Then there’s Sonnet 25, rhymed ababcdcdefgfhh in the original and “corrected” to ababcdcdefefgg in later printings.
Not only has he reused a sound, he has reused a word! Oh, the humanity! If you look at this poem as printed in poetry texts, they’ll still tell you it’s ababcdcdefefgg, but they won’t tell you that a=f. Look at Sonnet 29, beginning, “When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes…” So our a is eyes/cries b is state/fate c is hope/scope d is possessed/least (Huh? Let that one go for a minute, we’ll get to it.) e is despising/arising (Yes, two syllables we’ll get to that, too.) f is… oops, state/gate. And the rule, or at least the norm, of ababcdcdefefgg might lead you to assume that letters a through g represent seven unique rhyming sounds. How about that typical Shakespearean rhyme scheme? Again, yes, usually, but, as noted earlier, S126 is six rhyming couplets rhymed aabbccddeeff. Why? Was something naughty edited out? Is it illustrative of the silence of the grave? Is it even still a sonnet? Those are the only two of the 154 published together that don’t have fourteen lines, so I don’t recommend varying the number of lines unless you have a really good reason, but Shakespeare did it. And how about Sonnet 126, with only twelve lines and two blank, bracketed gaps? S126 is also written in couplets, rhymed aabbccddeeff. Oh, but there’s Sonnet 99 with fifteen the opening “quatrain” has five lines, rhymed ababa. Not often, in some cases, but in becoming a master of the form, he played with every possible element. There is not one rule of sonnet-writing that Shakespeare did not break. Provided you have basic counting skills and even a smattering of rhythm, you should be able to produce something that follows the rules so why doesn’t it sound like Shakespeare? Because Shakespeare, like almost every writer, musician, and artist who ever worked in a medium with rules, learned those rules, understood those rules, and then broke them.Īs we look at some of the ways in which Shakespeare achieved immortality through rule-breaking, I’ll be referring to several of his most beloved sonnets, several of which I provide at Appendix 1 so you won’t have to go looking for them (just in case you don’t have them committed to memory). If you are still paying attention, said teacher or essay may tell you that a Shakespearean sonnet may be broken into quatrains, such that each quatrain should progress the poem in a predictable fashion, to wit, the first quatrain establishes the theme, the second quatrain develops the theme, the third resolves the theme, and the concluding couplet, well, concludes.
And you turn valiantly to the formula provided by a textbook, web site, or well-meaning High School English teacher, that a Shakespearean sonnet is fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhymed abab cdcd efef gg.
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