12/14/2016
Student Resources in Context­ Print
Construction: Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast
as Thou Art
EXPLORING Poetry, 2003
"Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art." is a sonnet, a traditional poetic form characterized
by its length of fourteen lines and its use of a set rhyme scheme. Although there are many variations
on the sonnet form, most are based on the two major types: the Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet and the
Shakespearean, or English, sonnet. In different ways, "Bright Star!" resembles both. While its rhyme
scheme is that of the Shakespearean form—three quatrains rhyming abab cdcd efef, followed by a
couplet rhyming gg—its thematic division most closely follows the Petrarchan model. In this type of
sonnet, the first eight lines, or the octave, generally present some kind of question, doubt, desire, or
vision of the ideal. The last six lines, or the sestet, generally answer the question, ease the doubt,
satisfy the desire, or fulfill the vision. In Keats's poem, the first eight lines explore the steadfastness of
the star, which watches over nature "with eternal lids apart." The speaker longs to be just "as
steadfast," yet like the star, he needs something to watch over. In the sestet, he turns his attention to
his love, the object of his eternal vigilance.
Source Citation
"Construction: Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art." EXPLORING
Poetry, Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context,
link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2114503658/SUIC?u=tall78416&xid=8dbfb3ed.
Accessed 14 Dec. 2016.
Gale Document Number: GALE|EJ2114503658
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