Shakespeare's Sonnet XX, because of the feminine endings, has 11 syllables per line all the way through. Its lines don't have to have ten syllables. The first two lines are more or less regular, but the other two are irregular in their stress pattern and one of them has eleven syllables - which brings me to point 3.ģ. Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.Ĭomforter, where, where is your comforting? Try scanning this equally famous opening by Hopkins:
It doesn't have to be iambic, at least not consistently so. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella begins with a famous one in hexameter ('Fool, said my Muse to me, look in thy heart and write.').Ģ.
Although I agree with you that form matters in poetry, I'm afraid your definition of a sonnet as a 14-line poem in iambic pentameter with ten syllables to each line contains at least three oversimplifications.ġ.
