Creative Traditional:

[Sartor]

PLAYGROUND
A Shakespearean sonnet

Born free and wild, now his unquestioned slave.
With siblings she was captured and controlled.
Her master could be either knight or knave.
Without his love, life would be dark and cold.
He dresses her in green and white and blue,
then showers her with kisses from above,
though just a slave, to him she will be true,
now and forever he shall have her love.
But wait, see now the children in the yard,
they play about the staff with tethered ball,
‘tis but a game, although they hit it hard,
the ball is captured, never can it fall.
Think back! The master and the slave have worth,
the staff our sun, the tethered ball this earth.

Sartor

[Moonchild]

Wonderful Sonnet and perfectly structured
and formed Sartor. Love the closing couplets.
Clever ending that I didn't expect.
Very creative and very well done!

[Sartor]

Moonchild........thank you for your reply. I see you understand the proper form of the Shakespearean sonnet. The main theme, that theme extended, the twist and the new conclusion. So many people have no idea how or why it is formed in such a manner.

[JolieH]

Nice Sartor,
Such deep meaning to contemplate, sometimes I think my mind is like the ball, with so many of life's systems and responsabilites perpetuating me around the never ending staff. It's only a dream to cut the rope and bounce endlessly in which ever direction I chose.

I should try to write a sonnet. I think I tried a couple times, but didn't feel happy with the results. I am aware of number of lines, rhyme and meter, but I didn't know about , the main theme etc... so why is it formed in this manner?

[Sartor]

Jolie.........The Shakespearean Sonnet..........also known as the English Sonnet.........derived from the many sonnets that Shakespeare, mostly using this theme. What is the theme? It is a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in the sonnet. You see Jolie, other then the number of line, the strict rhyme schemes and the first, second and third quatrains ending with the couplet, the English Sonnet has an inherent argument in the way it builds up. How it builds up is related to it's metaphors and how it moves from one metaphor to the next. It goes like this:

First quatrain....introduces the main theme. In PLAYGROUND........my theme is our Sun & Earth. The theme is disguised as a slave (the earth) with siblings (the planets in our solar system) and the Master (our sun)

Second quatrain....the theme and metaphor is extended or complicated. Here I talk of how she is dressed........Green and Blue.......(the oceans and continents) and how he showers her with kisses..(without the sun and rain all life on earth would die)

Third quatrain....Now comes the twist or you may think of it as a conflict. It usually always starts on the ninth line and many times that first word is "but". Notice in my twist, how I have taken the entire first two quatrains and changed the theme of the poem so far. From a Master with slaves to children in a playground. The reader is now somewhat confused as to just what the theme is.

Couplet....The final two lines are a couplet. it summarizes and leaves the reader with a new, concluding image. For now I tell the reader to think back from the playground tetherball to the master slaves and explain that the theme of the poem is the sun and the earth.

Hope you gain something from this...................Thanks again for replying to the poem.

Sartor