Rhythm, Meter, and Rhyming!

Rhyming Patterns• Couplet:

o2 lines that rhyme

• Quatrain:o4 lines totalo Lines 1 and 3 rhymeo Lines 2 and 4 rhymeo (abab)

Couplet PoemAcross the sky they seem to flowAs wind and currents gently blow.

The cumulus clouds in the sky,Fluffy, white, and ever so high.

Their shapes and forms are most complexNumbering at least a googolplex.

by Rebecca Wiggins

Quatrain

High in the bright blue sky A bird soared silently on the breeze

I saw him as he flew byAnd wondered how he flew with such ease

(a)(b)(a)(b)

Sonnets• Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets

altogetheroSpeaker is maleoChief subject is love

• 14 lines totalo abab – cdcd – efef - gg

• Uses iambic pentameter o Each line has 10 syllables

Iambic Pentameter• An “iamb” is a weak word or syllable followed

by a strong word or syllable (da-DUM).• The weak/strong pair is called a foot.

• Five feet make up a line.

“Infected be the air whereon they ride:And damn’d be them that trust them! I did

hear”--Macbeth

Sonnet #18Shall 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 oft' 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 wanderest 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.