The rhyming pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet

Read our in-depth guide to iambic pentameter. All sonnets use iambic pentameter, and almost all the lines in Shakespeare’s plays are written in iambic pentameter as well. Pentameter simply refers to the number of feet, in the case of the sonnet, five. The word constitutes a foot or an iambus. For example, the word away has two syllables with a weak stress on the first, ‘ a’, and a strong stress on the second, ‘ way’. Iambic refers to the name of the foot, which is composed of a weaker syllable followed by an accented syllable. Iambic pentameter refers to the structure of the line. All sonnets are written in iambic pentameter This is the form Shakespeare used and the form has become known as t he Shakespearean Sonnet or the Elizabethan Sonnet. Sonnet can also be divided into three four-line sections (called quatrains), followed by a two-line section (called a couplet). It’s known as the Petrarchan Sonnet or the Italian Sonnet. This could be an eight-line section (called an octet), followed by a six-line section (called a sestet) – the form used by the Italian poet, Petrarch, the most famous sonnet writer apart from Shakespeare.

For example, a sonnet can be divided into two sections, each section having its own rhyme pattern. The fourteen lines of a sonnet are made up of one of a number of different rhyme patterns. Sonnets are poems of expressive ideas or thoughts that can take a number of different forms, but always have two things in common.

Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order. Plays It is believed that Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total between 15.

Shakespeare iambic pentameter sonnets