Breaking Down the Bard - Sonnets

If you've ever wondered what a sonnet is, I'm gonna break it down for you right now!

Simply put, a sonnet is a type of poem, following a set structure. There are many kinds of sonnets (which this Wikipedia article details). It doesn't necessarily have to be about love, but a lot of them are, because love is a wonderfully rich and complicated topic! We're going to look at the type of sonnet Shakespeare is famous for, called the English Sonnet, the Elizabethan* Sonnet, or the Shakespearean Sonnet.

*Elizabeth I was Queen of England during much of Shakespeare's life, and he wrote many plays and poems during the Elizabethan era.

 

 

The basic structure for this type of sonnet is three quatrains and a couplet - click the links if you missed those or need a reminder. This type of sonnet is typically in iambic pentameter and has a total of fourteen lines. One way to think of the rhyme scheme is this:

- - - - - - - - A

- - - - - - - - B

- - - - - - - - A

- - - - - - - - B

- - - - - - - - - C

- - - - - - - - - D

- - - - - - - - - C

- - - - - - - - - D

- - - - - - - - - - E

- - - - - - - - - - F

- - - - - - - - - - E

- - - - - - - - - - F

- - - - - - - - - - - G

- - - - - - - - - - - G

Let's look at Sonnet 91:

 

 

And here's the same sonnet, but I've shown where the quatrains and the couplet each start and end:

 

 

In the first quatrain, we see that "skill" in the first line rhymes with "ill" in the third line, and "force" in the second line rhymes with "horse" in the fourth. This is contrasted by the couplet that ends the sonnet, where two lines immediately rhyme with each other, "take" and "make".

Another noteworthy Sonnet by Shakespeare is in Romeo and Juliet. The very first time the young lovers speak to each other, they share lines that form a sonnet! Check it out:

 

 

Here, I've marked the structure so that you can easily see the Sonnet form that's hidden in Act I, Scene 5:

 

 

I think it's really cool that Shakespeare had his two star-crossed lovers so on the same page that they could improvise a Sonnet together at their very first meeting!

Shakespeare is not the only person to try his hand at the Elizabethan Sonnet - in fact, many others did, too - but he wrote at least 154 of them, and now you know what makes them tick!

What's your favorite sonnet? Let me know in the comments!

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Breaking Down the Bard - Quatrains

Last week on Breaking Down the Bard, I explained couplets, or two lines of verse in a row which have an ending rhyme. This week, we'll be looking at another popular rhyme structure in Shakespeare's works: quatrains.

Luciana (The Comedy of Errors)
If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
Then for her wealth's sake, use her with more kindness:
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth,
Muffle your false love with some show of blindness

See how "wealth" rhymes with "stealth" in the first and third lines, and "kindness" with "blindness" in the second and fourth lines? These four lines of alternating ending rhymes make a quatrain.

Here's another way to visualize it:
___________ A
______________B
____________A
______________B   

Lysander (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood:
And to speak troth I have forgot our way.
We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.

Getting the hang of this? "Wood" rhymes with "good," and "way" rhymes with "day."

Quatrains can even be shared among characters:

Romeo (Romeo and Juliet)
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Juliet
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Romeo
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do,
They pray - grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. 

Romeo and Juliet are so in tune with each other that they can rhyme while they flirt! 

Now you can identify what a quatrain is, and you're going to impress everyone when you're doing tablework for your next show!

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