1. 9H English Ms. Bauer THE SONNET

2. What is a sonnet? The sonnet is a 14-line lyric poem. “Lyric” means the poem discusses the poet’s emotions.

3. How did sonnets develop? The sonnet form developed in Italy during the Renaissance, when the poet Petrarch used the form to write a series of poems about his love for Laura. Since Laura was married to someone else, Petrarch couldn’t tell her he loved her, so he used sonnets as a way to express his secret feelings.

4. How did sonnets develop? English Renaissance poet Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet form into English, both translating Petrarch’s sonnets into English and composing his own sonnets similar to Petrarch’s. By Shakespeare’s time, the style of Petrarchan love sonnets (also known as Italian sonnets) had become familiar enough for Shakespeare to joke about. Shakespeare wrote the most famous series of sonnets in English, but he and other Elizabethan poets modified the nature of the form.

5. Shakespearean Sonnets 14 lines: divided into 3 quatrains of alternating rhyme, and 1 couplet Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG Each quatrain develops a specific idea and establishes a theme or problem The theme or problem is resolved in the couplet. The form …

6. Iambic Pentameter Shakespeare’s sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter. In iambic pentameter, each line contains 10 syllables. The syllables are divided into 5 pairs called iambs. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of 1 unstressed syllable followed by 1 stressed syllable