Well written and informative  nice one     I thought sonnets were supposed to be in iambic pentameter but the article makes no mention of this Am I mistaken   Yes I was also taught that sonnets were supposed to be in iambic pentameter but remember this is poetry so not everybody follows the rules Id also like to take this opportunity to mention that the poem provided as an example for Italian sonnets On his Being Arrived to the Age of  does not follow the same rhyme scheme as stated in the description  I know a lot of poets mess around with the last sestet but I think that the example should reflect what the article says  In addition I think the article should mention that it is common for poets to play around with the rhyme scheme of the last sestet    The article is also incorrect in saying that hendecasyllables are the usual line for sonnets in the Romance languages I have read sonnets only in Italian French and English but based on the two Romance languages of these I can say that the Italians use the hendecasyllable line and call it endecasyllabo but the French for example Baudelaire use their usual socalled Alexandrine Alexandrine is the formal name for most sonnets The Alexandrine alternates between a twelvesyllable line with a masculine ending like Je te donne ces vers afin que si mon nom first line of a Baudelaire sonnet and thirteensyllable lines with a feminine ending like Abord heureusement aux Epoques lointaines second line of the same Baudelaire sonnet Its because of the difference between masculine endings a masculine rhyme in English would be MARTTART and feminine endings MARTYRTARTAR that the feminine lines have that extra thirteenth syllable at the end The French do have sonnets in tensyllable lines alternating with eleven syllable lines but they also have sonnets in eightsyllable lines alternating with ninesyllable lines the hendecasyllable is strictly Italian where almost almost all the rhymes are feminine  unless theres something about Spanish sonnets I dont know  Sorry I didnt sign my posting about Baudelaire French Alexandrines and so on just above Im chessw  chessw   Much Spanish poetry uses hendecasyllable endecaslabo in Spanish though Alexandrines Alejandrinos are also used and of course there are also sonnets that arent in meter though thats much mroe modern    The Bob and Wheel of Spencers sonnets should be explained in this article   Redundancy   The form consists of three quatrains of four lines and a couplet of two lines  A quatrain is a fourline stanza similarly a couplet is two lines Ive changed this line     Who invented the sonnet  Since Giacomo da Lentini from the Sicilian School is widely credited for inventing the sonnet Segre  Migliorini  Bruni  etc I added that to the article His octave rhymes abab abab cf Petrarchs abbaabba It seems certain however that Giacomo preceded Guittone dArezzo who was inspired by the Sicilians      Wikipedia is not a web directory   So I deleted a bunch of links and they were put back I certainly didnt mean to offend or start an edit war but it seems to me like the links section has been growing out of control Here is the current list with my commentary and suggested cutnocut status Perhaps others could comment and then we can cut as appropriate   Sonnetsorg  A rather amateurish looking site but it appears to be quite thorough Selective Historical Bibliography on the Sonnet  Bibliographie slective de lhistoire du sonnet   Seems okay but not great Keeper I guess From The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti Translated by Ezra Pound  Seems awfully specific  if we link to every web archive of sonnets by a famous poet this list will rapidly grow far larger than the article Definitely cut Some English Translations of Petrarch  More justifiable than the Pound poets since Petrarch is so critical to the history of the sonnet However this page is a subpage of sonnetsorg which is already linked Definitely cut Wyatts Sonnets  Belongs on the page for Thomas Wyatt not h