1. Shakespeare and his sonnets

2. william shakespeare Born 1564 and died in 1616
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon
Considered the greatest English writer of all time
His plays and sonnets have translated into all languages, musicals and ballets

3. information you might not hear
Shakespeare was a teen father: he married a pregnant, 26 year old Anne Hathaway when he was 18 years old
Was the father of twins
Could be considered a “deadbeat dad,” as he left his wife and children for a London stage career.
Some of his writings may have been plagiarized; he was accused of stealing ideas for plays from the writer Christopher Marlowe

4. Playwright or poet?
Shakespeare is best known for his many stage plays. Some of these titles include:
Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet
King Lear
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Taming of the Shrew
Macbeth
Much Ado About Nothing
Julius Caesar
However, Shakespeare is also famous for writing SONNETS!

5. Sonnets Sonnet: a lyric poem of 14 lines.
There are two common species of sonnet, distinguished by their rhyme scheme
Italian
Shakespearean
The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains and a couplet.
The rhyme scheme for a Shakesperean sonnet is typically abab cdcd efef gg

6. Quatrain Quatrain Quatrain Couplet
Quatrain and couplet
Quatrain: a four-lined stanza in a poem.
Couplet: a two-line portion of a poem that usually rhymes
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all to short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Quatrain
Quatrain
Quatrain
Couplet

7. Iambic pentameter
Shakespearean sonnets are written in iambic pentameter.
Iambic pentameter is a particular rhythm used in lines of poetry.
It is measured in small groups of syllables called “feet.”
“Iambic” signifies the type of foot that is used: unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables.
“Pentameter” indicates that a line has five of these “feet” or combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables.

8. Shakespearean turn
Most Shakespearean sonnets include a feature called a turn.
This turn is the moment in the poem where the theme or tone (writer’s attitude) changes in a surprising way.

9. Sonnet 18 Read and annotate the sonnet for the following:
Label the quatrains and couplet
Label the rhyme scheme
Paraphrase the sonnet line-for-line
Note any poetic devices that you see present
Label the “turn” in the tone of the poem