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What is a sonnet?
The sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem in predominantly iambic pentameter, with a formal rhyme
scheme. Although there can be considerable variation in rhyme scheme, most English sonnets are
written in either the Italian (Petrarchan) style or the English (Shakespearean) style. A third sonnet
form, the Spenserian sonnet, is also well-known, but far less commonly used than either the
Petrarchan or the Shakespearean sonnet. (http://www.readprint.com/article-10)
THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
Shakespeare did not invent the English sonnet form, but he is recognized as its greatest practitioner;
therefore, the English sonnet is commonly called the Shakespearean sonnet.
The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains (four-line stanzas), rhyming abab cdcd efef, and
a couplet (a two-line stanza), rhyming gg. Because each new stanza introduces a new set of rhyming
sounds, the Shakespearean sonnet is well-suited to English, which is less richly endowed than Italian
with rhyming words.
As with the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, that of the Shakespearean sonnet influences the kinds
of ideas that will be developed in it. For example, the three quatrains may be used to present three
parallel images, with the couplet used to tie them together or to interpret their significance. Or the
quatrains can offer three points in an argument, with the couplet serving to drive home the
conclusion. (http://www.readprint.com/article-10)
Among notable Elizabethan sonnet sequences (Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella"; Samuel
Daniel's "Delia"; Edmund Spenser's Amoretti") Shakespeare's sequence of one hundred twenty
sonnets addressed to a "dark lady" and a "fair young man" is considered to be the greatest.
In the seventeenth century John Donne's "Holy Sonnets" used the sonnet sequence as a vehicle for
religious themes. John Milton wrote sonnets on religious and political themes, as well as on such
personal subjects as his own blindness.
In the nineteenth century the love sonnet sequence was revived in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
"Sonnets from the Portuguese" (1850) and in Dante Gabriel Rosetti's "The House of Life" (1876).
Even after five centuries the sonnet still attracts the attention of serious poets, partly because of the
challenge provided by the rigorous constraints of its fixed form, and partly because of its long
tradition of use by most of the important poets in the English language.
(http://www.readprint.com/article-10)
Most of Shakespeares famous quotations fit into this rhythm. For example:
If mu- / -sic be / the food / of love, / play on
Is this / a dag- / -ger I / see be- / fore me?
Each pair of syllables is called an iambus. Youll notice that each iambus is made up of one
unstressed and one stressed beat (ba-BUM).
Rhythmic Variations
In his plays, Shakespeare didnt always stick to ten syllables. He often played around with iambic
pentameter to give color and feeling to his characters speeches.
From-http://shakespeare.about.com/od/shakespeareslanguage/a/i_pentameter.htm
Turn your love song (choose from the ones weve heard) into a sonnet. Work in a group of no
more than four people. Write a sonnet14 lines, rhyme scheme abababab cdecde. Use the
octave/sestet model, not the quatrain couplet model. Make sure you have a volta, a shift in
the poem.