Shakespearean Variations

While it will seem the height of arrogance to write variations on Shakespeare's sonnets, the attempt induces humility and an even deeper regard for the bard of Avon. In Shakespearean Variations, Ralph McInerny takes the first lines of the sonnets and their end rhymes, and composes sonnets of his own. The formal structure of the sonnet has always provided a salutary discipline for the poet – iambic pentameter, the delicate symmetry of octet and sextet, the closing couplet which epitomizes the po…