SonnetSonnetSonnetSonnet

MeterMeterMeterMeter

Regular rhythmic patternRegular rhythmic pattern

Meter

– Iambic: ˘ ¯ unstressed, stressed

– Trochaic: ¯ ˘ stressed, unstressed

– Anapestic: ˘ ˘ ¯ unstressed, unstressed, stressed

– Dactylic: ¯ ˘ ˘ stressed, unstressed, unstressed

– Pyrrhic: ˘ ˘ unstressed, unstressed

– Spondaic: ¯ ¯ stressed, stressed

FootFootFootFootRhythmic unit within a lineRhythmic unit within a line

Number of Feet• One monometer• Two dimeter• Three trimeter• Four tetrameter• Five pentameter• Six hexameter• Seven heptameter

Sonnet• 14 lines• Follows a rhyme scheme• Iambic pentameter

SonnetEnglish Sonnets• Shakespearean Sonnet

– Three quatrains • abab cdcd efef (rhyme scheme)

– Couplet • gg

• Spenserain Sonnet– Abab bcbc cdcd ee (rhyme scheme)

Sonnet• Italian/Petrarchan

– Octave• Eight lines• Abbaabba (rhyme scheme)• Presents the story, raises a question,

states a proposition• Volta (turn) between 8th and 9th lines

– Sestet• six lines• cdecde or cdcdcd or cdedce (rhyme

scheme)• Abstract comment, applies the

proposition, solves the problem

Other Terms• Caesura - a pause in a line of poetry

• Elision – omitting a vowel sound to keep meter– Whose misadventured piteous overthrows (line 7)

• Enjambment -- reading a line of poetry continues onto the next line without pausing.

– From forth the fatal loins of these two foes– A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. (lines 5-6)

• End-stopped --- pause at the end of a line. – Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

Other Terms

• Blank verse – unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.

• Free verse - poetry without a regular pattern of rhyme or meter.