1. Nearly Everything You Wanted to Know About Sonnets
And Probably Didn’t Want to Ask

2. 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

3. 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

4. Iambic Pentameter
 Iambic Pentameter is a poetic form which poets and playwrights typically used to write poems in Elizabethan England. It is the meter that Shakespeare mostly uses.
Meter in poetry is a rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables arranged into feet.
Iamb: has the first syllable unaccented and the second accented.
Shall I / com pare / thee to / a sum / mer’s day?
Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18"
foot

5. For the sound of Iambic Pentameter, think of a heartbeat
it 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

6. An example of Iambic pentameter from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet:
but SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS

7. Iambic Pentameter – put it all together
Shall I / com pare / thee to / a sum / mer’s day?
foot
foot
foot
foot
foot
Pentameter

8. 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

9. Spenserian Sonnet Minor variation of English sonnet
Still three quatrains and final couplet
Quatrains linked by continuing rhyme
abab bcbc cdcd ee

10. 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)

11. 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

12. Things we see in the sonnet
Organic form—internal form, structure, balance, and organization
Stock characters—recognizably conventional figures
Stock responses—recognizably conventional responses
Stock situations—recognizably conventional settings

13. Things we see in the sonnet
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

14. Carpe Diem “Seize the Day!”
A sentiment that is often used to indicate the fleeting nature of our existence. This can be used in a positive or a negative light—as this indicates hope for something immediate and gratifying, but it also indicates that it does not matter what we do, because it is all transitory—yippee!

15. Shakespeare’s Poetry 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.

16. 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

17. The End. . . More or Less