Elizabeth Stevens English Renaissance Professor McKeown 11 May 2004 Shakespearean and Petrarchan Sonnets <Tab/>A sonnet is a poem consisting of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme. Iambic pentameter consists of ten syllables per line of poetry with stress on every other syllable. The two main sonnet types are the Italian, or Petrarchan and the Elizabethan, or Shakespearean. <Tab/>There are several facts …showed first 75 words of 1260 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1260 total…sonner will never fade. Shakespeare then sums up his thoughts in the couplet. This sonnet also follows the typical rhyme scheme. <Tab/>The subject matter may seem similar between the two types of sonnets. Shakespeare was extremely inspired by the work of Petrarch and looked to his work for inspiration when writing his own sonnets. Although the subject matter in both sonnets may sound very similar the strcture is vastly different.