Shakespeare and his sonnets

1. Shakespeare and his sonnets

2. william shakespeare • Born 1564 and died in 1616 • Born in Stratford-upon-Avon • Considered the greatest Englishwriter of all time • His plays and sonnets have translated into all languages,musicals and ballets

3. information you might not hear • Shakespeare was a teen father: he married a pregnant, 26 year old Anne Hathaway when he was 18 years old • Was the father of twins • Could be considered a “deadbeat dad,” as he left his wife and children for a London stage career. • Some of his writings may have been plagiarized; he was accused of stealing ideas for plays from the writer Christopher Marlowe

4. Playwright or poet? • Shakespeare is best known for his many stage plays. Some of these titles include: • Romeo and Juliet • Hamlet • King Lear • A Midsummer Night’s Dream • The Taming of the Shrew • Macbeth • Much Ado About Nothing • Julius Caesar • However, Shakespeare is also famous for writing SONNETS!

5. Sonnets • Sonnet: a lyric poem of 14 lines. • There are two common species of sonnet, distinguished by their rhyme scheme • Italian • Shakespearean • The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains and a couplet. • The rhyme scheme for a Shakesperean sonnet is typically abab cdcd efef gg

6. Quatrain and couplet • Quatrain: a four-lined stanza in a poem. • Couplet: a two-line portion of a poem that usually rhymes Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all to short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee. Quatrain Quatrain Quatrain Couplet

7. Iambic pentameter • Shakespearean sonnets are written in iambic pentameter. • Iambic pentameter is a particular rhythm used in lines of poetry. • It is measured in small groups of syllables called “feet.” • “Iambic” signifies the type of foot that is used: unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables. • “Pentameter” indicates that a line has five of these “feet” or combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables.

8. Shakespearean turn • Most Shakespearean sonnets include a feature called a turn. • This turn is the moment in the poem where the theme or tone (writer’s attitude) changes in a surprising way.

9. Sonnet 18 • Read and annotate the sonnet for the following: • Label the quatrains and couplet • Label the rhyme scheme • Paraphrase the sonnet line-for-line • Note any poetic devices that you see present • Label the “turn” in the tone of the poem