The Sonnet
“Sonetto” meaning little sound or
song in Italian
History
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First developed at the court of Emperor
Frederick II in Sicily
Used by most Italian poets of the Middle Ages,
notably Dante (13th Century)
Italian sonnets were often about courtly love,
where the women were beautiful yet
unattainable
Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surry
discovered the form in the 16th Century
In England the form changed.
Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare
coined their own versions.
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets
Style
 Often
the grammar of the lines is
fractured to accommodate the rhyme and
rhythm.
 Enjambment works to help keep the
rhyme in the background.
 The Shakespearean rhyme scheme tends
to be the easiest for the English language.
Form
14 lines long
 Usually about love
 Often has a volta – a
change in thought –
after the eight line
 Three main variations
on the rhyme scheme
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– Petrarchan,
Spenserian,
Shakespearean
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Usual form components
– Octave / octet = 8
lines and a
– Sestet / sextet = 6
lines
or
– 3 Quatrains = 4 lines
each and a
– Rhyming couplet = 2
lines
Petrarchan
Spenserian
Shakespearean
A
B
B
A
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
B
A
B
C
B
C
C
D
C
D
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D
C/E
C
D
C/E
C
D
E
F
C
D
E
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F
G
E
G
Iambic foot or Iamb
Is two syllables
 An unstressed
followed by a stressed
 Shown here using a
dash and a backslash
 There are five iambic
feet in one line of a
sonnet = a rhythm
called iambic
pentameter.
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The Kennedy Center
An example of scansion
To scan a line is to mark the stressed and unstressed
syllables in a line of poetry.
 Scansion takes practice and patience.
 A dictionary is a good way to double check that you have
it right.
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Sonnet CXVI/116 by
Shakespeare
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.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
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.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Listen to various sonnets
Why?
 To show you how they
can be read in different
ways.
 To share with you the
passion many feel for the
form and content.
 Check out sonnets on
YouTube – you’ll be
amazed at the number
and variety of people
who’ve chosen to post
videos.
 Notebook file “sonnets”
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Your Sonnet
 Should
have the following elements
– 14 lines
– 10 syllables per line
– A rhyme scheme that matches one of those
presented
 May
have
– The iambic rhythm, but does not need to.
– A volta
Whoso List to Hunt [1]
Sir Thomas Wyatt
the Elder
Whoso list[2] to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about
“Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”
[1]An adaptation of
Petrarch, Rim 190,
perhaps influenced by
commentators on
Petrarch, who said
that Noli me tangere
quia Caesaris sum
(“Touch me not, for I
am Caesar’s”) was
inscribed on the
collars of Caesar’s
hinds which were
then set free and
were presumably safe
from hunters. Wyatt’s
sonnet is usually
supposed to refer to
Anne Boleyn, in whom
Henry VIII became
interested in 1536.
[2]Cares
Sources
 The
Kennedy Center, “Shakespeare:
Iambic Pentameter, the Beat of the 16th
Century”, accessed Nov 25, 2008.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec
_pDV07pQg&feature=related
 Handouts from previous teachers, Ms.
Isaacs or Ms. Riddel.