How would u start off on a report on sonnet 116?

Question

u can read my other questions to know what i am talking about.
need some help....

Answer 1

Aw, c'mon. Surely you can take the ideas we've given you in previous responses and make them your own. Then decide what YOU want to say and how YOU want to say it. (And if you use some of our ideas, welcome. But be sure to give us and Yahoo! Answers credit in your endnotes or list of works cited!)

If you're writing an essay in English class and want it to sound as if you're responding to a question on your final exam, take sleepy's advice and start out with the mechanics of the poem. That will be boring and will lose any readers' interest right away (turn any reader into someone "sleepy"), but it can prove you've learned what you were supposed to learn. That's the kind of response I, as an English teacher, would give a B- to: OK, you know the right terms; you just don't know how to make them interesting or give them your own original, personal twist.

If, on the other hand, you are writing because you want your essay to be read and to be interesting, then the first thing to do is to figure out who your audience is and what they might be interested in. Let's assume they're relatively young, sorta interested in literature, maybe curious about literature in the real world. You might begin like this:

"Which one of Shakespeare's sonnets would you suppose is read over and over again at wedding ceremonies? Why do you think it's meaningful at that exciting time in life? Why do people still read it after some four hundred years?

"Well, it's Sonnet 116. And its continuing popularity is not because it's written in praise of a beautiful bride (though that is implicit in the imagery of the sonnet). And it's not because it's written by someone looking forward to the pleasures of a bridal night (though that is definitely not irrelevant!). I think it's because . . . ."

Now, go ahead and give your thoughts. Maybe three or four main reasons. Why DO you think this poem is still read after 400 years? And why DO you think it's read so often at weddings? Because it's about ideal, everlasting love--the "marriage of true minds"? Because it uses conventional imagery in a fresh way to show that true love does not change with time? Or maybe because it sounds good to the ear, using all sorts of figures of sound to give the listener pleasure at the same time it speaks its message?

That's beginning to sound like a real essay to me. One worth an A. But it's not there yet. It has to be your essay written in your voice.

You decide. You write.

Now if you're writing for an English teacher who doesn't let you use such an informal style, then adjust the style to the situation. Keep in mind WHO you are writing the essay for (OK, for whom you are writing). But don't ever forget: it's YOU who are writing this essay. It has to say what YOU think in a way that sounds as if YOU are saying it in your own voice. Because you are.

(And then giving credit where credit is due!)

Answer 2

ah, that's my absolute favorite shakespearean sonnet. i find it easier to write reports on poems by beginning with the technical things. i would start off by describing the way it is written, iambic pentameter... that sort of stuff, how there aren't really any turns in this sonnet as opposed to other shakespeare sonnets and what that could mean, etc. after all the technical stuff, i would write about the themes of the sonnet, the imagery. interpret the poem into simpler terms. (break it down) and last i like to write who i would imagine saying the sonnet and to whom. for example, for sonnet 116 i would imagine someone who is renewing their vows, they have been with their spouse for a long time, they know them well and wouldn't change anything about them, not even the bad things (not...bends with the remover to remove).
that's just one way of approaching it though. i hope it helps you.