How to Write Sonnets like Shakespeare
I’m a poet by hobby, and people ask me all the time how to write sonnets like Shakespeare. People around the world love Shakespeare’s sonnets, the vast majority of which are love poems to an unknown (or uncertain) lover. William Shakespeare wasn’t just the greatest playwright in the history of the English language, he was one of its premier poets, and his sonnets stand the test of time. Let’s take a short look at what a Shakespearean sonnet is.
A sonnet is a poem composed of a certain number of lines, usually with a specific rhyme and metrical scheme. William Shakespeare’s sonnets were fairly original, and had their own set of rules. For starters, all Shakespearean sonnets deal with some kind of specific and overarching “theme” — time, love, beauty, death, etc. As a side note, many of Shakespeare’s early sonnets were written in the voice of a person urging an attractive and interesting young man to go forth and have children, therefore spreading his beauty. These are called “procreation sonnets” and are fairly unique to Shakespeare.
Besides being written on a specific theme, Shakespeare’s sonnets had a specific form that set him apart from his fellow sonnet writers. His form requires a sonnet be fourteen lines long, and built out of three “quatrains” and a “couplet”. A quatrain is a group of four lines, while a couplet is a grouping of two lines. The first two quatrains set up the poem and the theme, while the third quatrain introduces a sudden thematic change called a “volta”. This “volta” keeps the sonnet from being too stale.
In Shakespeare’s sonnets, the final couplet at the end (known as the ‘heroic couplet’) summarizes the theme of the poem or occasionally introduces a fresh new look at the theme, a sudden bit of inspired poetic thought.
The usual meter for Shakepseare’s sonnets is called “iambic pentameter” — a complicated term that just means that each line is made up of ten syllables and they must follow a specific rhythm of the syllables. In Shakespeare’s sonnets, the even numbered syllables in a line are to bear the majority of the line’s accents or “emphasis”. Saying this out loud, replacing the syllables with the nonsense words “ba bum”, the line would look like this — ba BUM ba BUM ba BUM ba BUM ba BUM. Even Shakespeare didn’t follow this metrical pattern exactly, so some alteration to the “iambic pentameter” is not only acceptable but expected.
Remember too that Shakespeare’s rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. This means that the first and third lines rhyme, the second and fourth do as well, etc all the way to the “heroic couplet”, which rhymes directly with itself.
Here’s an example of a Shakespearean sonnet, so you can follow the rhyme, meter, and syllabic count.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a)
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)
O no, it is an ever fixed mark (c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)
It is the star to every wand’ring bark, (c)
Whose worth’s unknown although his height be taken. (d)
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle’s compass come, (f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)
If this be error and upon me proved, (g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)
Thank you for this excellent summary of the Shakespearean sonnet! The one element that you have included that most people don’t touch on enough when teaching the Shakespearean sonnet is the “volta”. This thematic change is so significant however, the rhythm and rhyming scheme often overshadow the volta in discussions of what elements make Shakespeare’s sonnets great. I really enjoyed reading your piece.