Frame Analysis

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Frame Analysis “Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow” is a poem about author Edna St. Vincent Millay’s conflicts with faithfulness and love and how she felt love was only temporary and being faithful and true in a relationship would keep her from being true to herself. It is a Shakespearean sonnet. As such, it is organized into iambic pentameter and uses a traditional rhyme scheme. It also includes a traditional turn at line 12. [10 points] The ideas and images presented in the poem follow its formal organization. However, the Shakespearean sonnet is the most flexible form allowing for the poem to follow the fluctuation of an octave/sestet and flows as a [(8)+(4+2)]. Thus, the first eight lines form the octave with a shift just before the ninth line. The last six form the sestet, which is broken up into four lines then there is the turn and the last two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter create the heroic couplet. This formation works particularly well for “Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!” because she presents her problem in the first eight lines by giving two examples back to back of reasons that would cause her to leave. Since the first eight lines all connect a central idea they would not work as well if they formed two quatrains. The sestet is formed beginning with “But” in line nine. The last six lines resolve the problem by the (4+2) method, because lines nine through twelve answer the problem and then the heroic couplet accentuates the resolution in elevated diction. [10 points] The poem, however, deviates from the standard structure of the Shakespearean sonnet in the following ways. For one, slant rhyme occurs in lines three and five. The poet also chooses to break the rules of the form by changing the meter in lines three and five. Lines three and five have eleven syllables instead of ten causing them to have five and a half feet. At the end of

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