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.

Modern sonnets in iambic pentameter