A Midsummer Night’s Dream�Lesson 5: Sonnets

• To understand the significance of rhythm and rhyme.
• To detect patterns and structure in Shakespeare’s poetry.
• To follow these patterns to produce my own poem in sonnet form.

• To understand and imitate the rhyme patterns used by Shakespeare to produce our own piece of poetry.

Learning Objective

Success Criteria

Rhythm and Rhyme

What’s the difference between rhythm and rhyme?

Does a steam train �have rhythm?

What else can you think of that has rhythm?

A sonnet is a poem consisting of 14 lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme.

So, What’s a Sonnet?

What’s a rhyme scheme?

It just means that there is a pattern to the rhyme. �We can find the pattern by labelling each line that rhymes with the appropriate letter.

This sonnet handily gives us some advice �on how to write a sonnet.

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Can we work out what the rhyme scheme is?

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Can you spot a rhythm at work here as well?

How to Write a Sonnet

Denise Rodgers - Learning To Write A Sonnet

Like distance, the rhythm of a poem can be measured in units known as feet.

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An ‘iambic’ foot consists of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed.

“Ba dum” would be an example of an iamb.

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Pentameter means a line of verse with five groups of two syllables (for a total of ten, “penta” meaning five, as in pentagon).

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e.g. ba dum(1), ba dum(2), ba dum(3), ba dum(4), ba dum(5)

So, What’s Iambic Pentameter?

Now have a look at Shakespeare’s sonnets:

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Do they conform to what you have learnt?

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• 14 lines

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• Iambic pentameter (10 syllables per line)

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• Rhyme scheme

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What do you think these sonnets say about love?

Can you draw any comparisons to A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

Still Not Sure?

Perhaps the internet can do a better job of explaining it!

Use the sonnet form to try writing a piece of love poetry of your own, perhaps based on the characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or you might already have a subject in mind!

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There is no ‘correct’ way to go about writing a poem.

The creative juices might start flowing immediately. �If not, you might begin by brainstorming words to �do with love and then matching them with �rhyming words.

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Do not feel too constrained by iambic pentameter �– it’s not the end of the world if a line contains �eleven or twelve syllables instead of ten, so long �as it has rhythm!

Give It a Go

Swap poems with your partner.

How many of the conventions of the sonnet have they managed to meet?