SHAKESPEAREAN
SONNETS
C
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
The Sonnet
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The sonnet is a versatile form of poetry
Defined by: 14 lines written in iambic pentameter.
The first sonnets were written in Italian, but are now written in any language.
The sonnet was traditionally a love poem, but is now written on other topics.
The sonnet first introduces an issue or problem and then resolves that issue.
• The most important element of the sonnet is the “volta” or turn from the exposition of
the issue to its resolution.
• The various types of sonnets differ mainly in their division of sections and rhyming
patterns.
Shakespearean Sonnet
• 14 lines long
• Written in iambic pentameter
• Rhyme scheme follows this pattern:
• abab cdcd efef gg
• There are THREE, Four-Line Stanzas (quatrains)
• And ONE Rhyming Couplet at the end.
Iambic Pentameter
• An iamb is a metrical foot that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable—daDUM.
• Penta- means five.
• Meter refers to a regular rhythmic pattern in poetry.
• For example, from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
• But soft, what light through yonder window breaks.
• For example, from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
• If music be the food of love, play on.
Tips for Reading a Sonnet
• Identify the rhyme scheme.
• Identify the major units of thoughts.
• Describe the situation or problem in your own words.
• Identify the turning point.
• Describe how the situation is rectified.
• Summarize the message of the poem in your own words.
“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.
A
B
A
B
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;
C
D
C
D
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
E
F
E
F
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
G
G
“Sonnet 30”
William Shakespeare
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes’ new wail my dear times waste:
A
B
A
B
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
C
D
C
D
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if paid before.
E
F
E
F
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
G
G
“Sonnet 73
William Shakespeare
That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
A
B
A
B
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
C
D
C
D
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
E
F
E
F
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
G
G