Shakespearean Sonnets

Shakespearean Sonnets

• Also known as the English sonnet• A sonnet is a form of

lyric poetry• Most common topic

of sonnets is love• Shakespeare wrote

154 sonnets

Shakespearean Sonnets

• Composed of 14 lines• Contains three four-line stanzas known as quatrains and a two-line unit called a couplet

Shakespearean Sonnets

• Alternating rhyme scheme with a rhyming couplet at the end• ababcdcdefefgg• Meter is iambic pentameter –

ten stressed and unstressed syllables in a line

Sonnet 116Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments, love is not loveWhich 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 cheeksWithin 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.

Quat

rai

n 1

Quat

rai

n 2

Quat

rai

n 3

Coup

let

abab

c dc d

efef

gg

Volta• Italian for turn• In sonnets, the volta is a unexpected sharp thematic turn or shift in the poem

Volta• In Shakespeare’s

sonnets, the volta can usually be found in the couplet • It may:–Summarize the theme or – Introduce a fresh new look at the theme