1. Shakespearean Sonnets
English 11

2. What is a sonnet?
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter.

3. About sonnets
In Shakespeare’s time, the popular topic for sonnets was LOVE--or a theme related to love
Sonnets are often written as part of a series, with each sonnet as a sequel to the previous one.
However, many sonnets could stand alone as separate poems.

4. Petrarchan Sonnet Divided into two sections:
an octave (ABBA ABBA),
and a sestet (usually CDE CDE, CDC CDC, or CDC DCD).
Typically the octave will describe a problem, and the sestet will propose a resolution.

5. Shakespearean Sonnet Divided into 3 quatrains and 1 couplet:
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Like the Italian Sonnet, typically the English sonnet will present a problem in the quatrains, and suggest a resolution in the couplet.
The meter of Shakespeare's sonnets is iambic pentameter (except in Sonnet 145).

6. Poetic Form
Sonnets have a certain structure as well as a rhyming pattern.
The Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains followed by a couplet, the scheme being: abab cdcd efef gg.
Quatrains are four line stanzas of any kind

7. Iambic pentameter
Iambic Pentameter is the rhythm and metre in which poets and playwrights wrote in Elizabethan England. It is a metre that Shakespeare uses.

8. Heartbeat Quite simply, iambic pentameter sounds like this:
dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM.
It consists of a line of five iambic feet, ten syllables with five unstressed, and five stressed syllables.
It is the first and last sound we ever hear; it is the rhythm of the human heartbeat.

9. pentameter An ‘iamb’ is ‘dee Dum’ – the heart beat.
‘Penta’ is from the Greek for five.
Meter is the pattern
So, there are five iambs per line (iambic penta meter)

10. Iambic pentameter
Iambic Pentameter is percussive and attractive to the ear and has an effect on the listener's central nervous system.
An Example of Pentameter from Shakespeare:
but SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS

11. syllables “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks.”
How many syllables are there in that quotation?
Underline the stressed words.

12. Sonnet 18 – William Shakespeare
Quatrain 1 (four-line stanza) 
A  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s Day?
B   Thou art more lovely and more temper ATE :
A   Rough winds do shake the darling buds of MAY,
B   And summer's lease hath all too short a DATE :

13. Sonnet 18 Quatrain 2 (four-line stanza)
C   Sometime too hot the eye of heaven SHINES,
D   And often is his gold complexion DIMM'D;
C  And every fair from fair sometime de CLINES,
D   By chance or nature's changing course un TRIMM'D;

14. Sonnet 18 Quatrain 3 (four-line stanza)
E    But thy eternal summer shall not FADE ,
F    Nor lose possession of that fair thou OWEST ,
E    Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his SHADE ,
F    When in eternal lines to time thou GROWEST ;

15. Sonnet 18 Couplet (two rhyming lines)
G    So long as men can breathe ,or eyes can SEE;
G    So long lives this, and this gives life to THEE .

16. Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare    As any she belied with false compare.

17. Analyzing sonnet 18 Analyze Sonnet 130 by answering questions #1-9
Questions are on the last page of the handout