1. Shakespearean Sonnets

2. The Basics 14 lines EXACTLY 3 quatrains, 1 couplet Iambic Pentameter
Shakespearean rhyme scheme
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Theme within the ending couplet ©

3. What is a Quatrain? A quatrain is four lines of rhyming poetry.©
A quatrain is four lines of rhyming poetry.
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.

4. What is a Couplet? A couplet is two lines of rhyming poetry.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. ©

5. What is Iambic Pentameter?
Iambic pentameter describes the rhythm within lines of poetry; specifically, five FEET of iambic rhythm or meter (same thing). ©

6. What is a Foot? In poetry, a FOOT refers to a set of two syllables.©
In poetry, a FOOT refers to a set of two syllables.
today
the dog
hello
goodbye

7. It’s not TOday. It’s toDAY.
What is an Iamb? ©
An Iamb consists of two syllables (one foot) that have an unstressed, stressed pattern.
today
It’s not TOday. It’s toDAY.

8. What is Pentameter? ©
Pentameter refers to the meter (rhythm) in a poem when it has FIVE feet in one line.
Think pentagon (five sides)
Shall I compare thee to a sum mer’s day?

9. What is Rhyme Scheme?
Rhyme scheme is the pattern that ending words follow. ©

10. Shakespearean Rhyme
All Shakespearean sonnets follow the same rhyme scheme, which is:
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG ©

11. Like This: © www.thissavvylife.com
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (A)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (B)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A)
And summer's lease hath all too short a date. (B)
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (C)
And often is his gold complexion dimmed; (D)
And every fair from fair sometime declines, (C)
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; (D)
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (E)
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, (F)
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, (E)
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. (F)
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (G)
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (G) ©

12. Ready for Application?
Let’s do a close reading of the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet.
See if you can recognize these qualities within this poem. ©

13. The Prologue, Romeo and Juliet
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. ©

14. Sonnet 29 When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heav'n with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate.
  For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
  That then I scorn to change my state with kings

15. Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved

16. Sonnet 113 Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flow'r, or shape which it doth latch.
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favor or deformèd’st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
  Incapable of more, replete with you,
  My most true mind thus makes mine untrue.

17. Sonnet 30 -Spenser
My love is like to ice, and I to fire: how comes it then that this her cold so great is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire, but harder grows, the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, but that I burn much more in boiling sweat, and feel my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told that fire, which all thing melts, should harden ice: and ice which is congealed with senseless cold, should kindle fire by wonderful device? Such is the pow'r of love in gentle mind that it can alter all the course of kind.