Shakespearean Sonnet Writing Made Easy For Year 8MD

Year 8 February 2021 With Valentine’s Day in mind…

Shakespearean Sonnet Writing

Made Easy…
Learn to write a sonnet in iambic pentameter, just like Shakespeare did. Discover the rhythm
and rhyme scheme of the quatrains and couplets that make up a Shakespearean sonnet…
Here are the rules:

 It must consist of 14 lines.
 It must be written in iambic pentameter (duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-

DUH).
 It must be written in one of the various standard rhyme schemes…
If you're writing the most familiar kind of sonnet - the Shakespearean/Elizabethan - the rhyme
scheme (the end of each line) is this:
Their lips are as clear as the sky so bright. Without a blemish in

my sight.
Their eyes seep into your soul with passion. My love for them
is to be compared with the love between gods.
Your face is perfect in everyway thou cannot point out a
mistake.
Althought your eyes, lips, and face may be without mistake.

Your heart and brain are greater than gods with the kindness of
a million people. Your brain knows more about me than I know
about mysef.
But your shine in my heart is greater than the light of a

summers day. Your name lingers in my brain. Your words sink
deep into my heart. Your smells is that of the most gracious
being.
But at last your love is so great that I hope you accept my fate. Will
you be my valentine and carry me throughout the night.
Every A rhymes with every A, every B rhymes with every B, and so on. You'll notice this type of
sonnet consists of three quatrains (that is, four consecutive lines of verse that make up a
stanza) and one couplet (two consecutive rhyming lines of verse).
Ah, but of course there's more to a sonnet than just the structure of it. A sonnet is also an
argument — it builds up in a certain way. And how it builds up is related to its metaphors and
how it moves from one metaphor to the next. In a Shakespearean sonnet, the argument
builds up like this:
 First quatrain: An introduction to the main theme/idea.
 Second quatrain: Theme/idea is extended; often, an imaginative example is given.
 Third quatrain: Peripeteia (a twist or conflict. You don’t have to remember this word!),
often introduced by a "but" (perhaps leading the ninth line).
 Couplet: Final 2 lines summarise and leave the reader with a concluding image.
One of Shakespe hjgv are's best-known sonnets, Sonnet 18, follows this pattern:
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 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.
The argument of Sonnet 18 goes like this:
 First quatrain: Shakespeare establishes the theme of comparing "thou" (or "you") to a
summer's day, and why to do so is a bad idea. The metaphor is made by comparing his
beloved to summer itself.
 Second quatrain: Shakespeare extends the theme, explaining why even the sun,
supposed to be so great, gets obscured sometimes, and why everything that's
beautiful decays from beauty sooner or later.
 Third quatrain: Here the argument takes a turn with the familiar "But." Shakespeare
says that the main reason he won't compare his beloved to summer is that summer
dies — but she won't. He refers to the first two quatrains — her "eternal summer"
won't fade, and she won't "lose possession" of the "fair" (the beauty) she possesses.
So he keeps the metaphors going, but in a different direction.
 Couplet: How is his beloved going to escape death? She lives on in Shakespeare's
poetry, which will keep her alive as long as people breathe or see. This bold statement
ends strongly — it's a surprise.
So, your chance for literary immortality awaits…

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Year 8 February 2021 With Valentine’s Day in mind…

Shakespearean Sonnet Writing

Here are the rules:

 It must consist of 14 lines.

 It must be written in iambic pentameter (duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-

 It must be written in one of the various standard rhyme schemes…

Their lips are as clear as the sky so bright. Without a blemish in

Althought your eyes, lips, and face may be without mistake.

But your shine in my heart is greater than the light of a

 First quatrain: An introduction to the main theme/idea.

 Second quatrain: Theme/idea is extended; often, an imaginative example is given.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

The argument of Sonnet 18 goes like this:

So, your chance for literary immortality awaits…

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