The Sonnet

A guide to breaking down the most famous form of

poetry.

?Huh?

What is a sonnet?

• The sonnet is a type of poem from Europe.

• “Sonnet" comes from the Italian word sonetto, meaning "little song.“

• It is generally written in iambic pentameter.

Iambic Pentameter• Iambic pentameter is one of many meters, or rhythms,

used in poetry and drama.

• An iambic foot is an unstressed (soft) syllable followed by a stressed (hard) syllable. The rhythm sounds like this:

•

• This sounds like a heartbeat!da DUM

• A line of iambic pentameter (penta=5) is five iambic feet in a row:

•

• This means each line of Shakespeare’s sonnets will have ten syllables.

• You can count these out by clapping your hands or tapping your hand on your chest.

Iambic Pentameter

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

Lines

• A sonnet is fourteen lines long.

• In a Shakespearean sonnet, these lines are divided into three quatrains and one couplet.

• Quad = four; so a quatrain has four lines.

• Couple = two; so a couplet has two lines.

Rhyme Scheme

• Rhyme scheme means rhyme pattern.

• In a Shakespearean sonnet, every other line in the quatrain is going to rhyme.

• Quatrain Pattern: A, B, A, B

• Both lines in the couplet will rhyme.• Couplet Pattern: G, G

“Sonnet 130” A My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; B Coral is far more red than her lips' red; A If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; B If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. C I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, D But no such roses see I in her cheeks; C And in some perfumes is there more delight D Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. E I love to hear her speak, yet well I know F That music hath a far more pleasing sound; E I grant I never saw a goddess go; F My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: G And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare G As any she belied with false compare.

Shifts in Sonnets• You have to find the shift in the poem• Conjunctions are very important to finding shifts.• Look at the structure, the beginning and ending of

stanzas to find shift.• In Shakespearean sonnets:• Often, there is a shift at the third stanza and then

you see that Shakespeare’s couplet contains his commentary on the idea the poem focuses on.

• This is not a hard and fast rule, so use your common sense when reading.

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

“SONNET 18” 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 is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Spenserian Sonnet• A sonnet form composed of three quatrains and a couplet in iambic

pentameter with the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.Sonnet 30 (Fire And Ice) by Edmund SpenserMy love is like to ice, and I to fire:how comes it then that this her cold so greatis not dissolv'd through my so hot desire,but harder grows, the more I her entreat?

Or how comes it that my exceeding heatis 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 toldthat 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 mindthat it can alter all the course of kind.

Petrarchan sonnets• Rhymes in an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines)• Often, but not always, in Petrarchan sonnets, you see

the first eight lines (octave) presenting the problem or theme, and the last six lines (sestet) solving or resolving it.

• (“To Helene” by Ronsard)

All Sonnets:

• 14 lines• Usually in iambic pentameter• Vary in rhyme scheme depending on which

form of sonnet is used.

• Basically, you need to be able to identify a sonnet and use your knowledge of its structure to help you find shifts and meaning.