This document defines and provides examples of three types of sonnets: Petrarchan, Shakespearean, and Spenserian. It explains that Petrarchan sonnets have an octave rhyme scheme of abba abba and a sestet of cd cd or cde cde. Shakespearean sonnets have three quatrains of abab cded efef followed by a rhyming couplet. Spenserian sonnets also have three quatrains but with a rhyme scheme of abab bebe cdcd ee. Examples of each type are then provided.
This document defines and provides examples of three types of sonnets: Petrarchan, Shakespearean, and Spenserian. It explains that Petrarchan sonnets have an octave rhyme scheme of abba abba and a sestet of cd cd or cde cde. Shakespearean sonnets have three quatrains of abab cded efef followed by a rhyming couplet. Spenserian sonnets also have three quatrains but with a rhyme scheme of abab bebe cdcd ee. Examples of each type are then provided.
This document defines and provides examples of three types of sonnets: Petrarchan, Shakespearean, and Spenserian. It explains that Petrarchan sonnets have an octave rhyme scheme of abba abba and a sestet of cd cd or cde cde. Shakespearean sonnets have three quatrains of abab cded efef followed by a rhyming couplet. Spenserian sonnets also have three quatrains but with a rhyme scheme of abab bebe cdcd ee. Examples of each type are then provided.
A lyric poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. It is of
three types: Petrarchan (also known as ltalian), Shakespearean (also known as English) and Spenserian. The first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet are called octave and the last six lines of it are called sestet. The rhyme scheme of the octave of a Petrarchan sonnet is abba abba and that of sestet is cd ca cd or cde cde. Milton, Wordsworth, Wyatt, Rossetti and a few other English poets have used Petrarchan form in their sonnets. Here is an example: • The world is too much with us; late and soon,. a • Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; b • Little we see in Nature that is ours; b • We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! a Octave • This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, a • The winds that will be howling at all hours, b • And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, b • For this, for everything, we are out of tune; a • It moves us not. Great God! l'd rather be c • A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; d • So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, c • Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; d Sestet • Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; c • Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. d • (Wordsworth: "The World Is Too Much with Us") • One more example for the variation in the sestet: • When I consider how my light is spent a • Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, b • And that one talent which.is death to hide b • Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent a Octave • To serve therewith my Marker, and present a • My true account, lest he returning chide; b • "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" b • I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent a • That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need c • Either man's work or his own gitts; who best d • Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state e Sestet A Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three quatrains followed by a couplet. lts rhyme scheme is abab cded efef gg. The concluding couplet is often used as a comment on the preceding lines. Here is an example: • 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 • Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, c • And often is his gold complexion dimmed; d • And every fair from fair sometimes declines, c • By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; d • But thy eternal summer shall not fade, e • Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; f • Nor shall death brag thou wander'st 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 (Shakespeare: " Sonnet XVIll) • The Spenserian sonnet is named ater Edmund Spenser who developed a different rhyme scheme for his sonnets. Like a Shakespearean sonnet, it consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet but its rhyme scheme differs from that of Shakespearean. Its rhyme scheme is abab bebe cdcd ee. For example: • Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace, a • Seeing the game from him escapt away, b • Sits downe to rest him in some shady place, a • With panting hounds beguiled of their pray: b • So after long pursuit and vaine assay, b • When I all weary had the chace forsooke, c • The gentle deare return'd the selfe-same way, b • Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke, c • There she beholding me with mylder looke, c • Sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide: d • Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke, c • And with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde. d • Strange thing me seem'd to see a beast so- wyld, e • So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyl’d. e • (Spenser: Amoretti, Sonnet