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Shakespearean Sonnets
Advanced English 3ESO

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William Shakespeare

Review Terms!
You should ALREADY know this
• Figurative language / figures of speech – language not
meant to be taken literally; it is expressive. Examples of
figurative language are things such as metaphor, simile,
hyperbole, etc.
• Metaphor – a direct comparison between two unlike
things without using the words “like” or “as”
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• Simile – Compares two unlike things using the words
“like” or “as”
• Personification – gives human characteristics to non-
living things
• Onomatopoeia – words that imitate sounds
• Imagery – descriptive language that appeals to the five
senses. Creates images!
• Symbol – any object that represents something other than
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Poetry Terms
Poetry is often phonetic. It has SOUND and mimics
music. Most poems used very specific diction and are
emotionally charged. They often use figurative
language.
• Rhythm – pattern created by stressed and unstressed
syllables
• Rhyme – repetition of similar sounds
• Rhyme scheme – pattern of end rhymes
• Free verse – does not rhyme
• Alliteration – repetition of consonant sounds
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Poetry Terms Cont.
• Blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter
• Connotation – ideas associated with a certain
word
• Denotation – dictionary definition of a word
• Couplet – pair of rhyming lines at the end of a
sonnet
• Diction – author’s word choice
• Meter – the rhythmical pattern of a poem
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Poetry Terms Cont.
• Tone – author’s attitude toward the subject
• Mood – feeling created in the reader
• Syntax – how words are arranged in sentence
• Stanza - an arrangement of a certain number of
lines, usually four or more, sometimes having a
fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme, forming a
division of a poem. In other words, a paragraph
in a poem.
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What is a sonnet?
*A sonnet is a fourteen-
line poem in iambic
pentameter.
Iambic what?
Oh dear, this is
going to be a
weird lesson!

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Iambic Pentameter
• Iambic Pentameter is the rhythm and meter in
which poets and playwrights wrote in Elizabethan
England. (Queen Elizabeth was the ruler of
England during most of Shakespeare’s adult life.)
It is a meter that Shakespeare uses.

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Heartbeat.
Quite simply, it sounds like
this: dee DUM, dee DUM,
dee DUM, dee DUM, dee
DUM. *Iambic
pentameter is a line of
poetry with five iambic
feet-- Ten syllables with
five unstressed and five
stressed syllables.* It is
the first and last sound we
ever hear, it is the
rhythm of the human
heart beat.

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Pentameter?
• *An ‘iamb’ is ‘dee Dum’ (or two syllables) – it
is the heart beat.
• Penta is from the Greek for five.
• Meter is really the pattern
• *So, there are five iambs per line! Ten syllables
total.
• (Iambic penta meter )

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Syllables, in case you’ve forgotten
• What is a syllable?
• There are three syllables (separate sounds) in the
word syllable!
• “But soft, what light through yonder window
breaks.”
• How many syllables are there in that quotation?

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• “But soft, what light through yonder window
breaks.”
• Let’s break up this line into iambic pentameter
together on the board.

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U / U / U / U / U /
But, soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?

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Rhyming patterns
• *The Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains
(or stanzas that contain four lines) followed by a
couplet. The rhyme scheme is: abab cdcd efef gg.

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Quatrain?
• *Quatrains are four line stanzas of any kind
• *A couplet is a pair of rhyming lines. In
sonnets they are found at the end of the poem.
• I have divided the following sonnet into the three
quatrains.
• You will also see the rhyming pattern marked out
for you.

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Sonnet 18
Shall I/ compare/ thee to /a sum/mer's day? (a)
Thou art/ more love/ly and more/ temperate: (b)
Rough winds /do shake/ the dar/ling buds /of May, (a)
And sum/mer's lease/ hath all/ too short/ a date: (b)
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (c)
And often is his gold complexion dimmed, (d)
And every fair from fair sometime declines, (c)
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: (d)
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (e)
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, (f)
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, (e)
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, (f)
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, (g)
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (g)
Quatrain 1
Quatrain 2
Quatrain 3
Couplet

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What does it mean?
• I think I shall compare you to a summer day
But, you know, you're prettier and even better, even calm
Because sometimes it gets windy and the buds on the trees get
shaken off
And sometimes summer doesn't last very long
Sometimes it's too hot
And everything gorgeous loses its looks
By getting hit by a truck Or just because everyone and everything
gets old and ugly
BUT (and here's the turn) you're going to keep your looks for ever
Your beauty will last for ever
I'm going to make sure that you never lose your good looks
And that nasty old Death can never brag about owning you
Because I shall write this poem about you
As long as men can breathe (are you breathing?)
As long as men can see (are you looking at this poem?)
Then this poem lives, and it gives life and memory to your beauty.

FYI
• William Shakespeare's sonnets are stories about a handsome
boy, or rival poet, and the mysterious and aloof "dark" lady
they both love.
• The sonnets fall into three clear groupings: Sonnets 1 to 126
are addressed to, or concern, a young man; Sonnets 127-152
are addressed to, or concern, a dark lady (dark in the sense of
her hair, her facial features, and her character), and Sonnets
153-154 are fairly free adaptations of two classical Greek
poems.
• The most popular of the William Shakespeare Sonnets are
Sonnets 018, 029, 116, 126 and 130.
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Assignment
Your first assignment with sonnets is to write your own!
You DO NOT have to write it in iambic pentameter, although you will
get extra credit if you do. It is very difficult, and you might appreciate
Shakespeare’s work if you do.
You DO have to use the sonnet rhyme scheme though: ABAB CDCD
EFEF GG
If it makes it easier, you can begin with the opening of Sonnet 18.
“Shall I compare thee to….”
Compare someone in your life to something else. An animal, weather,
something beautiful in nature. It can be positive or negative.
Now it’s up to you to be creative.