Shakespearean Sonnets All That You Needed To Know…and MORE!

What is a Sonnet? A form of poetry invented in Italy 14 lines with a specific rhyme scheme The term sonnet derives from the Italian word sonetto, which means "little song"

Before Shakespeare… The Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374) popularized the sonnet more than two centuries before Shakespeare was born.

SHAKESPEARE! William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets Sonnets 1 through 126: address an unidentified young man with outstanding physical and intellectual attributes. The first 17 of these urge the young man to marry so that he can pass on his superior qualities to a child!

Shakespeare! cont… In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare declares his own poetry may be all that is necessary to immortalize the young man and his qualities.   In Sonnets 127 - 154, Shakespeare addresses a mysterious "dark lady"–a sensuous, irresistible woman of questionable morals who captivates him........

Shakespeare! cont.. Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in London in the 1590s during an outbreak of plague that closed theaters and prevented playwrights from staging their dramas.  

Anatomy of the Shakespearean Sonnet Rhyme Scheme of Shakespeare’s sonnets: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG The first, second, and third stanzas have four lines with alternate rhymes, called quatrains The fourth stanza is called a couplet.

Anatomy of the Shakespearean Sonnet, continued… Shakespearean Sonnets always begin with a QUESTION or a PROBLEM The TURN in a sonnet (indicated by But, And, or So) precedes a shift or change in the sonnet

Anatomy of the Shakespearean Sonnet, continued… Shakespearean sonnets also incorporate iambic pentameter in each line Iamb = two syllables: unstressed stressed (U /) Pentameter = five times per line TOTAL: 10 syllables per line

Iambic Pentameter exemplified U / U / U / U / U / Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Notating the different stresses is called scansion.

Sonnet #18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too 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 ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet #18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too 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 ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.