Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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Shakespeares Sonnets
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What is a sonnet?

• The word itself is derived from the Italian word
  meaning sonetto, meaning the word, little sound
  song
• 14 line lyric poem that conforms to strict
  patterns of rhythm and rhyme

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Forms of a Sonnet

• Italian
• Petrarchan Sonnet
• 8-line section called the octave
• 6-line section called sestet
• Question- Answer
• Problem- Solution
• Theme- Comment

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Italian Sonnet Petrarchan

• The 9th line is known as the volta, or the
  transition
• This is the beginning of the sestet

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Shakespearean Sonnet

• Fixed requirement of 14 iambic pentameter lines
• Three quatrains and a couplet
• Quatrain-
• a verse or stanza of four lines, when used in
  iambic pentameter it has a rhyme scheme of abab
• Couplet-
• A pair of rhyming verse lines

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Iambic Pentameter Review

• Each line has five alternating stressed syllables
  with five unstressed syllables
• Natural vernacular
• 10 syllables per line in a sonnet

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Rhyme Scheme

• We Dont Know Why
• The twinkling of stars on a balmy night,The
  gabble of geese as they take flight,A passionate
  look in your lovers eye,The graceful ballet of
  a butterfly.
• Living on the edge, in a committed way,Facing
  all challenges day by day,Your life on the
  lineto do, not just try,Life is excitinga
  natural high.
• By Karl and Joanna Fuchs

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abab form

• Mine eye hath played the painter and hath
  stelled,
• Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,
• My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
• And perspective it is best painter's art.

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Shakespearean Sonnet Rhyme Scheme
a b a b c d c d e f e f g g

• As a decrepit father takes delight,To see his
  active child do deeds of youth,So I, made lame
  by Fortune's dearest spiteTake all my comfort of
  thy worth and truth.For whether beauty, birth,
  or wealth, or wit,Or any of these all, or all,
  or moreEntitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,I
  make my love engrafted to this storeSo then I
  am not lame, poor, nor despised,Whilst that this
  shadow doth such substance give,That I in thy
  abundance am sufficed,And by a part of all thy
  glory liveLook what is best, that best I wish
  in thee,This wish I have, then ten times happy
  me.

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First two quatrains

• The question, problem or theme of the sonnet

They that have power to hurt, and will do
none,That do not do the thing, they most do
show,Who moving others, are themselves as
stone,Unmoved, cold, and to temptation
slow They rightly do inherit heaven's
graces,And husband nature's riches from
expense,Tibey are the lords and owners of their
faces,Others, but stewards of their excellence
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The Turn

• First line of the third quatrain
• The speaker is turning from one phrase to another

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The Third Quatrain

• The first line (9) is the turn
• By the end of the third quatrain the initial
  comparison and question are no longer used
• May hint at the moral

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The Couplet

• The finale of the story
• Often a form of an epigram
• Final words of both lines rhyme

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Couplet Examples

• Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
• They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

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Identifying couplet sections

• They that have power to hurt, and will do
  none,That do not do the thing, they most do
  show,Who moving others, are themselves as
  stone,Unmoved, cold, and to temptation
  slowThey rightly do inherit heaven's
  graces,And husband nature's riches from
  expense,Tibey are the lords and owners of their
  faces,Others, but stewards of their
  excellenceThe summer's flower is to the summer
  sweet,Though to it self, it only live and
  die,But if that flower with base infection
  meet,The basest weed outbraves his dignityFor
  sweetest things turn sourest by their
  deeds,Lilies that fester, smell far worse than
  weeds

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Themes

• Love, Death, Friendship or the passage of time
• Passage of time growing older, becoming more
  mature

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