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

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

3. METER
an ordered pattern of rhythm

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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 ( )
Romantic Age ( )
William Blake
Christopher Marlowe
William Wordsworth
William Shakespeare
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
John Milton
Lord Byron
Paradise Lost (1667)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
John Keats

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

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

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

10. 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

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

12. 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”

13. How does it all come together?

14. 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