sets of five on Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Don't forget to do the exit quiz and take care, I hope to see you for session five.