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A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, usually about love.
The Sonnet Literary Focus: Shakespearean Sonnet
The English, or Shakespearean, sonnet consists of three quatrains (rhyming four-line units) followed by a couplet (a pair of rhyming lines) at the end.
• The three quatrains often express related ideas.
• The couplet sums up the poet’s message.
Each line consists of five unstressed syllables alternating with five stressed syllables.
Like most sonnets, the Shakespearean sonnet is written in a particular meter, or rhythmic pattern, called iambic pentameter:
The Sonnet Literary Focus: Shakespearean Sonnet
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate—Sonnet 29, line 12
˘ ′ ˘ ′ ˘ ′ ˘ ′ ˘ ′
= unstressed syllable = unstressed syllable˘ ′
The typical rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg.
The Sonnet Literary Focus: Shakespearean Sonnet
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate
—Sonnet 29, lines 1–4
First quatrain
bab
a
As you read your assigned sonnet, notice
The Sonnet Literary Focus: Shakespearean Sonnet
• where each quatrain begins and ends
• which words rhyme in the quatrains
• how the couplet is used to sum up the message
[End of Section]
Click here to listen to the entire sonnet.