What IS a sonnet? Well, I'm so glad you asked! A Shakesperean sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines. These lines are organized into three quatrains with a couplet at the end. They have a specific rhyming pattern (abab cdcd efef gg). AND, if that isn't enough, the lines are written in iambic pentameter--which simply means they are written with 5 sets of syllables with an emphasis on the even syllables (da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH).
A great example is Shakespeare's well-known Sonnet 18:
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.
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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
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.
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.
Do you have a favorite sonnet to share about?
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