The Shakespearean sonnet Mr. McNeil English I Romeo and Juliet Unit Southbridge Middle/High School

RHYTHM the pattern created by stressed and unstressed syllables of words in sequence

METER an ordered pattern of rhythm

IAMBIC PENTAMETER common metrical line in English poetry and drama a single metrical “foot” two syllables the first is stressed, the second is unstressed sounds like: da DUM marked as: x / EXAMPLE: a-TTEMPT

IAMBIC PENTAMETER “pentameter” indicates five iambic feet the Latin root “penta-” means five ten total stressed and unstressed syllables sounds like: da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM marked as: x / x / x / x / x / EXAMPLE: shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer’s DAY? Why iambic pentameter? a line of iambic pentameter is metrically closest to the natural rhythm of human speech and is the length of a natural breath the regular rhythm made the lines easier to remember for actors and easier to listen to for audiences

BLANK VERSE regular metrical, but unrhymed lines of poetry the meter is almost always iambic pentameter by far the most common metrical style used in English poetry since the 1500s Elizabethan Age (1558-1603) Romantic Age (1780-1850) William Blake Christopher Marlowe William Wordsworth William Shakespeare Samuel Taylor Coleridge John Milton Lord Byron Paradise Lost (1667) Percy Bysshe Shelley John Keats

RHYME The repetition of identical sounds in the last syllables of words.

END RHYME the repetition of identical sounds at the ends of lines of poetry

RHYME SCHEME a pattern of rhyme at the ends of poetic lines

STANZA a grouped set of lines within a poem, usually set off from other stanzas by a blank line or different indentation stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, though stanzas are not strictly required to have either a stanza is often compared to a paragraph in prose in that they are both related thoughts grouped into units in music, groups of lines are typically referred to as verses

QUATRAIN a stanza consisting of four lines the Latin root “qua-” means four

COUPLET usually two lines of poetry that have the same meter and rhyme rhyming couplets are one of the simplest rhyme schemes in poetry couplets in iambic pentameter are called “heroic couplets”

How does it all come together?

THE SONNET strict poetic form consisting of fourteen lines iambic pentameter four quatrains and a couplet rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG includes a “volta” or “turn” the volta is a shift or change in thought or emotion commonly occurs in the third quatrain the volta is Shakespeare’s poetry and drama often occurs in the final heroic couplet