SonnetsOriginating in Italy, probably in the 13th century, it was perfected in the 14th century by Petrarch. Early in the 16th century, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, introduced the sonnet into England, Wyatt translating Petrarch. Wyatt was also an early modifier of the form. The form evolved gradually, and Shakespeare's skill has led to his name being applied to the new form.
A sonnet is a lyric poem (i.e., a brief, subjective one strongly marked by imagination, melody, and emotion, and creating for the reader a single unified impression). It is made up of fourteen lines, highly arbitrary in form, and follows one of several set rhyme schemes. The major types are the Italian (Petrarchan) and English (Shakespearean). Both forms have been modified by various experiments. The English sonnet is generally written in iambic pentameter. (If you aren't familiar with meter in poetry, see the scansion page.)
This has a two-part division of an octave and a sestet. The octave has eight lines rhyming abbaabba. The sestet has six lines rhyming variously, but the common patterns are ccddee, cdccdc, or cdecde.
The octave presents the narrative, states a proposition, or raises a question.
The sestet drives home the narrative by making an abstract comment, applies the proposition, or solves the problem.
Instead of the octave/sestet divisions, this form characteristically has four divisions: three quatrains (groups of four lines, each with a rhyme scheme of its own) and a rhyming couplet. The traditional rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. The couplet is usually a commentary on the three quatrains, providing an epigrammatic close. (An epigram is a pointed, concise statement.)
A series of sonnets is called a sonnet sequence. Well-known sonnet sequences are Shakespeare's of 154 sonnets, Dante Gabriel Rossetti's House of Life, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. Other famous English sonneteers are John Milton, William Wordsworth, and John Keats.
© Scott Foll 2000. All rights reserved.