SparkNotes: Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Sonnet Form The Sonnet Form Context Themes, Motifs & Symbols A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, traditionally written in iambic pentameter—that is, in lines ten syllables long, with accents falling on every second syllable, as in: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The sonnet form first became popular during the Italian Renaissance, when the poet Petrarch published a sequence of love sonnets addressed to an idealized woman named Laura. Taking firm hold among Italian poets, the sonnet spread throughout Europe to England, where, after its initial Renaissance, “Petrarchan” incarnation faded, the form enjoyed a number of revivals and periods of renewed interest. In Elizabethan England—the era during which Shakespeare’s sonnets were written—the sonnet was the form of choice for lyric poets, particularly lyric poets seeking to engage with traditional themes of love and romance.

(In addition to Shakespeare’s monumental sequence, the Astrophel and Stella sequence by Sir Philip Sydney stands as one of the most important sonnet sequences of this period.) Sonnets were also written during the height of classical English verse, by Dryden and Pope, among others, and written again during the heyday of English Romanticism, when Wordsworth, Shelley, and particularly John Keats created wonderful sonnets. Today, the sonnet remains the most influential and important verse form in the history of English poetry. Two kinds of sonnets have been most common in English poetry, and they take their names from the greatest poets to utilize them: the Petrarchan sonnet and the Shakespearean sonnet. The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two main parts, called the octave and the sestet. The octave is eight lines long, and typically follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, or ABBACDDC. The sestet occupies the remaining six lines of the poem, and typically follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD, or CDECDE. The octave and the sestet are usually contrasted in some key way: for example, the octave may ask a question to which the sestet offers an answer.

In the following Petrarchan sonnet, John Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” the octave describes past events—the speaker’s previous, unsatisfying examinations of the “realms of gold,” Homer’s poems—while the sestet describes the present—the speaker’s sense of discovery upon finding Chapman’s translations: Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse have I been told That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men Look’d at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien. The Shakespearean sonnet, the form of sonnet utilized throughout Shakespeare’s sequence, is divided into four parts.

The first three parts are each four lines long, and are known as quatrains, rhymed ABAB; the fourth part is called the couplet, and is rhymed CC. The Shakespearean sonnet is often used to develop a sequence of metaphors or ideas, one in each quatrain, while the couplet offers either a summary or a new take on the preceding images or ideas. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147, for instance, the speaker’s love is compared to a disease. In the first quatrain, the speaker characterizes the disease; in the second, he describes the relationship of his love-disease to its “physician,” his reason; in the third, he describes the consequences of his abandonment of reason; and in the couplet, he explains the source of his mad, diseased love—his lover’s betrayal of his faith: My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desp’rate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure am I, now reason is past care, And frantic mad with evermore unrest, My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are, At random from the truth vainly expressed; For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. In many ways, Shakespeare’s use of the sonnet form is richer and more complex than this relatively simple division into parts might imply. Not only is his sequence largely occupied with subverting the traditional themes of love sonnets—the traditional love poems in praise of beauty and worth, for instance, are written to a man, while the love poems to a woman are almost all as bitter and negative as Sonnet 147—he also combines formal patterns with daring and innovation. Many of his sonnets in the sequence, for instance, impose the thematic pattern of a Petrarchan sonnet onto the formal pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet, so that while there are still three quatrains and a couplet, the first two quatrains might ask a single question, which the third quatrain and the couplet will answer. As you read through Shakespeare’s sequence, think about the ways Shakespeare’s themes are affected by and tailored to the sonnet form.

Be especially alert to complexities such as the juxtaposition of Petrarchan and Shakespearean patterns. How might such a juxtaposition combination deepen and enrich Shakespeare’s use of a traditional form? More Help The Sonnet by Melissa J. Sites A sonnet is a one-stanza poem of fourteen lines, written in iambic pentameter. One way to describe a verse line is to talk about how many stressed and unstressed syllables are in the line. A simple grouping of syllables, some stressed, some unstressed, is called a foot. The iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Pentameter means there are five feet in the line. "Iambic Pentameter," then, means a line of ten syllables, which alternates unstressed and stressed syllables according to the iambic rhythm. The rhyme scheme of a sonnet refers to the pattern formed by the rhyming words at the end of each line. Each end-rhyme is assigned a letter, and the fourteen letters assigned to the sonnet describe the rhyme scheme. Different kinds of sonnets have different rhyme schemes.

