The Shakespearean Sonnet - briefly!

Ahhh Shakespeare!

The man teenagers love to hate.

The interpretation of the sonnet has been the downfall of many an eager child.

The Shakespearean sonnet has some very obvious traits that I will list for you here:

▪️ It has 14 lines

▪️ It has an alternating rhyme scheme

▪️ It ends in a rhyming couplet

▪️ Iambic pentameter

Now, points 1, 2 and 3 are easy enough for you to remember. But iambic pentameter is the deal breaker for most people. It is also the point that is the difference between a 6 and an 8.

Iambic pentameter is describing a beat that has five stressed and five unstressed syllables. We know it is five because 'pent' is the Latin for five.

There are other types of iambic meters such as tetrameter or quatrameter.

Those are things that make a specific poem a sonnet.

Hope that helps!