Posted by L. T. Holliday on February 02, 19101 at 08:32:40:
In Reply to: Re: Shelley's posted by Dave on January 30, 1999 at 13:26:11:
: : I met a traveller from an antique land
: : Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
: : Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
: : Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
: : And wrinkled lip, and the sneer of cold command,
: : Tell that its scupltor well those pions read
: : Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
: : The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
: : And on the pedestal these words appear:
: : 'My name is Ozymandias, king of Kings:
: : Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
: : Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
: : Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
: : The lone and level sands stretch far away.
: While Ozymandias seems to have the basic
: characteristics of a sonnet, the rhyme scheme
: is one I have not seen in any other sonnet.
: Am I missing something, or did Shelley make
: up his own rules on this.
Shelley was using the rhyme scheme of the English sonnet, not the Italian sonnet. The English (also known as Shakespearean) sonnet's rhyme scheme is ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Shelley uses this form in order to gain flexibility of words with which to rhyme, as English is a rhyme-poor language. However, he does tend to use the Italian development pattern (8/6) instead of the traditional English development pattern (4/4/4/2).
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