The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, named after the fourteenth century Italian poet Petrarch, has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE. [You might imagine the end-rhymes represented by the letters to be something like cat log hog bat, rat bog tog fat, long neck noose, song heck loose]. The first eight lines, which all end in either rhyme A [at] or B [og], form the octave. The last six lines, which end in C [ong], D [eck], or E [oose], form the sestet. Variant rhyme schemes for the sestet also include CDCDCD and CDEDCE. There is usually a pause or break in thought between the octave and sestet called the volta, or turn. Traditionally, one main thought or problem is set out in the octave and brought to a resolution in the sestet. The Shakespearean or English sonnet was actually developed in the sixteenth century by the Earl of Surrey, but is named after Shakespeare because of his great sonnet sequence (a series of sonnets all exploring the same theme) printed in 1609 .

The Shakespearean sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, forming three quatrains (four lines in a group) and a closing couplet (two rhymed lines). The problem is usually developed in the first three quatrains, each quatrain with a new idea growing out of the previous one. Sometimes the first two quatrains are devoted to the same thought, resembling the octave of the Petrarchan sonnet, and followed by a similar volta. Most strikingly unlike the Petrarchan version, the Shakespearean sonnet is brought to a punchy resolution in the epigrammatic final couplet. The Spenserian sonnet is a variation of the English sonnet with the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, in which the quatrains are linked by a continuation of one end-rhyme from the previous quatrain. The Miltonic sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet which omits the volta. Wordsworth often used the Petrarchan form, but changed the octave to ABBA ACCA because it is harder to find rhyming words in English than in Italian. The traditional subject of the sonnet has primarily been Love.

Petrarch wrote his great sonnet sequence to his beloved, Laura. Many of Shakespeare's sonnets are also about Love, but Shakespeare mocked the standard worshipful attitude of the Petrarchan sonnet in his famous "My Mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun." Development of the English sonnet led to consideration of other topics, including mortality, mutability, politics, and writing itself. Donne turned from the secular subject of Love to consideration of sacred themes in a group of nineteen Holy Sonnets. Milton, instead of writing a sequence about Love, wrote individual sonnets about serious ideas, political themes, or public occasions. After Milton the sonnet declined in popularity--until it was taken up again with fervor during the Romantic period. What Is a Sonnet? - Overview and Characteristics What Is a Sonnet? By Lee Jamieson Updated September 11, 2016. Shakespeare’s sonnets are written in a strict poetic form that was very popular during his lifetime . Broadly speaking, each sonnet engages images and sounds to present an argument to the reader. Sonnet Characteristics A sonnet is simply a poem written in a certain format.

You can identify a sonnet if the poem has the following characteristics: 14 lines. All sonnets have 14 lines which can be broken down into four sections called quatrains. A strict rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG (note the four distinct sections in the rhyme scheme). Written in iambic Pentameter . Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter , a poetic meter with 10 beats per line made up of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. A sonnet can be broken down into four sections called quatrains. The first three quatrains contain four lines each and use an alternating rhyme scheme. The final quatrain consists of just two lines which both rhyme. continue reading below our video How to Write a Sonnet Each quatrain should progress the poem as follows: First quatrain: This should establish the subject of the sonnet. Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: ABAB Second quatrain: This should develop the sonnet’s theme. Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: CDCD Third quatrain: This should round off the sonnet’s theme.

Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: EFEF Fourth quatrain: This should act as a conclusion to the sonnet. Number of lines: 2. Rhyme Scheme: GG About the Sonnet About the Sonnet Chris Baldick Sonnet : a lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines of equal length: iambic pentameters in English, alexandrines in French, hendecasyllables in Italian. The rhyme schemes of the sonnet follow two basic patterns. (1) The Italian sonnet (also called the Petrarchan sonnet after the most influential of the Italian sonneteers) comprises an 8-line 'octave' of two quatrains, rhymed abbaabba, followed by a 6-line 'sestet' usually rhymed cdecde or cdcdcd. The transition from octave to sestet usually coincides with a 'turn' (Italian, volta) in the argument or mood of the poem. In a variant form used by the English poet John Milton, however, the 'turn' is delayed to a later position around the tenth line.

Some later poets--notably William Wordsworth--have employed this feature of the 'Miltonic sonnet' while relaxing the rhyme scheme of the octave to abbaacca. The Italian pattern has remained the most widely used in English and other languages. (2) The English sonnet (also called the Shakespearean sonnet after its foremost practitioner) comprises three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. An important variant of this is the Spenserian sonnet (introduced by the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser), which links the three quatrains by rhyme, in the sequence ababbabccdcdee. In either form, the 'turn' comes with the final couplet, which may sometimes achieve the neatness of an epigram. Originating in Italy, the sonnet was established by Petrarch in the 14th century as a major form of love poetry, and came to be adopted in Spain, France and England in the 16th century, and in Germany in the 17th.

The standard subject-matter of early sonnets was the torments of sexual love (usually within a courtly love convention), but in the 17th century John Donne extended the sonnet's scope to religion, while Millton extended it to politics. Although largely neglected in the 18th century, the sonnet was revived in the 19th by Wordsworth, Keats, and Baudelaire, and is still widely used. Some poets have written connected series of sonnets, known as sonnet sequences or sonnet cycles: of these, the outstanding English examples are Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella (1591), Spenser's Amoretti (1595), and Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609); later examples include Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) and W. H. Auden's 'In Time of War' (1939). A group of sonnets formally linked by repeated lines is known as a crown of sonnets. Irregular variations on the sonnet form have included the 12-line sonnet sometimes used by Elizabethan poets, G. M.

Hopkin's curtal sonnets of 10-1/2 lines, and the 16-line sonnets of George Meredith's sequence Modern Love (1862). Lyric [li-rik]: In the modern sense, any fairly short poem expressing the personal mood, feeling, or meditation of a single speaker (who may sometimes be an invented character, not the poet). In ancient Greece, a lyric was a song for accompaniment on the lyre, and could be a choral lyric sung by a group, such as a dirge or hymn; the modern sense, current since the Renaissance, often suggests a songlike quality in the poems to which it refers. Lyric poetry is the most extensive category of verse, especially after the decline since the 19th century in the West--of the other principal kinds: narrative and dramatic verse. Lyrics may be composed in almost any metre and on almost every subject, although the most usual emotions presented are those of love and grief. Among the common lyric forms are the sonnet, ode, elegy, haiku, and the more personal kinds of hymn. Lyricism is the emotional or song-like quality, the lyrical property, of lyric poetry.

A writer of lyric poems may be called a lyric poet, a lyricist, or a lyrist. In another sense, the lyrics of a popular song or other musical composition are the words as opposed to the music; these may not always be lyrical in the poetic sense (e.g. in a narrative song like a ballad). Pentameter [pen-tamm-it-er]: A metrical verse line having five main stresses, traditionally described as a line of five 'feet.' In English poetry since Chaucer, the pentameter--almost always an iambic line normally of 10 syllables--has had a special status as the standard line in many important forms including blank verse, the heroic couplet, ottava rima, rhyme royal, and the sonnet. In its pure iambic form, the pentameter shows a regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, as in this line by Percy Bysshe Shelley: If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

There are, however, several permissible variations in the placing of stresses, which help to avoid the monotony of such regular alternation; and the pentameter may be lengthened from 10 syllables to 11 by a feminine ending. In classical Greek and Latin poetry, the second line of the elegiac distich, commonly but inaccurately referred to as a 'pentameter' is in fact composed of two half-lines of two and a half feet each, with dactyls or spondees in the first half and dactyls in the second. Rhyme scheme : The pattern in which the rhymed line-endings are arranged in a poem or stanza. This may be expressed as a sequence of recurrences in which each line ending on the same rhyme is given the same alphabetic symbol: thus the rhyme scheme of a limerick is given the notation aabba. Rhyme schemes may follow a fixed pattern, as in the sonnet and several other forms, or they may be arranged freely according to the poet's requirements.

