The Sonnet
Lyric poem of 14 lines in iambic
pentameter
Background
• Developed by Italian Renaissance poets,
primarily Dante and Petrarch
• Introduced to England by Wyatt and Surrey
• Became popular during the Renaissance,
sometimes called the age of the sonnet
• Sonnets appear in collections called
sequences
January 2000
English 3
Two types of sonnets
• Italian or
• English or
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Petrarchan
Shakespearean
Thought division:
Octave = 8 lines
Sestet = 6 lines
Octave states a
problem or question
• Sestet gives solution,
answers the question
January 2000
Thought division:
3 quatrains=12 lines
One couplet=2 lines
Quatrains develop 3
aspects of theme
• Couplet concludes the
theme
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1
Two types of sonnets
• Italian or
• English or
• Rhyme scheme:
• ABBA, ABBA
• CDE, CDE
• Rhyme scheme:
• ABAB, CDCD, EFEF
• GG
Petrarchan
Shakespearean
Many sonnets do not follow a perfect rhyme scheme
Slight variations are common
January 2000
English 3
Theme
• The most popular theme of Renaissance
sonnets is love, especially unrequited love
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English 3
Theme
• Unrequited means that the love is not
returned
• The beloved is admirable but unattainable
• The lover suffers
• The circumstances of life fade beside
affection
• This is a convention of love poetry
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2
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116
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.
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English 3
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116
Oh 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.
January 2000
English 3
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116
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.
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Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
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English 3
Vocabulary
• Impediment
– obstacle
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English 3
Vocabulary
• Ever-fixed mark
– reference point
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4
Vocabulary
• Bark
– three-masted ship
– boat, ship
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English 3
Vocabulary
• Sickle
– agricultural tool with a curved metal blade and
a short handle, used for cutting
– a sickle is similar to a scythe but a scythe has a
long handle
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English 3
Figures of Speech
It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
Metaphor comparing love to a landmark
Meaning: true love is reliable and
unchanging
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English 3
5
Figures of Speech
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his
height be taken.
Metaphor comparing love to a star
Meaning: true love can always be relied upon
for guidance, but no value can be attached
to it
January 2000
English 3
Figures of Speech
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and
cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Metaphor comparing time to a reaper who
cuts grain with a sickle
Meaning: time destroys youth and beauty,
(but true love doesn’t change with time)
January 2000
English 3
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