Sonnet 61 is one of
154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. It is a member of the
Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.
Structure
Sonnet 61 is an English or Shakespearean
sonnet, containing three
quatrains followed by a final rhyming
couplet. It follows the form's typical
rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
An example of the ABAB r ...
, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is composed in
iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called " feet". "Iam ...
, a type of poetic
metre
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...
based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The seventh line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × /
To find out shames and idle hours in me, (61.7)
The first and third lines have a final extrameterical syllable or ''feminine ending'':
× / × / × / × / × /(×)
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, (61.3)
:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''. (×) = extrametrical syllable.
Although many rhymes in the sonnets are imperfect in today's pronunciation, they were almost all perfect (or at least potentially so) in Shakespeare's day. The ''a'' rhymes, "open" and "broken" constitute a rare instance of an imperfect rhyme in the Sonnets, though the same rhyme occurs in ''
Venus and Adonis'' lines 47 and 48.
[Booth 2000, p. 241.]
Notes
Further reading
External links
Analysis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 061
British poems
Sonnets by William Shakespeare