Sonnets

Sonnet is a type of poem, which Shakespeare wrote.

A sonnet has 14 lines. It consists of 3 quatrains with 4 lines each and a rhyme couplet with 2 lines in the end.

The rhyme follows a special structure, which can be represented like this: abab cdcd efef gg (a rhymes with a).

Here is one famous sonnet of Shakespeare:

 

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (a)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate; (b)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (a)
And summer's lease hath all too short a date; (b)
 
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (c)
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; (d)
And every fair from fair sometime declines, (c)
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; (d)
 
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (e)
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; (f)
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, (e)
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: (f)
 
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, (g)
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (g)