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How does a Shakespearean sonnet organize its quatrains and final couplet?
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Poetry
Poems hanging from an outdoor poetry line during the annual International Festival of Poetry in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada.
A Shakespearean sonnet, also known as an English sonnet, is a 14-line poem structured into three quatrains and a final couplet.12
The organization of the poem follows a specific rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. Each of the three quatrains typically develops a theme or argument, while the concluding couplet serves to summarize the impact of the preceding lines with the compressed force of an epigram.12
While the poem is traditionally written in iambic pentameter, the structural "turn" in thought, known as the volta, can occur at different points, such as between the 8th and 9th lines or the 12th and 13th lines.342