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Created by Giacomo da Lentini, but made famous by Francesco
Petraca
Consists of 14 lines
Divided into two parts (without a line break)
◦ Octave
 First 8 lines
 Rhyme scheme (regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem or
stanza. To indicate rhyme scheme, each final sound is
assigned a letter) abba abba
 Purpose is to raise question, state a problem, or present a brief
narrative
◦ Sestet
 Last 6 lines
 Rhyme scheme cde cde or some combination of cd cd ee
 Purpose is to answer the question, solves to problem, or
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Created by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Earl of Surry, but
used with great mastery by William Shakespeare
Consists of 14 lines (without line breaks)
Divided into 4 parts
◦ Three quatrains (one quatrain consists of four lines)
 Problem or premise is presented in first 12 lines
◦ Couplet (consists of a pair of rhyming lines)
 solution or conclusion in the last 2 lines
◦ Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, likely composed over an
extended period from 1592 to 1598.
In 1609 Thomas Thorpe published
Shakespeare's sonnets, no doubt without the
author's permission, in quarto format, along
with Shakespeare's long poem, The
Passionate Pilgrim. The sonnets were
dedicated to a W. H., whose identity
remains a mystery, although William
Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, is frequently
suggested because Shakespeare's First Folio
(1623) was also dedicated to him.
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1609 Quarto only source of most 152
Shakespearean Sonnets.
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There are 3 categories of poems in this
Quarto:
◦ 1-126 are addressed to The Fair Youth
◦ 127-152 are addressed to The Dark Mistress
◦ A Lover’s Complaint a 329 line poem
written in Rhyme Royal (a-b-a-b-b-c-c)
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The Fair Youth (sonnets 1-126)
◦ An unnamed young man
◦ Written in loving and romantic language
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The Dark Lady (sonnets 127-152)
◦ Given this name because of she is described as being dark
haired
◦ The sonnets written about her express infatuation and are
more sexual in nature
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Although love is the overarching theme of the
sonnets, there are three specific underlying themes:
(1) the brevity of life, (2) the transience of beauty,
and (3) the trappings of desire.
Mabillard, Amanda. How to Analyze a Shakespearean Sonnet. Shakespeare Online. 20 Nov.
2009. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeareonline.com/sonnets/sonnetanalyze.html >.
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Shakespeare’s sonnets are written predominantly in
a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme
in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables.
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The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs
or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up
of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed
syllable.
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An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line
of iambic pentameter flows like this:
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baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM /
baBOOM.
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This is 10 syllables, with a unstressed and then
stressed pattern(grouped into five units)
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When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the
TIME (Sonnet 12)
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Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mer’s DAY?
Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per
ATE
(Sonnet 18)
 Plays:
Shakespeare’s plays are
written primarily in iambic
pentameter, but the lines are
unrhymed and not grouped
into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic
pentameter is called blank
verse.
 Sonnet
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Structure
There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet.
The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains
with four lines each.
◦ In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme
or problem and then (first 12 lines)
◦ resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet.
 The
rhyme scheme of the quatrains
isabab cdcd efef
 The couplet has the rhyme scheme
–
gg
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This sonnet structure is commonly called the
English sonnet or the Shakespearean sonnet,
to distinguish it from the Italian Petrarchan
sonnet form which has two parts: a rhyming
octave (abbaabba) and a rhyming sestet
(cdcdcd). The Petrarchan sonnet style was
extremely popular with Elizabethan
sonneteers, much to Shakespeare's disdain (he
mocks the conventional and excessive
Petrarchan style in Sonnet 130).
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Only three of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets do not
conform to this structure: Sonnet 99, which has 15
lines; Sonnet 126, which has 12 lines; and Sonnet
145, which is written in iambic tetrameter.

Mabillard, Amanda. Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the
English Sonnet Style. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. (date when you accessed
the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html
>.
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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 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.
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Pick a sonnet
Label unstressed and stressed syllables
Label the rhyme pattern or rhyme scheme
Create a paraphrase of each line
Create an analysis- explain all and any figurative
language and why he was saying what he said.
EX:
◦
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Theme
Symbolism
Alliteration
Allusions
Irony
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Pick 1 Sonnet (4 choices)
Get out your own paper, fold it in half
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Write the sonnet to one side of your paper skipping lines
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Write down the meaning of each line on the opposite
side of the paper- use the dictionary if you need
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Label the
◦ -iambic pentameter
◦ -unstressed and stressed syllables
◦ -end rhyme scheme (abab…)
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Explain your definition of love and hate.
What situations call for such extreme emotion, and
which one are you more apt to ‘do’?
Do you feel one can fall in love and out of love?
Can you therefore fall in and out of hate?
Do you have any personal connections to these two
words
What are your feelings on how do we use these
words?