{"id":4439,"date":"2011-07-30T08:45:35","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T12:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4439"},"modified":"2011-07-30T08:45:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T12:45:35","slug":"poem-memory-tip-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4439","title":{"rendered":"Poem Memory Tip # 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some poems contain a line that seems almost perfect.\u00a0 Or if not perfect, at least rare, clever, beautiful, and therefore, completely memorable.\u00a0 I recently finished memorizing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99<\/a> and recited it to my bride on our 3oth wedding anniversary this past week.\u00a0 The poem’s theme is familiar: the sight of something beautiful, in this case flowers, reminds the poet of his love.\u00a0 In fact, he can’t even see or smell flowers without being reminded of her and in fact, finding her superior to any of them.\u00a0 Robert Burns’ poem, Of A’ the Airts<\/a>, conveys the same theme.<\/p>\n

Here are the first five lines of Sonnet 99.<\/p>\n

The forward violet thus did I chide:
\nSweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
\nIf not from my love’s breath?\u00a0 The purple pride
\nwhich on the soft cheek for complexion dwells
\nIn my love’s veins thou hast too grossly died.<\/p>\n

Line two is an example of a rare, lovely line.\u00a0 Its structure and melody, its rhythm and flow make it easy to remember.\u00a0 It almost memorizes itself.\u00a0 First, it contains ten syllables, just what you’d expect from a sonnet.\u00a0 Second, it fits a rhyme scheme (smells and dwells).\u00a0 But the almost magical part is the interplay of S<\/em> and Th<\/em>.\u00a0 Except for the words whence<\/em> and didst<\/em>, every word begins with either S<\/em> or Th<\/em>.\u00a0 The last six words alternate Th<\/em> with S<\/em> and form a kind of melody.\u00a0 When memorizing a line like this, it helps to know the pattern.\u00a0 And if, while memorizing, you get stuck on a particular word, you can at least know that it starts with an S<\/em> or a Th<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Memorize a poem.\u00a0 Discover a perfect sentence.\u00a0 Make your bride smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some poems contain a line that seems almost perfect.\u00a0 Or if not perfect, at least rare, clever, beautiful, and therefore, completely memorable.\u00a0 I recently finished memorizing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99 and recited it to my bride on our 3oth wedding anniversary … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[663,147,662],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4439"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4470,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439\/revisions\/4470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}