How To Write A Shakespearean Sonnet | Write Better Poetry

Описание: Sonnets. The traditional Shakespearean Sonnet, also known as the love poem, can be a tricky thing to understand at first. But once you do, it's a beautiful form, and can leave one feeling pretty satisfied when finished.

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If you’re a long time subscriber and are watching chronologically you’ll know I recently did a video on how to write a traditional Haiku, and to follow up today I’m going to be showing you how to write a Shakespearean sonnet. If however you’re not subscribed (and you should be *wink*) then ignore what I just said and your intro starts here. The Shakespearean sonnet is one of my all time favourite forms of poetry. As most of you know Shakespeare is a massive influence on me, I have a statue of him on my desk and am in awe of his work like many, and the Elizabethan era is such a fascinate period in English history, I just love it. So, are you looking to write something beautiful to someone you care about? Most likely a lover… I know you’re all lovebirds out there deep down, then let me show you the ins and outs of one Shakespeare’s most frequented forms.

The most celebrated of all writers to pen sonnets is of course William Shakespeare. He wrote 154 of them which were published in 1609. The Shakespeare sonnet sequence was very famous, though it was not his creation. The sonnet form of poetry was actually first introduced in the mid 16th century by Thomas Wyatt. Many many sonneteers have captured the hearts of women all over the world, and though there are exceptions, sonnets quickly became known as the ‘love poem’ written by a poet for someone very special. But how exactly did Shakespeare do it? Let me show you.

Metre: I very quickly touched on sonnets in a previous video, so if you’ve already seen that, then I’m sorry to have to repeat myself. I find metre the most crucial part of poetry for me personally. Poetry is supposed to be heightened from every day speech, and of course… we do speak in a metre naturally, but with a sonnet we HAVE to get our heads around iambic pentameter. Some of you may have come across this before. Most likely in English at school, but if like me… you paid no attention, here’s a refresher. Iambic stands for the musicality of the speech. Essentially it looks like this: _ / _ / _ / _ / _ / like musicians with music sheets you’re looking to create sentences that roll off the tongue with unstressed, stressed syllables. Pentameter simply means five in a row. But soft, What light, through yon, der win, dow breaks

So now I’m going to ask you to pause the video and take action, I just want you to start writing iambic pentameter sentences. Make sure you don’t over think it at all. They don’t even have to make sense. Just make sure you’re getting the metre right. For example here are a view I wrote quickly for the video:

And so I slept upon the floor to dance
The cheese did melt as I did glance away
He shook his hand and said I am to be

Better yet, write them down in the comments below so we can have a giggle at what you come up with!

Form: Okay, so hopefully you’ve taken your time to get your head around Iambic. The next thing we need to know is the form.

Now something to keep in mind with form, the first two stanza are your opportunity to express everything you love about your poem’s subject, but traditionally the third stanza (EF EF) things take a turn. This stanza traditional sonneteers used to express things from a different angle. Some use it to look at more darker aspects, or to give some sort of dramatic turn, before concluding things with GG and returning to the ‘love’ of someone of something. Whatever it is you’re writing about.


Now you know the rules of writing a perfect sonnet! And I’m sure some of you watching will have read a sonnet and thought, ‘wait a minute Adam, they didn’t stick to the rules why should I?’ and as I always say, rules ARE made to be broke, and you CAN make creative choices against these rules, but you must first MASTER them before you can break them. Please do leave your sonnets in comment section below for me to take a read!

Adam
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