Sonnetsi
Crash course
Literary Terms
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Sonnet—a poem with 14 lines, usually accompanied by a rhyme scheme
Rhyme scheme—a pattern of rhyming found at the end of each line
Turn—a shift in thought part way through a poem
Couplet—a pair of lines that rhyme
Quatrain—a group of four rhymed lines
The Petrarchan Sonnet—named after the Italian poet; often divided into two major sections: the
first is called an octave (eight lines), and the second is called a sestet (six lines) *these sections
do not necessarily have an identical rhyming scheme
7. The Shakespearean Sonnet—named after the English poet and playwright; includes three groups
of quatrains and a couplet at the end
Strategies for Reading a Sonnet
1. Read the sonnet several times, at least once aloud.
2. Use letters to label like-sounding words or syllables at the ends of lines. The labeling will allow
you to identify the rhyme scheme. Then use the rhyme scheme and end punctuation marks to
identify major units of thought or feeling.
3. Describe what is occurring in the poem in your own words.
4. Look for a turn, if there is one.
5. Study the imagery and figurative language for clues to the emotions expressed.
Francesco Petrarch (Italy, 1304-1374)
SONNET 3
William Shakespeare (England, 1564-1616)
SONNET 116
It was the morning of that blessed day
Whereon the Sun in pity veiled his glare
For the Lord’s agony, that, unaware,
I fell a captive, Lady, to the sway
Of your swift eyes: that seemed no time to stay
The strokes of Love: I stepped into the snare
Secure, with no suspicion: then and there
I found my cue in man’s most tragic play.
Love caught me naked to his shaft, his sheaf,
The entrance for his ambush and surprise
Against the heart wide open through the eyes,
The constant gate and fountain of my grief:
How craven so to strike me stricken so,
Yet from you fully armed conceal his bow!
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within 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.
i
Sources used:
The Language of Literature. Eds. Arthur N. Applebee, Andrea B. Bermudez, Sheridan Blau, Rebekah Caplan, Peter Elbow, Susan Hynds, Judith A.
Langer, and James Marshall. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2004. 804-816.
Mabillard, Amanda. “Introduction to Shakespeare’s Sonnets.” Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. 31 January 2011
<http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetintroduction.html>.