The simplest rhyme schemes are those of rhyming couplets (aabbcc, etc.) and of the common quatrain forms (abab, abcb, abba), while those of ottava rima, rhyme royal, the Spenserian stanza, and the French fixed forms are far more intricate. From The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. Copyright 1990 by Chris Baldick. Traditional sonnets Traditional Sonnets And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove, We'll build in Sonnets pretty roomes; As well a well wrought urne becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombes... (John Donne, 'The Canonization') The sonnet is Donne's 'well wrought urne' - compact, shapely, highly finished, and able to contain, in concentrated form, almost all that is human. Michael R.G. Spiller, The Development of the Sonnet (London & New York, 1992), page 1.

Or in modern times, perhaps we could think of the sonnet as a crafted piece of furniture, combining art, skill, beauty, function and that indefinable quality that speaks to us of more than the sum of the parts. Writing a 'traditional' sonnet, though, has similarities with doing a crossword. It is a puzzle to make the pieces fit; there is some intellectual tease, and you can mull over individual lines, like crossword clues, as you continue daily life. There is also a knock-on effect. If you change a line, other lines then may need to change, just as changing the answer to 7 across in a crossword may mean you have to rethink 4 down. It is interesting as a form of poetry in which, at least in traditional form, structure and meaning are very intricately bound together and writing sees an ever shifting balance between the two as the poem works out what it is to be. The sonnet is one of the longest lived of all poetic forms. It appears to originate in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Sicily itself and the southern half of Italy) under the rule from 1208 to 1250 of The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.

35 sonnets survive from this period of which 25 are usually attributed to the notary and legal deputy of the Emperor named Giacomo da Lentino. He may be regarded as the 'inventor' of the form, although many preceding influences could be discussed for which there is no space here. The perfecter of the sonnet in Italian is agreed to be Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), otherwise known as Petrarch. The distinctive rhyming pattern of a Petrarchan sonnet is abba abba and then either cdcdcd or cdecde. With an alternative opening of abab abab, this pattern remained the template for the European sonnet until Sir Thomas Wyatt 'reinvented' the rhyming couplet as an ending (a minor Italian poet, Nicolo de'Rossi, c. 1285 - 1335, had done this before but it had not caught on with his contemporaries).

After Wyatt's re-inroduction of the closing couplet, the form was adopted by most British sonneteers, so one typically finds abba abba cdcdee or abab abab cdcdee Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599) introduced a more convoluted rhyming scheme of abab bcbc cdcdee, but there were few followers. Sir Philip Sidney ( 1554-1586) experimented in his Arcadia with some rather extraordinary rhyme schemes, such as a single rhyme for all fourteen lines and abab baba acaccc, but his great sequence Astrophel and Stella consistently uses an 'Italian' octet (abba abba) and an 'English' sestet (cdcdee or variants). The form we now know as Shakespearean - abab cdcd efefgg - was actually established by the Earl Surrey (1517?-1547), but the quality and perhaps also quantity of Shakespeare's sonnets has resulted in his name bearing the laurels for this pattern.

