Poetry in Two Parts. Part II: My Sonnet

I thought I might write about my old passion, a passion which I hope may be resurrected at some point in my life. If you consider the exact words I chose, I remember how hard it was for me to get up the courage to do it sometimes; If you know me well you know I have little to no self-confidence.

If I may here is a video of Für Elise, the very first Beethoven piece I ever learned to play. I remember tearing up because I wondered how such a beautiful melody could ever have come from my own hands. Do not laugh at me! I was a little kid!

---
Overwhelmingly it gleams before me
As I set my hands upon the famed keys
The hidden melodies desire appease
What part do I meet with difficulty?

Supposedly everything seems ideal
With no one at home and I there alone
This stranger, I think, should become my own
Suddenly my courage becomes crucial


Convoluted notes become less cryptic
Wrists fly and fingers delicately dance
This sensation, it is quite euphoric


This wooden giant I came across by chance
Upon which melodies flow, as magic
Any mind, should this not serve to entrance?
---


Well, there you have it. It's not very good and it was hard to write, but honestly it really took me back. Maybe I will be inspired to take it up again, hopefully sometime soon...

PS - A Petrarchan sonnet, it follows this rhyme scheme:

ABBA

ABBA

CDC
DCD

Petrarch invented this sonnet sequence, which is why we refer to it as a "petrarchan sonnet." A sonnet is basically like a little song, in which there are usually 14 lines that follow a strict rhyme scheme (like the one listed above) and a certain structure. Oftentimes they employ the use of iambic pentameter, meaning that each line has a meter with every other syllable stressed, so 5 of the 10 syllables of that line (this is very hard to accomplish!). Shakespeare used the iambic pentameter as well. We also encounter that nagging translation problem again when attempting to take Petrarch's sonnets and translate them from the vernacular Italian into English. The lines may not always match up, but they must still maintain the theme (and the meter and the rhyme).

This link will take you to a cool website I found that includes a couple of examples of Petrarchan sonnets. I particularly like the second one, because as the website states, it is a memorial poem to that woman, Laura, that Petrarch loved (and, honestly, obsessed over) from afar. That is the cool thing about sonnets: they really allow a great range of freedom to express the writer's emotions; in Petrarch's case, I imagine ecstasy, joy, sadness, soul love (NOT courtly love), etc. He expresses a great knowledge of self in his writings. He seems to explore his "self" (vs. the medieval investment in).

Like Dante, he was exiled from Florence, and also like Dante, he is interested in the ideal. However, when Dante writes, the split between the pilgrim and the poet is very hard to see, whereas with Petrarch, it is much more explicit, as seen in his My Secret and his various sonnets. I find that Petrarch is very sincere and at times, is also very hard on himself (hmm... sounds familiar).