Tag Archives: Italian Sonnet

Hell has finally frozen over… twice….

Posted by David Emeron on
  1. I actually bought a single track (from iTunes–as it was not available somewhere more convenient)
  2. I am actually posting a YouTube video.

Two firsts.

The following is called “I Do” and is written, arranged, and performed by Yoko Kanno, a composer and musician with which animé fans will be quite familiar.  The vocal is performed by Ilaria Graziano, and is in Italian, a language which shares some mechanics with Japanese in that both languages are unaccented–very unlike English in this regard.  This makes both languages very suitable for libretto.

The Italian here is beautifully pronounced–crystal clear, bell-like–and is very easy to understand due to the  pure vowels and consonants of the language; I have only a passing acquaintance with it (although my father spoke it fluently.)

This piece was used in its entirety during the closing credits of a special episode of “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.”  There are perhaps better links to the audio on YouTube, however this one offers up the Original Italian and an English Translation.  I found a few more links there, one of which is actually a section of the show in which the song was used.  The audio in these is somewhat better than in the embedded video below.   Enjoy!

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Follow-Up on Teaching Sonnets | Wanderings in the Labyrinth

Posted by David Emeron on

Andrew
Aug 22, 2013 @ 10:15:42

One thing at a time. :-)

It’s been my experience that students can count syllables, and get 10 syllables into a line, far easier than they can match the iambic pentameter. The iambic pentameter only came for me after about thirty sonnets — so I think it’s less of a priority. We want students to get over three hurdles first: writing fourteen lines, writing a rhyme scheme, and writing ten syllables in a line. The iamb can come later, because it’s a “sounds like this” issue, which gets solved by kids who care about writing more than one or two.

I could have sworn that it was Dershowitz, but it’s now been at least a decade since I read the report, and the name of the lawyer has long since escaped me. It was about the time of the O.J. Simpson trial, as I recall, or before, so it may not be on the Web — given that it was 1994. It was a profile of a prominent lawyer of the era, might have been Harper’s magazine or The Atlantic…

As for your sonnet sequence, I like it. It conveys feelings of doubt and uncertainty, and solitude; but it’s very much rooted in internal feeling and abstract language, rather than in the macrocosmic world of objects and things and processes. I tend to lean more into the world of objects than you, but it may be an advantage in the poetry world these days.

via Follow-Up on Teaching Sonnets | Wanderings in the Labyrinth.

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Sonnet: The Third Law

Posted by David Emeron on

When breaks the dawn again affirming day,
This iridescent treasure, doth the sun,
Come supplely spreading visions, doth the one
Who made it known in every spreading ray;

When, just as day began, its noble way
Can never be impeded. Neither shun,
That life itself hath once again begun;
That never will its paradox delay.

The measure of a a man shall always be
His motion, or determinicity;
His ever ready willingness, to shine
As will he, ever happiness to find.
For such is life, as such is ever light,
That finds its final triumph in the night.

Sonnet VIII: His Hand

Posted by David Emeron on

Look ye upon this hand and then suppose
Ye know its master’s strength; as must it be
perceived, its width and length are plain to see,
conceived for war or mercy as he chose.

From grace to passion, powerful it flows’
To keep ye captive; both extremes agree;
Enrapt, gave ye desire with strength to free
Such still and racing hearts as passion knows.’

To bate thy breath, its mastery displayed,
To touch thee known, or thee beyond compare,
And bind thy strength, or thee thy beauty there;
Command in both, this hand shall be obeyed:
Such frailty and such power thus are swayed;
Perfection to ensnare,  succumb, prepare!

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet VI: Exalted

Posted by David Emeron on

In aire, dost–poise thou in His image–fly
Perfection! bronzed against Hyperion’s blaze;
Exalted! at thy nadir by His rays;
With mastery! dost thou hold thy piece of sky.

In aire, for thee, hath stopt all time; on high,
At perfect flexion, as His Son displayed:
Retract, and tense, ’til once thou deign obeyed
His gravity, that deign thou not defy.

Down! by His unseen force, to Earth art thrown;
Descend thou! as I gasp–thy devotee.
Thou! slicing air! perfection still outshone!
And twist! and roll! and turn! to all degree!
As fly thou through devoted hands alone
With thee, who hast so Godly kist the sea.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet V: Colours

Posted by David Emeron on

Here, these colours in secret dost thou touch;
Here, in reddest violet I thou pursue;
Yet only black as night, and yet as blue
That thou, my bright, my shadow, painted much.

And here, the spectroscopic span is such;
And here, chromatics some might misconstrue;
Unknown, such hues have painted far too few;
As whitest white is not so grey a crutch

To magnify protection’s light of worth.
And worthy light, prismatic as the sun,
Shall stream as bright toward golden compass points;
And venerable shades shall then unearth,
When newer hues are finally outdone,
Our touch as art–as colours–us, anoints.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet II: Unleashed

Posted by David Emeron on

For this I want, though seldom would disclose;
Or hesitate to vaunt, or to posses.
Regarding friendship’s trial, I might obsess
Beyond consideration, while the throes

Wherewith I drown myself… so rapt, bestows
Determination bound.  But not unless
Desired, desire’s object might profess.
Admired and familiar, this repose

I name: delightful, wickedness. Revere
This touch I frame as art, or I implore,
Or even further; know this would appear
Unleashed, to go where one cannot ignore.
Severe and certain, certainly sincere,
Mine own to this explore, but not endear.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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