What is a sonnet?

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Shakespeare and Sonnets

• What is a sonnet?
• Who made it famous?

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Sonnets-

• Who made famous by William Shakespeare
• What Poetry in special metered form
• When400 years ago
• WhereLondon publishing
• Why may have been meant to be private all about
  Shakespeares deepest, romantic feelings, that
  are very revealing may be autobiographical.
  (Sonnet 20- reveals a new side about him)

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Sonnets Breaking News-NPR
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, likely composed
over an extended period from 1592 to 1598, the
year in which Francis Meres referred to
Shakespeare's "sugred sonnets
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.
4
Themes in the Sonnets

• 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) lt
http//www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetan
alyze.html gt.
5
Understanding the Rhythm

• Shakespeares sonnets are written predominantly
  in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme
  scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten
  syllables.
• 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
• baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM.
• This is 10 syllables, with a unstressed and then
  stressed pattern(grouped into five units)

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Here are some examples from the sonnets

• When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the
  TIME (Sonnet 12)
• Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mers DAY?
  Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per
  ATE (Sonnet 18)

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Plays vs. Sonnets

• Plays Shakespeares plays are written primarily
  in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed
  and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic
  pentameter is called blank verse.

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Plays vs. Sonnets

• Sonnet 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.

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Pattern of the Poem

• The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is-
• abab cdcd efef
• The couplet has the rhyme scheme
• gg

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Types of Sonnets

• 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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Types of Sonnets

• 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) lt http//www.shakespeare
  -online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html gt.

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SONNET 18one of his most famous

• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art
  more lovely and more temperateRough 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'dBut thy eternal summer shall
  not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou
  owestNor 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

• 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
• Theme
• Symbolism
• Alliteration
• Allusions
• Irony

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Directions

• Pick 1 Sonnet (4 choices)
• Get out your own paper, fold it in half
• Write the sonnet to one side of your paper
  skipping lines
• Write down the meaning of each line on the
  opposite side of the paper- use the dictionary if
  you need
• Label the
• -iambic pentameter
• -unstressed and stressed syllables
• -end rhyme scheme (abab)

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RJ Writing Prompt 1 page at least, yes--back
and front

• 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?