In English the Shakespearean form is the most widely imitated of traditional forms, possibly because it is less demanding on rhyme in a language that has nowhere near the number of rhyming words that, say, Italian has. Italian sonnets tend to have 11syllables (excluding elisions) in each line, while English sonnets tend to have 10 syllables per line in an iambic pattern (unstressed syllable, stressed syllable), although most poets will play with metre at one time another. One of the points about repetitive metric patterns, just like beats in music, is the opportunity they create to suddenly change the pattern or beat for effect, whether that be emphasis, surprise, a sense of speeding up or slowing down, etc. If you are really interested in the history of the sonnet, we recommend Michael Spiller's book cited at the top of this page (ISBN 0-415-07744-3 & 0-415-08741-4 pbk) from which much of the above has been gleaned. You may also wish to look at , and there are many other sites devoted to sonnets on the Internet. A final word.

The Open Poetry competition will treat traditional/formal sonnets and freeform/innovatory sonnets on an equal basis. Whatever the structural form, the quality of the sonnet as poetry is paramount and poetry is more than either form or content in themselves. [If you are new to the use of letters to designate rhyming schemes, the first line rhyme is marked as a and any line that rhymes with that is also designated as a. The next new rhyme is b and any lines rhyming with that are also b, and so on to line 14, each new rhyme moving on a letter.] The Sonnet: Poetic Form | Academy of American Poets Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

browse poems & poets Nature Poetry: From A Poet's Glossary From the Italian sonetto, which means "a little sound or song," the sonnet is a popular classical form that has compelled poets for centuries. Traditionally, the sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, which employ one of several rhyme schemes and adhere to a tightly structured thematic organization. Two sonnet forms provide the models from which all other sonnets are formed: the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean. Petrarchan Sonnet The first and most common sonnet is the Petrarchan, or Italian. Named after one of its greatest practitioners, the Italian poet Petrarch , the Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six lines). The tightly woven rhyme scheme, abba, abba, cdecde or cdcdcd, is suited for the rhyme-rich Italian language, though there are many fine examples in English. Since the Petrarchan presents an argument, observation, question, or some other answerable charge in the octave, a turn, or volta, occurs between the eighth and ninth lines.

This turn marks a shift in the direction of the foregoing argument or narrative, turning the sestet into the vehicle for the counterargument, clarification, or whatever answer the octave demands. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the Petrarchan sonnet to England in the early sixteenth century. His famed translations of Petrarch’s sonnets, as well as his own sonnets, drew fast attention to the form. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, a contemporary of Wyatt’s, whose own translations of Petrarch are considered more faithful to the original though less fine to the ear, modified the Petrarchan, thus establishing the structure that became known as the Shakespearean sonnet. This structure has been noted to lend itself much better to the comparatively rhyme-poor English language. Shakespearean Sonnet The second major type of sonnet, the Shakespearean, or English sonnet, follows a different set of rules. Here, three quatrains and a couplet follow this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification, or even refutation of the previous three stanzas, often creating an epiphanic quality to the end.

In Sonnet 130 of William Shakespeare ’s epic sonnet cycle, the first twelve lines compare the speaker’s mistress unfavorably with nature’s beauties. But the concluding couplet swerves in a surprising direction: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. Sonnet Variations Though Shakespeare’s sonnets were perhaps the finest examples of the English sonnet, John Milton ’s Italian-patterned sonnets (later known as "Miltonic" sonnets) added several important refinements to the form.

Milton freed the sonnet from its typical incarnation in a sequence of sonnets, writing the occasional sonnet that often expressed interior, self-directed concerns. He also took liberties with the turn, allowing the octave to run into the sestet as needed. Both of these qualities can be seen in "When I Consider How My Light is Spent." The Spenserian sonnet, invented by sixteenth century English poet Edmund Spenser, cribs its structure from the Shakespearean—three quatrains and a couplet—but employs a series of "couplet links" between quatrains, as revealed in the rhyme scheme: abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. The Spenserian sonnet, through the interweaving of the quatrains, implicitly reorganized the Shakespearean sonnet into couplets, reminiscent of the Petrarchan. One reason was to reduce the often excessive final couplet of the Shakespearean sonnet, putting less pressure on it to resolve the foregoing argument, observation, or question. Sonnet Sequences There are several types of sonnet groupings, including the sonnet sequence, which is a series of linked sonnets dealing with a unified subject.

