Verse Forms - the Shakespearean or English Sonnet

The Shakespearean or English Sonnet

Basic features & history of the verse form:

Number of lines	14
Structure / divisions	Three quatrains followed by a couplet
Rhyme scheme	Three quatrains followed by a couplet
Meter	Usually iambic pentameter
Refrain line or lines	No
Time / place of origin	16th-century England (modified from the Italian form by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey)
Medieval / Renaissance poets associated with this form	Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; William Shakespeare, Michael Drayton
Examples written in English by or before —	16th century (Surrey)

An example of a Shakespearean sonnet:

Sonnet LXIV
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

1 (a) When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd

2 (b) The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

3 (a) When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd

4 (b) And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

5 (c) When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

6 (d) Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

7 (c) And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,

8 (d) Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

9 (e) When I have seen such interchange of state,

10 (f) Or state itself confounded to decay;

11 (e) Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

12 (f) That Time will come and take my love away.

13 (g) This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

14 (g) But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

A Brief Guide to Some Medieval and Renaissance Verse Forms