Sonnets Group

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sohini
sohini

Explain Shakespeare as a sonneteer.

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Posted by sohini on Friday August 21, 2009 at 11:24 AM and tagged with couplet, elizabethan period, iambic pentameter, problem, quatrain, rhyme scheme, shakespeare, shakespearean sonnet, solution, sonnet, sonneteer, the english renaissance.

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  1. ms-charleston-yawp
    ms-charleston-yawp Teacher
    High School - 11th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Shakespeare was such an amazing sonneteer that there is actually a type of sonnet today that we refer to as a "Shakespearean Sonnet"!  Even though Shakespeare isn't the inventor of the Shakespearean sonnet, he was certainly the master of this kind of poem.  Quite simply, a Shakespearean sonnet contains fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.  It has three quatrains (four lines each) and a final rhyming couplet (of two lines).  Therefore, the rhyme scheme is always abab cdcd efef gg.  Most often a problem is presented in the first 12 lines or so with a solution following by the end of the poem.

    During the Elizabethan period, writing groups of sonnets with similar themes (called a "sonnet sequence") became very popular.  Shakespeare wrote the best of these sonnet sequences, in my opinion.  His contained a full 154 sonnets.  They focus on a handsome young man, a rival poet, and sometimes even a "dark lady."  These subjects often cause scholars to disagree upon the truth behind Shakespeare's life and sexuality. 

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/art-shakespeares-sonnets-salem/art-...
    http://www.enotes.com/literary-terms/sonnet
    http://www.enotes.com/sonnets/themes

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    Posted by ms-charleston-yawp on Friday August 21, 2009 at 5:37 PM