Sonnet
It was, however, Sir Philip Sidney's sequence "Astrophel and Stella" (1591) that started the English vogue for sonnet sequences. The next two decades saw sonnet sequences by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Fulke Greville, William Drummond of Hawthornden, and many others. These sonnets were all essentially inspired by the Petrarchan tradition, and generally treat of the poet's love for some woman, with the exception of Shakespeare's sequence of 154 sonnets. The form is often named after Shakespeare, not because he was the first to write in this form but because he became its most famous practitioner. The form consists of fourteen lines structured as three quatrains and a couplet. The third quatrain generally introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic "turn", the volta. In Shakespeare's sonnets, however, the volta usually comes in the couplet, and usually summarizes the theme of the poem or introduces a fresh new look at the theme. With only a rare exception (for example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 145 in iambic tetrameter), the meter is iambic pentameter.
Sonnet 57
Rhian Williams asserts, "In literary value Shakespeare's sonnets are notably unequal. Many reach levels of lyric melody and meditative energy that are hardly to be matched elsewhere in poetry". His 57th sonnet is such a one and epitomises Shakespeare's signature sonnet structure as it conveys the influences of the 14th-century poet, Petrarch, and showcases again Shakespeare's talent. In fact, Danijela Kambasković-Sawers generalises, "The sonnet sequence genre constructs a double sense of immediacy: drawing on the lyricism of its constituent sonnets, it also often generates a perception of a personal narrative when the sequence is read from beginning to end". She goes on to make a comparison between the two poets and the structures of their subsequent sonnets when he states, "Sonnet sequences like Petrarch's or Shakespeare's make possible a narrative-by-episode". Kambasković-Sawers elaborates on the subject of Shakespeare’s controversial yet ambiguous speaker and asserts that while ambiguous speakers were characteristic of both Petrarch's work and a signature of the Elizabethan time period, Shakespeare's differed. "The difference between Shakespeare's and other great Elizabethan sonnet sequences lies in the degree and complexity of his main character's ambiguity, as well as in the skill with which this complexity is managed. Shakespeare's contradictory speaker stands as one of the most important elements of the artistic impact and lasting vitality of the sequence".