Examining Models

PARODY

Erik Didriksen, Pop Sonnet: Royals

What started as a creative challenge turned into a popular Tumblr, where Erik Didriksen put a modern spin on an old poetic form. Didriksen’s study of music helped him recast popular songs as Shakespearean sonnets, in full iambic pentameter. As you read, look for phrases from the original song lyrics reimagined in Shakespeare’s diction.

image

Reading the Genre

Question

1. It may seem strange to convert a pop song into an archaic poetic form, but it takes a considerable understanding of both the song and the form. What do you learn about “Royals” from this text? Can you explain the main themes of the song after reading this?
One possible answer might be: From the Pop Sonnet, the reader learns that the speaker has seen wealth from afar but is not rich, and that she doesn’t care that she can’t attain that kind of status—she believes she’s better off without it.

Question

2. Visit the Pop Sonnet Tumblr and look at some other examples of Didriksen’s conversion of pop songs into sonnets. Can you come up with some rules or guidelines for how this conversion is best done?
One possible answer might be: One rule for converting a pop song into a sonnet would be to pick a song with broad appeal. The most popular songs often contain themes that are repeated across time, and putting those ideas, experiences, and sentiments into Shakespearean terms will come more naturally.

Question

3. WRITING: Look up the fictional Twitter feed of a famous dead author. Examples include Samuel Johnson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Flannery O’Connor, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then, read or reread some original works by these authors. Comparing these social media quotes with the originals in context, what can we learn? What is lost? Why would someone want to tweet as Flannery O’Connor (or another famous author)? What do you have to know about the author’s style, themes, and biography to select their quotes correctly?
One possible answer might be: The Mark Twain Twitter feed provides pithy quotes from the author relevant to today’s events. We learn just how Twain’s ideas still resonate, but we lose their original context—while his words might still apply today, we don’t always know from the tweets to what he was referring. The person behind the Twitter feed might want to make Twain’s work more popular or relevant, or might just be a big fan who enjoys watching his or her favorite author “interact” with others in real time. You have to know a lot about the author and his or her style to pull this off well.

Question

4. CONVERTING POETRY TO SONG: Look up Shakespearean sonnets, and choose one to use for this activity. Read your chosen sonnet closely and identify at least one major theme (love, loss, sorrow). Then, match the sonnet and its theme with a song, and draw some parallels between the sonnet and the song.
One possible answer might be: Sonnet 35 (“No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done”) has a clear parallel in the 1990s hit song “Lovefool,” by the Cardigans. In both the sonnet and the song, the speaker acknowledges that his or her beloved has not behaved well and doesn’t love the speaker back, but in both cases, blames himself or herself and accepts the deception as necessary to love.
[Leave] [Close]