Examples include Elizabeth Barrett Browning ’s Sonnets from the Portuguese and Lady Mary Roth’s The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, published in 1621, the first sonnet sequence by an English woman. Within the sonnet sequence, several formal constraints have been employed by various poets, including the corona (crown) and sonnet redoublé. In the corona, the last line of the initial sonnet acts as the first line of the next, and the ultimate sonnet’s final line repeats the first line of the initial sonnet. La Corona by John Donne is comprised of seven sonnets structured this way. The sonnet redoublé is formed of 15 sonnets, the first 14 forming a perfect corona, followed by the final sonnet, which is comprised of the 14 linking lines in order. Modern Sonnets The sonnet has continued to engage the modern poet, many of whom also took up the sonnet sequence, notably Rainer Maria Rilke , Robert Lowell , and John Berryman .

Stretched and teased formally and thematically, today’s sonnet can often only be identified by the ghost imprint that haunts it, recognizable by the presence of 14 lines or even by name only. Recent practitioners of this so-called “American” sonnet include Gerald Stern , Wanda Coleman , Ted Berrigan , and Karen Volkman . Hundreds of modern sonnets, as well as those representing the long history of the form, are collected in the anthology The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English (Penguin Books, 2001), edited by Phillis Levin . Sonnet | poetryarchive.org Glossary Term: Sonnet A sonnet, in English poetry, is a poem of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, that has one of two regular rhyme schemes - although there are a couple of exceptions, and years of experimentation that have loosened this definition. One of these schemes is known as the Petrarchan, after the Italian poet Petrarch; it consists of a group of eight lines, rhymed abbaabba, followed by a group of six lines with different rhymes.

The distribution of these rhymes can vary, including cdcede, cdecde, cdedce, or even cdcdcd. Often, at the point where the eight-line section, known as the octave, turns into the six-line section, or sestet, there is a volta, from the Italian for 'turn' - this is a shift in the poem's tone, subject or logic that gains power from (or demands?) the matching shift in its structure. The Shakespearean sonnet breaks into three quatrains, followed by a couplet, rhymed abab cdcd efef gg - as the name suggests, this is the form Shakespeare used for his sonnets, although he did not invent it. In Shakespeare's usage, the three quatrains tend to make an argument in three stages, which the couplet will sum up or comment on. The main exceptions are the curtal sonnet, a form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins that roughly maintains the 8:6 ratio over a ten-and-a-half line poem, and the Meredithian sonnet of 16 lines.

The fact that these are still referred to as a curtal and a Meredithian sonnet, however, shows that they are not (yet?) considered sonnets per se. There are also innumerable individual exceptions to the form - a poet may refer to a poem as a sonnet because it meets some of the descriptions above, or even just because s/he says so. This means that calling a poem a sonnet is not necessarily to define it strictly, but to say that it stands in relation to the long tradition of sonnets. Kit Wright's 'Sonnet for Dick' is in the Shakespearean scheme, but once the grief is admitted at the end of the first four lines, the following sentences overflow the shifts in the rhyme scheme, as grief does into life. Mimi Khalvati's 'Overblown Roses' begins with a Shakespearean scheme for its opening eight lines, then performs a volta by turning from the flower itself to what it says about mortality in a Petrarchan sestet. Brendan Kennelly's 'The Happy Grass' and J.D.

McClatchy's 'My Mammogram' make similar blends of the two definitions, as does Peter Dale's 'Window', which further adapts the form by moving the second rhyme in each pair a syllable or two back into the line, muting the music of it gently. How to use this term Billy Collins' 'Sonnet' is a poem that insists it is a sonnet, while it tries to discard some - but not all - of the rules that have traditionally defined a sonnet. Pick a Letter... Create your own poetry lessons and share them with colleagues. Create collections for your lessons Add notes and descriptions Basic Sonnet Forms Basic Sonnet Forms Return to Sonnet Central home . A sonnet is fundamentally a dialectical construct which allows the poet to examine the nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas,emotions, states of mind, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc., byjuxtaposing the two against each other, and possibly resolving or justrevealing the tensions created and operative between the two. O. K., so much for the fancy language. Basically, in a sonnet, youshow two related but differing things to the reader in order to communicatesomething about them.

