Dec 15, 2009

Sonnet 19 | Style

A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem that follows certain well-established conventions in its rhyme scheme. The Shakespearean sonnet is composed of three quatrains (a verse of four lines) which develops the thought or argument, followed by a concluding couplet (two lines), which resolves the issue, often with a witty or unexpected turn in the thought. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. That is, line 1 rhymes with line 3, line 2 with line 4, line 5 with line 7, and so on.

Shakespeare’s sonnets are written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line consists of...