Performing Shakespeare's Sonnets

These Sonnets, only 14 lines long, explore love, desire, mortality and the fragility of physical beauty, and are full of wit. Each student will choose a Sonnet and find how the structure of the poem helps to perform it with confidence. Shakespeare explores both the joy of fulfilled love and the anguish of jealousy when the beloved is believed to be deceitful. It has been suggested by many biographers that these Sonnets seem to ’speak in his own voice’. Whether this is true or not, the Sonnets have been admired and loved ever since they were published in 1609.

Course details

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Start Date

3 Aug 2025

Duration

5 Sessions over one week

End Date

9 Aug 2025

Application Deadline

29 Jun 2025

Location

International Summer Programme

Code

W45Am23

Tutors

Miss Vivien Heilbron

Actor; Director; Panel Tutor for University of Cambridge Professional and Continuing Education

Aims

This course aims to:

• teach you to understand the structure of the sonnet and how this helps the approach
to performance

• teach you to recognise figures of speech and use these with understanding to clarify
meaning and mood

• help you speak the lines with confident enjoyment and a sense of performance

Content

Shakespeare’s sonnets are written in the same iambic metre as the blank verse in his plays. Being only 14 lines long they are compact and self-contained. The speaking of the sonnets requires the same awareness of the imagery and wordplay as the actor speaking longer speeches in the plays - without having to consider the character in the context of the play. Many people are nervous about speaking Shakespeare aloud and these beautiful poems are a way of making detailed work possible. The sonnets have a sound structure which we will explore as performers, and you will be able to work on a sonnet of your own choice. If you want to memorise your sonnet, please do, but this is by no means compulsory. If there are too many duplicates I will provide an alternative. We will be looking at Shakespeare's use of assonance, alliteration and other figures of speech. All the sonnets are written in the first person and can be expressed imaginatively as an actor would in performance.

Presentation of the course

Each session will begin with a brief vocal warm up using a different line from a sonnet each day as the stimulus. We will study a different sonnet each day. Please wear comfortable clothing and footwear.

Course sessions

Each day we will start the class by working as a group and looking at one sonnet, which we will share aloud.

1. Sonnet 18: First line: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

2. Sonnet 65: Since brass nor stone nor earth nor boundless sea

3. Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old

4. Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

5. Sonnet 138: When my true love swears that she is made of truth

All of the above sonnets share key themes, including; time passing, sexual insecurity, love
(of course) and jealousy.

Learning outcomes

You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.

The learning outcomes for this course are:

• you will have a secure understanding of the formal structure of a Shakespeare sonnet

• you will be able to perform them with confidence

Required reading

Please bring a copy of the collected sonnets to each class, including the first class.

* Shakespeare, William, Shakespeare's Sonnets (Penguin Classics, 2015)