Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 is not a Miltonic sonnet. It is written in iambic pentameter and has fourteen lines, but it does not have a Miltonic rhyme scheme and deals mostly with the subject of love.
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. This means that each line has five units of two syllables each; each unit includes an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
For example, in the first line of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, the first syllable “when,” is unstressed and the second syllable “in,” is stressed. This pattern would follow throughout the line so it will sound something like this:
When IN disgrace with FORtune AND men’s EYES
This pattern repeats throughout the poem.
Milton’s sonnets typically had a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBACDECDE. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, like most of his sonnets, has a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The change in rhyme scheme in the last two lines usually signals a change in tone. This not typical of a Miltonic sonnet. Further, while Shakespearean sonnets are often about love, Milton’s often deal with political and moral issues.
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