Each of the three major types of sonnets accomplishesthis in a somewhat different way. There are, of course, other types of sonnets,as well, but I'll stick for now to just the basic three (Italian, Spenserian, English), with a brief look at some non-standard sonnets. I. The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet: The basic meter of all sonnets in English is iambic pentameter ( basic information on iambic pentameter),although there have been a few tetrameter and even hexametersonnets, as well. The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two differentgroups of rhyming sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octaveand rhymes: a b b a a b b a The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can haveeither two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety ofways: c d c d c d c d d c d c c d e c d e c d e c e d c d c e d c The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern)is flexible.

In strict practice, the one thing that is to be avoidedin the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or ee), as this wasnever permitted in Italy, and Petrarch himself (supposedly) never used a couplet ending; in actual practice, sestets aresometimes ended with couplets (Sidney's "Sonnet LXXI givenbelow is an example of such a terminal couplet in an Italiansonnet). The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections bythe two differing rhyme groups. In accordance with the principle(which supposedly applies to all rhymed poetry but oftendoesn't), a change from one rhyme group to another signifiesa change in subject matter. This change occurs at thebeginning of L9 in the Italian sonnet and is called the volta,or "turn"; the turn is an essential element of the sonnet form, perhaps the essential element. It is at the volta thatthe second idea is introduced, as in this sonnet by Wordsworth: "London, 1802" Milton!

thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. Here, the octave develops the idea of the decline and corruption of the English race, while the sestet opposes to that loss the qualities Milton possessed which the race now desperately needs. A very skillful poet can manipulate the placement of the volta for dramatic effect, although this is difficult to do well.

An extremeexample is this sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney, which delays the voltaall the way to L 14: "Sonnet LXXI" Who will in fairest book of Nature know How Virtue may best lodged in Beauty be, Let him but learn of Love to read in thee, Stella, those fair lines, which true goodness show. There shall he find all vices' overthrow, Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly; That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so. And not content to be Perfection's heir Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move, Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair. So while thy beauty draws the heart to love, As fast thy Virtue bends that love to good. "But, ah," Desire still cries, "give me some food." Here, in giving 13 lines to arguing why Reason makes clearto him that following Virtue is the course he should take, he seems to be heavily biassing the argument in Virtue'sfavor. But the volta powerfully undercuts the arguments of Reason in favor of Virtue by revealing that Desire isn't amenableto Reason.

There are a number of variations which evolved over time to make iteasier to write Italian sonnets in English.

Most common is a changein the octave rhyming pattern from a b b a a b b a to a b b a a c c a,eliminating the need for two groups of 4 rhymes, something not alwayseasy to come up with in English which is a rhyme-poor language.Wordsworth uses that pattern in the following sonnet, along with aterminal couplet: "Scorn Not the Sonnet" Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress wtih which Dante crowned His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

Another variation on the Italian form is this one, byTennyson's older brother Charles Tennyson-Turner,who wrote 342 sonnets, many in variant forms.Here, Turner uses an a b b a c d c d e f f e f epattern, with the volta delayed until the middleof L9: "Missing the Meteors" A hint of rain--a touch of lazy doubt-- Sent me to bedward on that prime of nights, When the air met and burst the aerolites, Making the men stare and the children shout: Why did no beam from all that rout and rush Of darting meteors, pierce my drowsed head? Strike on the portals of my sleep? and flush My spirit through mine eyelids, in the stead Of that poor vapid dream? My soul was pained, My very soul, to have slept while others woke, While little children their delight outspoke, And in their eyes' small chambers entertained Far notions of the Kosmos! I mistook The purpose of that night--it had not rained. II.

