do sonnets have to have iambic pentameter

He is consumed by guilt over his passion. The poet is disgusted and frightened by his dependence on the young friend. However, the poet quickly establishes the negative aspect of his dependence on his beloved, and the complimentary metaphor that the friend is food for his soul decays into ugly imagery of the poet alternating between starving and gorging himself on that food. Sonnet 75 opens with a seemingly joyous and innocent tribute to the young friend who is vital to the poet's emotional well being. More to Explore Introduction to Shakespeare's SonnetsĪre Shakespeare's Sonnets Autobiographical?Īre the Sonnets Addressed to Two Persons? Shakespeare Quotations (by Play and Theme) The Earl of Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron

King James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style. Only three of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets do not conform to this structure: Sonnet 99, which has 15 lines Sonnet 126, which has 12 lines and Sonnet 145, which is written in iambic tetrameter. The Petrarchan sonnet style was extremely popular with Elizabethan sonneteers, much to Shakespeare's disdain (he mocks the conventional and excessive Petrarchan style in Sonnet 130). This sonnet structure is commonly called the English sonnet or the Shakespearean sonnet, to distinguish it from the Italian Petrarchan sonnet form which has two parts: a rhyming octave (abbaabba) and a rhyming sestet (cdcdcd). The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd efef. In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet. The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains with four lines each. There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet. It should be noted that there are also many prose passages in Shakespeare's plays and some lines of trochaic tetrameter, such as the Witches' speeches in Macbeth. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. Shakespeare's plays are also written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas.

Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE ( Sonnet 18) Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mer's DAY? I ALL / a LONE / be WEEP / my OUT/ cast STATE ( Sonnet 29) When IN / dis GRACE / with FOR / tune AND / men's EYES When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME ( Sonnet 12) A line of iambic pentameter flows like this:īaBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables.

Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style

Do sonnets have to have iambic pentameter