Shakespearean “Insult” Sonnet:
Your Opportunity to Put Shakespeare’s Words to Your Deepest, Darkest Thoughts!
Write an original sonnet for someone or something you wish to insult using language from Shakespeare’s day and age. This can be a character in a book you have read or television show you watch, a sports rival, academic nemesis, an actual person with whom you have a legitimate gripe, or a completely fictional recipient. It could also be written for an object which you dislike or have strong negative feelings for.
You will need to:
- begin with an interesting title.
- follow the Shakespearean Sonnet rhyme scheme (ABABCDCDEFEFGG).
- include one example of alliteration and one example of assonance (please underline both).
- introduce the nature of the conflict, gripe, problem, situation in first four lines.
- develop this conflict, gripe, problem, situation etc. using at least 4 insults created from the Shakespearean Insult Kit (see list below).
- resolve the conflict in a final couplet that ends with a witty twist!
- Include a minimum of 5 words that Shakespeare “coined” or invented, which we still use today. See list.
- ONLINE EXTENSION: Post your insult to the discussion topic I have created. Once you post your insult sonnet, read the sonnets posted by your peers and reply to at least 2 other students!
Shakespeare Insult Kit: Take one word from each column and you will have a Shakespearean style insult!
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
artless base-court apple-john
bawdy bat-fowling baggage
beslubbering beef-witted barnacle
bootless beetle-headed bladder
churlish boil-brained boar-pig
cockered clapper-clawed bugbear
clouted clay-brained bum-bailey
craven common-kissing canker-blossom
currish crook-pated clack-dish
dankish dismal-dreaming clotpole
dissembling dizzy-eyed coxcomb
droning doghearted codpiece
errant dread-bolted death-token
fawning earth-vexing dewberry
fobbing elf-skinned flap-dragon
froward fat-kidneyed flax-wench
frothy fen-sucked flirt-gill
gleeking flap-mouthed foot-licker
goatish fly-bitten fustilarian
gorbellied folly-fallen giglet
impertinent fool-born gudgeon
infectious full-gorged haggard
jarring guts-gripeing harpy
loggerheaded half-faced hedge-pig
lumpish hasty-witted horn-beast
mammering hedge-born hugger-mugger
mangled hell-hated joithead
mewling idle-headed lewdster
paunchy ill-breeding lout
pribbling ill-nurtured maggot-pie
puking knotty-pated malt-worm
puny milk-livered mammet
qualling motley-minded measle
rank onion-eyed minnow
reeky plume-plucked miscreant
roguish pottle-deep moldwarp
ruttish pox-marked mumble-news
saucy reeling-ripe nut-hook
spleeny rough-hewn pigeon-egg
spongy rude-growing pignut
surly rump-fed puttock
tottering shard-borne pumpion
unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane
vain spur-galled scut
venomed swag-bellied skainsmate
villainous tardy-gaited strumpet
warped tickle-brained varlot
wayward toad-spotted vassal
weedy unchin-snouted whey-face
This is the insult sonnet I wrote to share with my class to model the activity:
Ode to Demon Donuts
The sweet smell of glazed sugar tortures my senses.
Thou tempting spongy guts gripeping maggot pie.
For a laughable moment my will power lapses and my body tenses.
My mouth waters-a world without donuts would make me cry.
Oh, bandit! I hate the monumental temptation you cause
Thou frothy full gorged apple john fritter
At the window in amazement staring at the varied options I pause.
Impossible to eat without creating countless crumbs that litter.
Myself a mangled milk livered malt worm!
Momentarily savage, strength gone, radiance drained, beauty faded.
My addiction champion; my resolve no longer firm.
No choice; frosting on lips, cheeks, fingers; self-respect raided.
A saucy swag bellied hugger-mugger,
Cause of your weakness- no longer fashionable and jeans’ll be snugger.
One response
If you’re going to aspire to write sonnets in the style of Shakespeare, then you need to pay attention to metre as well as vocabulary and rhyme scheme; Shakespeare’s sonnets are conventional in the sense that they never, ever deviate from iambic pentameter.