The Spenserian Sonnet: The Spenserian sonnet, invented by Edmund Spenseras an outgrowth of the stanza pattern he used in TheFaerie Queene (a b a b b c b c c), has the pattern: a b a b b c b c c d c d e e Here, the "abab" pattern sets up distinct four-linegroups, each of which develops a specific idea;however, the overlapping a, b, c, and d rhymes form thefirst 12 lines into a single unit with a separated finalcouplet. The three quatrains then develop threedistinct but closely related ideas, with a differentidea (or commentary) in the couplet.

Interestingly,Spenser often begins L9 ofhis sonnets with "But" or "Yet," indicating a voltaexactly where it would occur in the Italian sonnet;however, if one looks closely, one often finds that the "turn" here really isn't one at all, that the actualturn occurs where the rhyme pattern changes, withthe couplet, thus giving a 12 and 2 line pattern very different from the Italian 8 and 6 line pattern (actualvolta marked by italics): "Sonnet LIV" Of this World's theatre in which we stay, My love like the Spectator idly sits, Beholding me, that all the pageants play, Disguising diversely my troubled wits. Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits, And mask in mirth like to a Comedy; Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits, I wail and make my woes a Tragedy. Yet she, beholding me with constant eye, Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart; But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry She laughs and hardens evermore her heart. What then can move her?

If nor mirth nor moan, She is no woman, but a senseless stone. III. The English (or Shakespearian) Sonnet: The English sonnet has the simplest and most flexiblepattern of all sonnets, consisting of 3 quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet: a b a b e f e f g g As in the Spenserian, each quatrain develops aspecific idea, but one closely related to the ideasin the other quatrains. Not only is the English sonnet the easiest in termsof its rhyme scheme, calling for only pairs ofrhyming words rather than groups of 4, but it isthe most flexible in terms of the placement of thevolta.

Shakespeare often places the "turn,"as in the Italian, at L9: "Sonnet XXIX" When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least, Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate, For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Equally, Shakespeare can delay the volta tothe final couplet, as in this sonnet where eachquatrain develops a metaphor describing theaging of the speaker, while the couplet thenstates the consequence--"You better love menow because soon I won't be here": "Sonnet LXXIII" That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed, whereon it must expire, Consumed by that which it was nourished by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long. IV. The Indefinables There are, of course, some sonnets that don't fit any clear recognizablepattern but still certainly function as sonnets.

Shelley's "Ozymandias"belongs to this category. It's rhyming pattern of a b a b a c d c e d e f e fis unique; clearly, however, there is a volta in L9 exactly as in anItalian sonnet: "Ozymandias" I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, (stamped on these lifeless things,) The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman wrote sonnets with free abandonand with virtually no regard for any kind of pattern at all, his rhymesafter the first few lines falling seemingly at random, as in this sonnetfrom his "Sonnets, First Series," which rhymes a b b a b c a b a d e c e d,with a volta at L10: "Sonnet XXVIII" Not the round natural world, not the deep mind, The reconcilement holds: the blue abyss Collects it not; our arrows sink amiss And but in Him may we our import find. The agony to know, the grief, the bliss Of toil, is vain and vain: clots of the sod Gathered in heat and haste and flung behind To blind ourselves and others, what but this Still grasping dust and sowing toward the wind? No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead, But leave straining thought and stammering word, Across the barren azure pass to God: Shooting the void in silence like a bird, A bird that shuts his wings for better speed.

One wonders if the "sod"/"God" rhyme, being six lines apart,actually works, if the reader's ear can pick it up across thatdistance. Still, the poem has the dialectical structure thata sonnet is supposed to have, so there is justification for infact considering it one. V. Links to Various Sonnet Sequences In addition to the sonnets and sequences available at Sonnet Central, there are several included in the Poets' Corner archive, listed below. Edmund Spenser, Amoretti: ~spanou...nser1.html Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella: ~spanou...ney01.html

Question: Lines traditionally in a sonnet?
Answer: 14