📚 English 167 Shakespeare Sonnets

Meter

The rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Scansion

The process of analyzing or marking the metrical pattern of a poem.

Foot

A basic unit of poetic meter consisting of one stressed syllable accompanied by one or two unstressed syllables.

Monometer

A poetic line containing 1 beat/stress.

Dimeter

A poetic line containing 2 beats/stresses.

Trimeter

A poetic line containing 3 beats/stresses.

Tetrameter

A poetic line containing 4 beats/stresses.

Pentameter

A poetic line containing 5 beats/stresses.

Most common meter in Shakespeare's poetry

Pentameter, especially iambic pentameter.

Iamb

A two-syllable foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Iambic

A rhythm that moves from unstressed → stressed.

Iambic pentameter

A line containing five metrical feet that are predominantly iambic.

Anapest

A three-syllable foot consisting of unstressed → unstressed → stressed.

Anapestic

A rising rhythm consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.

Trochee

A two-syllable foot consisting of stressed → unstressed.

Trochaic

A falling rhythm consisting of stressed → unstressed.

Dactylic

A falling rhythm consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

Pyrrhic

A foot containing two unstressed syllables.

Spondee

A foot containing two stressed syllables.

Why does Shakespeare vary meter?

To avoid a robotic rhythm and emphasize certain words, ideas, or emotions.

What rhythm can Shakespeare use at the beginning of an otherwise iambic line?

A trochaic foot, which can give the line extra energy.

Couplet

Two consecutive lines that rhyme.

Heroic couplet

Two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that are end-stopped.

Tercet

A three-line stanza.

Quatrain

A four-line unit/stanza of verse.

Octave

An eight-line stanza that is separated from what follows by end-line punctuation.

Final couplet

The two rhyming lines at the end of a Shakespearean sonnet that often resolve, summarize, or comment on the poem's argument.

Couplet tie

A word or part of a word that appears in the first twelve lines and is repeated in the final couplet, connecting the ending to the rest of the poem.

Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem that historically follows a structured rhyme scheme.

Sonnet etymology

Comes from the Italian sonetto, meaning “little song.”

Petrarch

Italian poet (1304–1374) commonly associated with the development and popularization of the sonnet tradition.

Petrarchan sonnet

A sonnet traditionally divided into an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines).

Shakespearean/English sonnet

A 14-line sonnet typically consisting of three quatrains followed by a concluding couplet.

Key structural difference between Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets

Petrarchan sonnets use an octave and sestet, while Shakespearean sonnets use three quatrains followed by a couplet.

What always distinguishes a Shakespearean sonnet structurally?

It ends with a rhyming couplet.

Petrarchism

The imitation of Petrarch's poetic style and conventions.

Blazon

A detailed metaphorical description of a beloved's physical features, often listing individual body parts.

Common Petrarchan themes

Unrequited love, physical desire vs. abstinence, paradoxes/oxymorons, and exaggerated descriptions of the beloved's beauty.

Petrarchan paradox

A seemingly contradictory combination such as fire and ice used to describe attraction and resistance.

Paradox

A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that can contain a deeper truth.

Pun

Wordplay that exploits multiple meanings of a word or phrase.

Diction

The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.

Irony

A noticeable difference between what is said and what is actually intended.

Chiasmus

A literary device in which corresponding phrases are arranged in an inverse order

Example of chiasmus

“Love's fire heats water, water cools not love” — Sonnet 154.

Synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole, or the whole represents a part.

Example of synecdoche

“Wheels” meaning a car.

Metonymy

Replacing the name of something with a word closely associated with it.

Example of metonymy

“The Crown” meaning the monarchy.

First reference to Shakespeare's Sonnets

Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia in 1598.

When were Shakespeare's Sonnets first published?

1609.

How many copies of the first printing survive?

13 copies.

How many times was Shakespeare's Sonnets reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime?

Never.

What was happening in London when the Sonnets were published in 1609?

The plague was raging, and Shakespeare's company was touring.

First reference to Shakespeare's Sonnets

Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia in 1598.

The Passionate Pilgrim

A 1599 collection attributed to Shakespeare that contained 20 poems, although only two later appeared in Shakespeare's Sonnets (138 and 144).

When were Shakespeare's Sonnets entered in the Stationers' Register?

May 20, 1609.

When were Shakespeare's Sonnets first published?

1609.

How does Shakespeare disrupt traditional sonnet conventions?

His sequence begins by addressing a male rather than a female, and only about 20% of the sonnets are unambiguously associated with a female subject.

Why is Sonnet 20 significant?

It addresses a male subject and is the only sonnet composed entirely of feminine/unaccented rhymes.

Labouchère Amendment

A 1895 British law that criminalized homosexual acts between consenting adult males.

What happened to Oscar Wilde in 1895?

He was put on trial in the context of the criminalization of homosexual acts.

Why is Oscar Wilde relevant to Shakespeare's Sonnets?

Wilde repeatedly wrote about and associated himself with Shakespeare's Sonnets.

How did the Labouchère Amendment and Wilde's trial affect Shakespeare scholarship?

Some prominent scholars began arguing that Shakespeare had not authorized publication of the Sonnets and that they had been written early in his career.

Eros

Romantic/sexual love.

Philia

Friendship.

Storge

Familial affection.

Agape

Selfless or charitable love.

Why is there so much scholarly disagreement about Shakespeare's Sonnets?

Scholars disagree about when many were written, who they refer to, and how they should be interpreted.

What are some ways scholars have interpreted the Sonnets?

As a poetic novel, dramatic monologues, letters, journal entries, personal meditations, or combinations of these forms.

Do most scholars today believe the order of the Sonnets matters?

Yes. Most accept that Shakespeare deliberately arranged them.

W. H. Auden's criticism of scholarship on the Sonnets

He argued that enormous amounts of intellectual and emotional energy had been spent trying to interpret them without reaching agreement.

Stylometric analysis

A quantitative/statistical method used to analyze writing style to investigate authorship or when a work was written.

Tokens

Individual word forms used as data in stylometric analysis.

Possible dating of Sonnets 1–60

Likely written in the early 1590s but heavily revised in the early 1600s.

Possible dating of Sonnets 61–103

Likely written in the early 1590s and largely unrevised.

Possible dating of Sonnets 104–126

Likely written later, around 1600.

Possible dating of Sonnets 127–154

Many were likely written early in the 1590s but were largely left unrevised, with some exceptions.

How much of the Sonnets are unambiguously associated with a female subject?

About 20%.

The units in which metrical poetry is written

basic rhythmic units called metrical feet, which combine stressed and unstressed syllables

Iambic foot

a two-syllable unit of poetry rhythm where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable, sounding like "da-DUM"

Alliteration

the repetition of the same initial consonant sounds in a series of nearby words.

Assonance

the repetition of similar or identical vowel sounds within nearby words, without repeating the same consonant sounds