Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhymes used in a poem, usually
marked by letters to symbolize correspondences.
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Red Blushed And All Cut Up
Talking to myself there
A
Someone had overheard.
B
I was lost for a word.
B
There was nothing to share.
A
Embarrassed I was there.
A
Left awkward and absurd.
B
A broken wingless bird.
B
With nowhere to fly there.
A
Caught red faced there was I.
C
Didn’t want to be seen.
D
I just wanted to die.
C
I just wanted to scream.
D
I’m so terribly shy.
C
Lost for words it would seem.
D
Sonnets: 3 kinds
All have 14 lines
iambic pentameter
rhyme scheme
1) Petrarchan
(pi-trahr-kee-uhn)
• Italian Sonnet form
– From Francis Petrarch
• Often love poems
• 2 stanzas
– FIRST
• 8 lines… Octave…
– describes the situation…problem…question…idea
– abbaabba
– SECOND
• 6 lines…Sestet…
– the Turn
– describes a change in the situation….resolves…answers…drives
home
– cdecde
– cdcdcd
2) Shakespearean
• Called English sonnet
• 3 stanzas of 4 lines (problem, ideas developed)
– Quatrain…4 lines
– abab cdcd efef
• 1 couplet
– 2 lines end rhymed
– gg
• The turn is often seen in the couplet
(sometimes in third quatrain)
– Sums up or concludes the message
3) Spenserian
• Edmund Spenser created
• 3 stanzas of 4 lines
– Quatrain…4 lines
– abab bcbc cdcd
• 1 couplet
– 2 lines end rhymes
– ee
SAME STRUCTURE as
SHAKESPEARIAN ---
RHYME SCHEME
DIFFERS
abab bcbc cdcd ee
• -------- (INTERLOCKING RHYME) -------
Sonnet 75
Edmund Spenser page 256
Analysis
1. Who is the speaker?
2. What is the tone? (lines 11-12)
3. What is the theme? (lines 11-12) What figure
of speech is used?
4. Summarize the poem
5. What connection does the poem make
between immortality and poetry?
6. Identify the couplet
Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare
page 278
Analysis
1. What is the rhyme scheme of the sonnet’s first
quatrain?
2. What is the speaker’s tone?
3. What general truth (also the theme) does the
couplet suggest?
4. Summarize the poem
5. In his sonnets, Petrarch worshiped his mistress.
Why has Sonnet 130 been called anti-Petrarchan?
Practice
Answer the following questions using your notes
and the help from your group. Each group will
teach their poem to the class.
1. What is the title and author of the poem?
2. What is the structure?
3. What is the rhyme scheme?
4. What type of sonnet is the poem and why?
5. Who is the speaker?
6. What is the setting?
7. What is the tone?
8. What is the theme?
9. Give evidence of figurative language or of a
literary term (simile, metaphor, imagery, paradox,
couplet, turn)