Sonnet — week 6
The sonnet follows an untraditional pattern and has a rhyme scheme following abab cdcd efef gg. In the poem The Useful by W.H. Auden, it is very clear and evident of the words syncing at the end of each line. Even as the stanzas separate into new ones, the rhyming pattern still continues. Such as in the first overlapping stanzas, A (witch) B (stone) A (rich) B (alone) C (male), then a new paragraph begins, D (ceased) C (fail). Although the poem follows this throughout almost the whole thing, it has a special case at the end of this one. Instead of being, efef gg it goes e (wish) f (way) g (fight) g (light) f (convey) e (gibberish). The rhymes tie back which makes it its own new scheme but similar to the original form. One rhyming couplet that stuck out most in Auden’s poem to me though was “whose argument converted him to stone / the over popular went mad alone” (Auden). I think that this couplet stands out to me because it seems like someone’s opinion puts them into this paralyzing state because nobody agrees with them and is ignoring them. The second line is when after the isolation hits and the realization sets in on how lonely it truly is.
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Auden, W.H. “The Useful.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U of Michigan P, 2016, p. 306.
