Prominent moods portrayed in Smiths sonnet are sadness, curiosity, and envy. These moods are displayed through Smith’s choice of wording. For example the first line, ‘Poor Melancholy bird—that all night long’, uses …show more content…
The iambic stresses fall on words that help portray the moods and such as liberty, melancholy, tender, sorrow and mournful. For example, line 13 ‘Ah! Songstress sad! That such my lot might be,’ has the stresses falling on songstress, sad, such, lot and be. Of course pulled apart, these stresses do not offer any meaning; however, when put together the meaning of the line has more emphasis due to the iambic pentameter.
Though normally Iambic pentameter is fairly common among most sonnets it is prevalent to note Smith often ends certain lines in her sonnets with an unstressed syllable such as love, flow or breast; ending each line on a soft note. This use of unstressed soft syllables gives Smith’s sonnets a mournfully feminine tone. Although it was common of the time to stick to a traditional Shakespearean sonnet Smith favoured the Petrarchan method; made relevant during the renaissance era by poet Francesco