In Sonnet 29, the turn comes at line 9, where it switches from the speaker's loneliness and depression to his sudden realization that he's got someone who loves him and who makes him happy. This is a moment in the poem where the theme or the tone changes in a sudden and surprising way. Sonnets almost always include a feature called a 'turn' (a.k.a.

(Brain Snack: Sonnet 126 has no quatrains. Finally, the couplet offers up a pretty strong conclusion and solution to the original problem (as long as the speaker is loved, it doesn't matter how screwed up the rest of his life is). The third quatrain offers a solution to the speaker's problem (he remembers that someone out there really loves him and it's enough to bring him out of his depression). The second quatrain develops the subject further and even introduces more conflict (the speaker gets super-elaborate about why he feels so down in the dumps). Here's how it unfolds: The first quatrain introduces the subject (the speaker's loneliness and depression). Why does the sonnet's structure matter? In this case, it allows us to follow the speaker's thought process in a logical way as he works his way through a major personal crisis. Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate Heroic Couplet:įor thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least Quatrain #3: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heav'n with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Quatrain #2:

(A quatrain is just a group of four lines and a heroic couplet is a set of 2 lines or iambic pentameter that rhyme.) Here's how the quatrains and the couplet are divided in Sonnet 29: They consist of 3 quatrains followed by a heroic couplet. They're all 14 lines long (except for Sonnet 99, which has one extra line, and Sonnet 126, which is only 12 lines long). Form and Meter of a Typical Shakespearean/Elizabethan Sonnet: 1.(Except for Shakespeare's Sonnets 99, 126, and 145, which are slightly different from the rest.) Don't worry. So, what is it exactly that makes a poem a Shakespearean/Elizabethan sonnet? Well, they all have the same form and meter.Will Shakes wasn't the first person to write an 'Elizabethan Sonnet,' but he was most definitely the best, which is why this particular sonnet form is also known as a 'Shakespearean Sonnet.' Pretty impressive, right? We can't remember the last time a form of poetry was named after us.

Iambic pentameter sonnet 29