0% found this document useful (0 votes)
115 views10 pages

Shakespeare Sonnets: English Literature Pili

The document discusses Shakespearean sonnets. It explains that a sonnet is a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter, which is a rhythm of 10 syllables with 5 stressed and 5 unstressed syllables per line. It notes that Shakespearean sonnets follow the rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. The document provides examples of sonnets by Shakespeare, including Sonnet 116 and Sonnet 130, and analyzes their meanings.

Uploaded by

missisabelonline
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
115 views10 pages

Shakespeare Sonnets: English Literature Pili

The document discusses Shakespearean sonnets. It explains that a sonnet is a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter, which is a rhythm of 10 syllables with 5 stressed and 5 unstressed syllables per line. It notes that Shakespearean sonnets follow the rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. The document provides examples of sonnets by Shakespeare, including Sonnet 116 and Sonnet 130, and analyzes their meanings.

Uploaded by

missisabelonline
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 10

Shakespeare

Sonnets
English Literature
PILI

1
What is a sonnet?
• A sonnet is a fourteen-line Iambic what??!!
poem in iambic Oh dear, this is
goin to be a
pentameter. complicated
lesson!

2
Iambic Pentameter
• Iambic Pentameter is the rhythm and metre in which
poets and playwrights wrote in Elizabethan England.
• It is a metre that Shakespeare uses.

Quite simply, it sounds like this:


dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM.
There are five iambic feet per line,
(ten syllables with five unstressed and
five stressed syllables)
3
Heartbeat!!!

It is the first and last sound


we ever hear, it is the
rhythm of the human
heart beat.

4
• It is percussive and
attractive to the ear and
has an effect on the
listener.
• Example of Pentameter
from Shakespeare:
“but SOFT what LIGHT
through YONder
WINdow BREAKS”

5
Back to sonnets!!!
• It is a poetic form with a particular structure as
well as a rhyming pattern.
• The Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains
+ a couplet, the scheme being: abab cdcd efef gg.
• VS Petrarch:
• 2 quatrains and 2 tercets
• Unattainable / Impossible love
• Idealised beauty of the Lady
• “Fair Youth” (She) and “Dark Lady” (He)
• Topics: Love, Beauty, Time and Politics

6
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments. Love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds,(a)
Or bends with the remover to remove:(b)
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,(c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;(d)
It is the star to every wandering bark,(c)
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.(d)
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks(e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come;(f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,(e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.(f)
If this be error and upon me proved,(g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.(g)
7
What does it mean?
• Let me not declare any reasons why two
True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love
Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances,
Or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful:
Oh no! it is a lighthouse
That sees storms but it never shaken;
Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship,
Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be
measured.
Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty
Comes within the compass of his sickle.
Love does not alter with hours and weeks,
But, rather, it endures until the last day of life.
If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love
Then I recant all that I have written, and no man has ever [truly]
loved.
8
Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;


Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
9
Do you remember?
• 1. What is a sonnet?
• 2. What is iambic pentameter?
• 3. What is the rhyming pattern of a
Shakespearean sonnet?

10

You might also like