The Sonnet

a lyric poem consisting of fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter with a definite rhyme scheme and a definite thought structure

A sonnet is

A lyric poem

Deals with emotions, feelings

five measures, units, or meters, of iambs

Iambic pentameter consists of

An iamb is a metrical foot consisting ofan unaccented syllable Ufollowed by an accented syllable /.

U / U / U / U / U / One day I wrote her name u pon the sand, U / U / U / U / U / But came the waves and wash ed it a way: U / U / U / U / U / A gain I wrote it with a sec ond hand, U / U / U / U / U / But came the tide, and made my pains his prey

Edmund Spenser, Amoretti, Sonnet 75

Iambic pentameter 1 2 3 4 5

Petrarchan (Italian) rhyme scheme: abba, abba, cd, cd, cd abba, abba, cde, cde

Shakespearean (English, or Elizabethan) rhyme scheme:

abab, cdcd, efef, gg

Rhyme scheme

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 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 ow'st,Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 18ABAB

CDCD

EFEF

GG

Petrarchan Octave/ sestet

The octave, eight lines, presents a situation or idea.

The sestet (sextet), six lines, responds, to the situation or idea in the octave.

Shakespearean Quatrain, quatrain, quatrain, couplet

Each quatrain, four lines, describes and idea or situation which leads to a conclusion or response in the couplet, two lines.

Thought structure

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 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 ow'st,Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 18The octave describes the ways in which the summer’s day is inferior to the beloved.

The sestet describes the ways in which the beloved is superior to the summer’s day.

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself, and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet 29The diction of the octave implies the speaker’s self-pity and depression.

The sestet’s diction, in conrast, is joyful.