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Sonnet Video

FUN WITH

SONNETS

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Shakespeare Sonnets

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William Shakespeare

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What is a sonnet?

• A lyric poem consisting of fourteen lines.

SO MUCH FUN!

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A Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnet contains:

• three quatrains (four lines each)

• and a final rhyming couplet (two lines)

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A quatrain is:

• One of three four-line stanzas in a Shakespearean sonnet.

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A couplet is:

• The final two rhyming lines in a Shakespearean sonnet.

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Rhyming patterns

• The Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains followed by a couplet, the scheme being: abab cdcd efef gg.

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Iambic Pentameter

•  The type of meter used in Shakespearean sonnets

Sounds Hard…

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The meter of a poem is:

• its rhythm of stressed or unstressed syllables organized into patterns called feet.

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An iamb is:

• a foot consisting of two syllables, one unaccented (unstressed) and one accented (stressed).

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Pentameter?

• Well an ‘iamb’ is ‘dee Dum’ – it is the heart beat.

• Penta is from the Greek for five.

• Meter is really the pattern

• So, there are five iambs per line!

• (Iambic penta meter )

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Heartbeat.

• Quite simply, it sounds like this: dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM. It consists of a line of five iambic feet, ten syllables with five unstressed and five stressed syllables. It is the first and last sound we ever hear, it is the rhythm of the human heart beat.

If you could hear my heart beat now, it would feel just

like Iambic pentameter.

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Iambic Pentameter Practice

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• It is percussive and attractive to the ear and has an effect on the listener's central nervous system. An Example of Pentameter from Shakespeare: but SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS

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Jobs of each stanza

Stanza: A group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse

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Your First Stanza

• should introduce the poem, explain a problem or situation, and introduce what you’ll be talking about.

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Your Second and Third Stanza

• should INVESTIGATE the story… what are the feelings involved? Exploring the story/conflict/situation introduced in the first stanza

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Your Rhyming Couplet

• at the end should resolve the poem, or provide a dramatic twist to the story. The couplet is probably the most important two lines of the sonnet… so make them good!

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Tell me we’re not done having fun with sonnets?!?