2. What is a Sonnet?
A sonnet is a poem written in a special metered form. You can identify a sonnet if the poem has the following characteristics:
In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then (first 12 lines) resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet.
Written in iambic pentameter, a poetic meter with 10 beats per line made up of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.
All Shakespearean sonnets have 14 lines which can be broken down into 3 sections called quatrains. Last two lines are called a couplet.
The rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG
The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains with four lines each.

3. Iambic Pentameter
Iambic pentameter is meter that Shakespeare nearly always used when writing in verse. Shakespeare’s plays are written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse.

4. How to Read Sonnets
Identify and label each quatrain and the rhyme scheme
Look up words of which you are doubtful or that appear to have multiple meanings – Checkout the Oxford English Dictionary online (
Keep in mind - The sonnet is like an essay: It develops an idea over a sequence of lines, or tells a short story, or meditates on a problem or paradox.
A Shakespeare sonnet has three quatrains, and a couplet. The “turn” can come at various places - sometimes in the last quatrain. The couplet also often features a restatement of the main idea, or a novel perspective on it.

5. Reading Sonnets
Try to restate it in plain English. – Translate line by line
See what possible double meanings, puns, and other linguistic/poetic devices are in the poem.
Underline or otherwise note any words that are unfamiliar or seem to be carrying a great deal of semantic weight.
What larger themes does the sonnet evoke, beyond the single issue or problem posed by the words?

6. Explicating Sonnets
An explication is a close reading of a single poem or passage of poetry. The purpose of this exercise—originally a staple of French literary training from secondary school onward—is to talk about the meaning(s) of the poem primarily in terms of how the poem works— that is, through diction, stanza and line structure, meter, rhythm and imagery.

7. Your Task: You will be explicating a Shakespearean sonnet! 
Be sure to refer to your notes often! Using the glossary of words, my Shakespeare Dictionary and the guided notes, read through the sonnet slowly and carefully.
Feel free to TPCASTT the sonnet if you think that might help! Hint, hint!