William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, first published in 1609. He was inspired by the Italian sonnets of Petrarch, but changed the structure slightly, and wrote in a more varied style to Petrarch’s more obsessively romantic manner. In fact, even though he admired Petrarch, some people think many of Shakespeare’s sonnets are making fun of Petrarchan love sonnets. Shakespeare’s sonnets are at times as romantic as those of Petrarch’s, but he also addresses wider issues, such as gender roles (20), political events (124), irreverence (128), beauty (130). Some are even a bit saucy (151), while a couple are too rude to read in class (–).
The first 17 poems are addressed to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalise his beauty by passing it on to the next generation. Other sonnets express the speaker’s love for a young man, loneliness, death, and the briefness of life. Some seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet, while others express unclear feelings for the speaker’s mistress; some just play around with the poet’s name. The final two sonnets refer to Cupid.
The sonnets have a set structure and rhyming pattern, but there are a few exceptions: numbers 29, 99, 126 and 145.
126 of Shakespeare’s sonnets are addressed to a young man, often called the “Fair Youth”. Others refer to his mistress, the “Dark Lady”, to a Rival Poet and Cupid
Year Seven learnt that there is a hidden meaning in Shakespeare’s use of rhyme. For example, when he wrote a sonnet about marriage, he included rhymes that reflected the union of a man and a woman by including masculine rhymes (e.g. bark, mark) and feminine rhymes (e.g. shaken, taken) in harmony. He even revealed the year he wrote the sonnets by making sonnet 99 have fifteen lines (one more than all the others), to date the sonnets at 1599.
The students in Year Seven were tasked with writing a Shakespearean sonnet, adhering to the correct format, and including specially requested elements:
- iambic pentameter
- metaphor
- rhyme pattern
- three quatrains
- volta
- heroic couplet
- feminine rhyme
- masculine rhyme
- male and female elements
- heroic couplet
The students provided some excellent work, some of which is showcased below from our February poets laureate Arianna and Naria…
Arianna
Naria
Because of their universal themes that have always appealed and intrigued humanity, Shakespeare’s sonnets are still enjoyed and emulated today, as they have been in the Year Seven classroom.