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"Take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it,
and again return to bed"

Sonnets 101

A sonnet is a fourteen line poem of rhymed iambic pentameter.  Scared yet?   Don't be.

An iamb is simply a pair of syllables that has the rhythm ta-DUM.  One iamb gives you one ta-DUM.  Five iambs strung together (ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM) is iambic pentameter.

Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer's DAY?

There's a famous example of iambic pentameter.  Next comes the rhyme scheme.

There are two types of sonnets.  Actually, there are more than two, but we'll go with two for now.  One type, the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, is insane.  I'm going to avoid it in such a deft way that you will be convinced that the problematic nature of the Petrarchan sonnet is a failing of the inventor, not Julie.  :)

The second type, the English or Shakespearean sonnet, is pretty insane, too.  But it's a manageable type of insanity, like paranoia or a neurosis of some sort, rather than the stark raving madness of the Italian sonnet.

As you may have guessed by this time, Shakespeare wrote Shakespearean sonnets.  (A guy named Petrarch wrote the other kind, thus Petrarchan.)  Old Will wasn't crazy enough to attempt the Italian ones.

Italian sonnets have this rhyme scheme.  ABBAABBACDCCDC.  Notice how many of the same rhyme you need to come up with.  Four As, four Bs, four Cs, and two Ds.   (There is a reason these sonnets are more common in Italian than English.   Italian has many more rhymes than English.)

English sonnets have this rhyme scheme.  ABABCDCDEFEFGG.  You only need two of any rhyme.  Isn't that easy?  :)

Here's that rhyme scheme in action:

Shakespeare—Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too 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 fade
Nor 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.

Yes, I know what you're thinking.  "Temperate" and "date" don't really rhyme.  It's called a half-rhyme when two words sorta, kinda rhyme but don't quite.  Like thin/again.  Or glove/enough.  Or they kinda, sorta look like they should rhyme, but don't.  Like main/again.

Yes, yes, I know that lines 10 and 12 have either too many syllables or pronounce "owest" and "growest" in only one syllable each.  Just swallow the second syllable.  It won't hurt you.

"But," you argue, "that really isn't fair."  Ha!  You say that now.  But try writing a few of these things and you'll be more forgiving.   Hell, you'll be whining that "onion" and "tennis shoe" are a half-rhyme, and you'll say that "existential" can be pronounced in only one syllable.  So give Old Will a break.

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