Shakespeare: The Word and the Action

The Form of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1x3)

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This lecture introduces Shakespeare's Sonnets as a volume of 154 poems that we may read as a series of lyric meditations on love, representing Shakespeare's most disciplined writing. He maintains the standard English (or "Shakespearean") sonnet form: 14 lines of iambic pentameter verse arranged in three quatrains and a closing couplet. The lecture explores what Shakespeare was able to do within that limited form.