This document provides an overview of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It discusses the rhyme scheme, line structure, and metrical patterns used in the sonnets. It also summarizes the themes of the two groups of sonnets - sonnets 1-126 address a fair youth discussing love and admiration, while sonnets 127-152 address a dark lady discussing infatuation and lust. The sonnets follow specific poetic forms including iambic pentameter and a rhyming couplet at the end.

1. Shakespeare’
s
Sonnets
English I Honors
Mrs. Pilgreen

2. Rhyme Scheme
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame A
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, B
Will play the tyrants to the very same A
And that unfair which fairly doth excel; B
For never-resting time leads summer on C
To hideous winter, and confounds him there; D
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, C
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where: D
Then were not summer's distillation left, E
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,F
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, E
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was: F
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet, G
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. G

3. Line Structure
• 14 total lines
• 3 quatrains: group of 4 lines
• Followed by a couplet: group of 2 lines
• Lyric poetry: expresses the thoughts &
emotions of a single speaker, usually love
• Contains a volta at the 3rd stanza: change in
tone or attitude

4. Metrical Patterns
• unstressed syllable: u • 1 foot: monometer
• Stressed syllable: / • 2 feet: dimeter
• 3 feet: trimeter
• Iamb: u / • 4 feet: tetrameter
• Trochee: / u • 5 feet: pentameter
• Anapest: u u / • 6 feet: hexameter
• Dactyl: / u u • 7 feet: heptameter
• Spondee: / / • 8 feet: octameter

5. Metrical Patterns
• Iambic Pentameter: 5 (feet of) iambs
u /u /u /u /u /
Example:
What light through yon-der win-dow breaks?

6. The Sonnets
• Sonnets 1-126 addressed to a “fair youth”
– urging him to marry and have children so that
he can leave behind a duplicate of his beauty
– love & admiration
• Sonnet 127-152 addressed to a “dark
lady,” the speaker’s mistress
– The fair youth has stolen the dark lady from
the speaker
– Object of infatuation & lust

7. The Sonnets
• Sonnets 1-126 addressed to a “fair youth”
– urging him to marry and have children so that
he can leave behind a duplicate of his beauty
– love & admiration
• Sonnet 127-152 addressed to a “dark
lady,” the speaker’s mistress
– The fair youth has stolen the dark lady from
the speaker
– Object of infatuation & lust