Easy Rhyme Scheme Practice worksheet - Free Printable

To solve the problem of identifying the rhyme scheme in Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, we need to analyze the ending words of each line and group them based on their rhyming patterns. Let’s go through the sonnet step by step.

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

```
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
```

Step-by-Step Analysis

1. Line 1: "day"
2. Line 2: "temperate"
3. Line 3: "May"
4. Line 4: "date"
5. Line 5: "shines"
6. Line 6: "dimmed"
7. Line 7: "declines"
8. Line 8: "untrimmed"
9. Line 9: "fade"
10. Line 10: "ow'st"
11. Line 11: "shade"
12. Line 12: "grow'st"
13. Line 13: "see"
14. Line 14: "thee"

Grouping Rhymes

- Lines 1 and 3 rhyme: "day" and "May" → A
- Lines 2 and 4 rhyme: "temperate" and "date" → B
- Lines 5 and 7 rhyme: "shines" and "declines" → C
- Lines 6 and 8 rhyme: "dimmed" and "untrimmed" → D
- Lines 9 and 11 rhyme: "fade" and "shade" → E
- Lines 10 and 12 rhyme: "ow'st" and "grow'st" → F
- Lines 13 and 14 rhyme: "see" and "thee" → G

Final Rhyme Scheme

The rhyme scheme for Sonnet 18 is:
```
ABABCDCDEFEFGG
```

Explanation

- The first eight lines (octave) follow an alternating rhyme pattern: ABAB CDCD.
- The next four lines (quatrain) follow a slightly different pattern: EFEF.
- The final two lines (couplet) rhyme with each other: GG.

This structure is typical of a Shakespearean sonnet, which follows the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG.

Answer

The rhyme scheme for Sonnet 18 is:

\boxed{ABABCDCDEFEFGG}