The whole poem follows the rhyme scheme A-B-A-B/ C-D-C-D/ E-F-E-F. The so-called English sonnet is divided into three quatrains (stanzas of four lines each), which in turn each have two rhymes. Shakespeare’s sonnets are all written in a different rhyme scheme than their Continental predecessors. However, once it got to England in the sixteenth century, British poets started to shake things up a bit. These European sonnets followed a rhyme scheme referred to now as the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet. The sonnet, a fourteen-line poetic form that originated in medieval Italy, made its way over to England through the very popular poems of Petrarch, an Italian poet, and Ronsard, a French one. A perfect example is line 5 (italicized syllables are stressed): O no! It is an ev-er fix-ed mark Now that we’ve got the meter down, let’s take a look at the form. Altogether, every line has ten syllables – five iambs times two syllables per iamb = ten syllables total. Each of these feet is one of the "da- dum" – the dum is stressed.
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![iambic pentameter sonnet iambic pentameter sonnet](https://mammothmemory.net/images/user/base/English/Stress/2a-13.55f7daf.jpg)
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This is a fancy way of explaining the consistent da- dum, da- dum, da- dum rhythm of the lines every line has five two-syllable "feet" (yes, that’s what they’re actually called), or iambs. This sonnet, like all of the other sonnets, and like Shakespeare’s plays, is written in iambic pentameter. Let’s tackle the simpler part first: the meter. Elizabethan (Shakespearean) Sonnet, Iambic Pentameter