Shakespearean sonnets
Iambic fourteen-liners
Shakespearean sonnets are fourteen-line poems following a specific structure: three quatrains and a closing couplet, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
The form is named for Shakespeare, who wrote 154 of them, though he didn't invent it.
The final couplet typically delivers a turn or resolution: The couplet landed with unexpected force.
Also called English sonnets.
- iambTwo-syllable metrical foot
- voltaRepeated section's alternate ending
- rhyming coupletTwo lines sharing end-sounds
- quatrainFour-line poetic unit
- iambic pentameterUnstressed-stressed pattern, five feet
sestet · quartos · couplet · octave · lyric poetry · verse · rhyme scheme · dark lady · poetic meter · courtly love · poetic imagery · Elizabethan poetry · loves · unrequited love · rhythms · fair youth · dramatic monologues · Stratford-upon-Avon
- poetrypoem, poems, poetry, verse, verses
- love poetrylove poems, love poem, love poetry, madrigal, canzone
- sonnetsoctave, sestet, fourteen lines, volta, quatrain
Shakespearean sonnetsfree verse
Poetry without fixed structure
prose poetry · haiku · stream of consciousness · epic poetry · automatic writing
Shakespearean sonnetsdoggerel
Trivial, clumsy verse
limericks · greeting card verse · nursery rhymes · rap lyrics · text messages