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

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