Nearly Everything You Wanted to Know About [Shakespeare] Sonnets

Sonnets 14 line lyric Single stanza Iambic pentameter line Intricate rhyme scheme Often written in narrative sequences—sonnet sequence Often concerned with love and desire Diversity of sonnet models

Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet Named for Petrarch 2 main units Octave—eight line section—rhyming abbaabba Sestet—six line section—rhyming cdecde or variation (e.g. cdccdc) Octave presents problem or poses scenario that is answered or resolved in sestet Becomes imitated in English by Milton, Wordsworth, and Rossetti

English Sonnet Also known as Shakespearean sonnet Three quatrains (4 line poetic section) with a final couplet abab cdcd efef gg Presents three views of perspectives on a problem or scenario with epigrammatic conclusion in final couplet Flourishes in Renaissance—time of cultural renewal and revival in which classical texts are rediscovered and re-valued

Poetic features of sonnet Conceits—yoking together of disparate concepts or images Metaphor—expression in which one kind of concept or activity is compared or applied to notably distinct kind of concept or activity (e.g. he’s a fox) Metonymy—literal term for one concept or action is used to denote closely related concept or action (e.g. crown)

Poetic features of sonnet Synecdoche—a part of concept or thing is used to denote the whole of concept or thing (40 head [of cattle]) Petrarchan conceit—conceits (usually about women, love, and beauty) used in love poems that were original when Petrarch used them but became hackneyed and parodied by later English writers Antitype—New Testament correlatives to Old Testament Types Blazon—Poetic technique in which individual (often woman) is imagined or portrayed by partitioning the body into specified metaphors; mock-heraldic description Bombast—pretentious, verbose, and inflated diction that is notably inappropriate to the matter it signifies

Just to Note: Shakespeare wrote 154 Shakespearean Sonnets Shakespeare also wrote poetry that didn’t follow the Shakespearean sonnet format however he is most famous for the Shakespearean Sonnet.

Shakespeare’s Poetry Shakespeare is known for his invention of the Shakespearean sonnet. These sonnets are 14 lines long. Have an ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG rhyme scheme. Are all written in Iambic Pentameter. Iambic Pentameter has 10 syllables per line and follow an unstressed/stressed pattern. The last two rhyming lines are called a Heroic Couplet

Sonnet 118

A B A B / U / U / U U / U / C 2 4 6 8 10 D 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 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. C D E F E F G G

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.

The End. . . More or Less. . . .