1. Shakespeare’s Sonnets
The Mysteries of Love

2. About the Sonnets
Written in sonnets total Speaker is male Chief subject is love

3. Raise Many Questions
Is the sonnets’ speaker a dramatic character invented by Shakespeare, like Romeo, Macbeth, or Hamlet, or is he the poet himself?
If the sonnets are about the real man Shakespeare, then who are the real people behind the characters the sonnets mention?
Is the order in which the sonnets were originally published (probably without Shakespeare’s consent) the correct or the intended sequence? Could they be arranged to tell a more coherent story? Should they be so arranged?
In the 1609 publication, who is the “Mr. W.H.” mentioned as the “only begetter” of the sonnets; the young man? Someone else?

4. What is a Sonnet?
Derived from Italian word sonnet, meaning “little sound; song”
Sonnet: 14 line lyric poem that conforms to strict patterns of rhythm and rhyme.

5. 2 Kinds of Sonnets Petrarchan Shakespeare
Perfected by Italian Francesco Petrarca
Two Parts:
8 line section called an octave
Followed by 6 line section called sestet
2 Part Statement: questions-answer, problem-solution, theme-comment
Transition between 2 parts called volta usually found in 9th line
Perfected by Britain William Shakespeare
14 iambic pentameter lines divided into 3 quatrains and a couplet
Iambic pentameter: rhythmic pattern with each line consisting of 5 unstressed syllables alternating with 5 stressed syllables
Rhyming scheme abab cdcd efef gg
Logical organization of ideas varies from sonnet to sonnet

6. Sonnet 18 A question and tentative answers The Turn A final answer
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 in his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed. 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 grow’st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. A
B First Quatrain B
A question and tentative answers C
D Second Quatrain D
The Turn E
F Third Quatrain F G
G Couplet
A final answer

7. About the Sonnets Further
In his first 126 sonnets, Shakespeare celebrates his devoted friendship with a younger man, which he presents as a higher, less selfish relationship than his passionate loved for a particular woman.
Woman (the “dark lady”) is subject of remaining 28 sonnets.
Identities of the young man and dark lady have never been determined.

9. Let’s Read! Page 279: Sonnet 29 Page 283: Sonnet 116
Page 285: Sonnet 23 by Louise Labe