Sonnet 30 up of fourteen lines in three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming "abab cdcd efef gg". While using the rhyming and metrical structure of the 'English' or 'Surreyan' sonnet, Shakespeare often also reflected the rhetorical form of the Italian form also known as the Petrarchan sonnet. It divides the sonnet into two parts: the "octet" (the first eight lines) usually states and develops the subject, while the "sestet" (the last six lines) winds up to a climax. Thus a change in emphasis, known as the "volta", occurs between the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth lines —
Sonnet 32 character. Sonnet 32 is highly dependent upon the relationship between the subject and speaker of the sonnet. The speaker of the sonnet reflects upon "his own mortality" in comparing himself to the young man whom he loves, whether romantically or in friendship it is unclear. The speaker refers to himself as the "deceased lover" which is significant as it highlights the age difference between the two men, a perpetual theme throughout Sonnet 32 as well as the rest of the handsome youth sonnets. After accepting, his eventual death, the speaker takes on a "self-deprecating" tone referring to his poetry as