Shakespeare: Sonnets

Sonnets

- 154 Sonnets in decasyllables were published in 1609

- They have no title
 Structure

- Three quatrains and a final couplet

- It has its characteristic rhyme scheme: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.
- Turning point at the 9th line or at the beginning of the couplet

- Themes: love and its loss, broken trust of a friend, forgiveness

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? A
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. B
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, A
And summer's lease hath all too short a date. B
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, C
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d, D
And every fair from fair sometime declines, C
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm’d. D
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, E
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; F
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, E
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. F
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, G
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. G
 Addressee

- Sonnets I to XVIII: a "fair youth", probably Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton;

- Sonnets XIX to CXXVI: time becomes the "antagonist" of the poet;

- Sonnets CXXVII to the end: a dark lady

 Themes

- Reversal of the traditional themes of love sonnets. The poems are addressed to a young man.

- Universal themes such as time, death, love, beauty and art;

- The poems devoted to a woman are negative, non-conventional

 Style

- Rich and vivid descriptive language;

- Absence of classical references;

- Dramatic quality through the sharp beginning;

- Use of questions or the pronouns "thou" and "thee"

conversational style
 Language
Use of Metaphors and Similes

"There's daggers in men's smiles (from Macbeth)

The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath
(from "The Merchant of Venice")

Use of Personifications

Come, civil Night;

Thou sober-suited matron all in black. (From "Romeo and Juliet")
 Language

Shakespeare used unrhymed lines with an arrangement of unstressed and stressed

syllables known as BLANK VERSE / IAMBIC PENTAMETER

In sooth/ I know / not why / I am / so sad /

(from "The merchant of Venice")
 Language

Antithesis

The contrast of direct opposites

«Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,

O any thing, of nothing first created:
O heavy lightness, serious vanity»

(From "Romeo and Juliet")