A focus on the English Sonnet
Sonnet Form

 has 14 lines.
 written in iambic pentameter
 follows a specific rhyme scheme
 about any subject, though they are often about
love or nature.
 introduces a problem or question in the
beginning, and a resolution is offered after the
turn.
Iambic Pentameter?

 the rhythm in which poets and playwrights wrote in
Elizabethan England.
 Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter in his writing.
 it sounds like this: dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM,
dee DUM, dee DUM.
 There are five iambs per line
 Penta is from the Greek for five.
 Meter is really the pattern
3
English Sonnet

 English Sonnet = Shakespearean Sonnet.
 Includes three quatrains (groups of four lines) and a
couplet (two lines).
 The rhyme scheme is often abab cdcd efef gg.
 The turn is either after eight lines or ten lines.
Quatrain?

 Quatrains are four line stanzas of any kind
5
Turn?

 The point where the sonnet changes from telling the
problem to telling the solution
Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments. Love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds,(a)
Or bends with the remover to remove:(b)
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,(c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;(d)
It is the star to every wandering bark,(c)
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.(d)
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks(e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come;(f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,(e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.(f)
If this be error and upon me proved,(g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.(g)
7
What does it mean?
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments. Love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds,(a)
Or bends with the remover to remove:(b)
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,(c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;(d)
It is the star to every wandering bark,(c)
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be
taken.(d)
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks(e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come;(f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,(e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.(f)
If this be error and upon me proved,(g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.(g)
Let me not declare any reasons why two
True-minded people should not be
married. Love is not love
Which changes when it finds a change in
circumstances,
Or bends from its firm stand even when a
lover is unfaithful:
Oh no! it is a lighthouse
That sees storms but it never shaken;
Love is the guiding north star to every
lost ship,
Whose value cannot be calculated,
although its altitude can be measured.
Love is not at the mercy of Time, though
physical beauty
Comes within the compass of his sickle.
Love does not alter with hours and
weeks,
But, rather, it endures until the last day of
life.
If I am proved wrong about these
thoughts on love
Then I recant all that I have written, and
no man has ever [truly] loved.
Figuring Out a Sonnet

1. Read for the idea.
2. Read for the mood.
3. Read to check imagery against theme.
4. Translate the stated and the unstated
parts of imagery into everyday words.
5. Paraphrase the poem in plain English.
6. State a theme for the poem that is
consistent with all of it.
Figuring Out a Sonnet:
Sonnet 118

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
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 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 ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.
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 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 ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.
OOOOH Baby I think I shall compare you to a
summer day
But, you know, you're prettier and even
better, even calm
Because sometimes it gets windy and the
buds on the trees get shaken off
And sometimes summer doesn't last very
long
Sometimes it's too hot
And everything gorgeous loses its looks
By getting hit by a truck Or just because
everyone and everything gets old and ugly
and shabby
BUT (and here's the turn) you're going to
keep your looks for ever
Your beauty will last for ever
I'm going to make sure that you never lose
your good looks
And that nasty old Death can never brag
about owning you
Because I shall write this poem about you
As long as men can breathe (are you
breathing?)
As long as men can see (are you looking at
this poem?)
Then this poem lives, and it gives life and
memory to your beauty.