SONNET

-derives from the Italian word sonetto, meaning

"little song”

SONNETS

-a poem of 14 lines, usually following a strict rhyme scheme and having a

distinctive structure. The sonnet is a verse form widely used in English poetry and in the poetry of many

other European languages.

SONNETS

Iambic Pentameter- A meter in which there are five iambs (pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables) in each line. The word "deceive" is an iamb. Most sonnets are written in iambic pentameter.

TYPES OF SONNETS

Italian

Shakespearian or English

Spenserian

SHAKESPEARIAN OR ENGLISH

The Shakespearean or English sonnet follows the pattern/Rhyme Scheme a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.

SHAKESPEARIAN OR ENGLISH

A sonnet is also an argument that builds up by using metaphors.

• First Quatrain: Exposition or theme and main metaphor

• Second Quatrain: Theme or metaphor extended or complicated

• Third Quatrain: Twist or conflict often introduced by a “but”

• Couplet: Summarizes the reader with a new concluding image

LET’S LOOK AT TWO EXAMPLES

SHAKESPEARIAN "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

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.