Survey of Literature – Introduction to Shakespearean Sonnets (14 lines, 3 quatrains, 1 couplet, iambic pentameter, ababcdcdefefgg)
I. Syllables – a division in words determined by the vowel sounds
*Activity: First, write your full first name below. Draw vertical lines to show how you separated the syllables in your name:
II. Unstressed/Stressed Syllables – Some syllables in words are said with more emphasis than others. Syllables that have more emphasis are
called stressed syllables. Syllables that have less emphasis are called unstressed syllables. The signs for these are shown below:
U
unstressed syllable
/
stressed syllable
* Activity: Using your name above, try to identify the syllables that are stressed and those that are unstressed.
III. Foot - a group of two or three syllables with a particular pattern of stresses. Depending on the pattern, a foot can have many names:
Iamb – a foot with one unstressed followed by a stressed, as in the word around:
U
/
a | round
Trochee – a foot with one stressed followed by one unstressed, as in the word flutter:
/ U
flu | tter
Anapest – a foot with two unstressed followed by one stressed, as in the phrase in a car:
U U /
in| a | car
Dactyl – a foot with one stressed followed by two unstressed, as in the word glimmering:
/
U
U
gli | mmer | ing
Spondee – a foot with two stressed, as in the word nightfall:
/
/
night | fall
Pyrrhic – a foot with two unstressed, as in the last foot of the word exhaustingly:
U U
e|xhau|sting| ly
U /
U
Amphibrach – a foot with one unstressed, one stressed, and another unstressed, as in the sentence I hate you!: I | hate | you
/
U
/
Amphimacer – a foot with one stressed, on unstressed, and another stressed, as in back and forth: back | and | forth
* Activity: Using your name above, try to identify your foot.
IV. Meter – a line determined by the number feet. Depending on the amount of feet, a meter can have many names:
Monometer
Dimeter
Trimeter
Tetrameter
Pentameter
= one foot
= two feet
= three feet
= four feet
= five feet
* Activity: Using your name above, try to identify your meter.
V. Stanza – group of lines in a poem, considered as a unit. Function as “paragraphs” in poetry.
Couplet
Tercet
Quatrain
Cinquain
= two-line stanza
= three-line stanza
= four lines
= five lines
SONNET 130 by William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
5
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
10
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
SONNET 18 by William Shakespeare
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,
5
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 fade
Nor 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.
10