Shakespeare's+Sonnets

== Shakespeare was much more well-known in his day for his poems than his plays. The SONNET -- a tightly-structured, 14-line poem, was popular in England at this time, and Shakespeare was one of the masters of the form. The form had already been made popular in Italy during its renaissance 200 years prior, but Shakespeare altered the form slightly -- changing the rhyme scheme and adding 2 "turning points" in the form. ==

== Shakespeare's sonnets do not have titles, so we refer to them by their first lines. Scholars have collected 154 sonnets which they believe to have been penned by Shakespeare; there were certainly others. They have been put in order and numbered, though there is some debate about the order in which they were written. Most of the sonnets are about love. Other topics include nature, beauty, God, and death. Here is a website that includes all 154 sonnets: ==

== The ENGLISH or SHAKESPEAREAN sonnet uses 3 quatrains (4 lines) and a final rhyming couplet (2 lines). In each quatrain, the writer must explore a different aspect of a topic, concluding the poem in the final couplet. ==

==Here is an example by Shakespeare, #116. It has been broken into its quatrains and couplet to help you see the pattern. Notice the //volta// (shift in tone and purpose) as he moves into the final couplet:==



Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)
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It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c)
==Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)== --- ==Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)==

Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)
==Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)==

But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)
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Here is Shakespeare's most famous sonnet, another about love:
=Sonnet XVIII=