Sonnet

(little song)

Sonnet Subjects:

Usually about love, sonnets often are written about beauty but also about the effects of time and mortality.

Poets of many languages still write sonnets.

Sonnet FormThree different sonnet formats or styles:

Petrarchan Sonnet

Spenserian Sonnet

Shakespearean Sonnet

Each sonnet format is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter. The sonnets usually do not have spaces between the stanzas.

Iambic pentameter: 10 stressed and unstressed syllables x         /      x           /         x           /          x           /          x      /

When     I      do       count     the       clock      that        tells       the      time

The x indicates an unstressed syllable, while the / indicates stress.

Petrarchan Sonnet(Italian)

End rhyme scheme of:

ABBAABBA CDCDCD

Or

ABABABAB CDCDEE

(Octave) (Sestet) The octave poses a problem that is

answered in the sestet.

Spenserian Sonnet(named after Edmund Spenser)

End rhyme scheme of:

ABAB BCBC CDCD EE

(Quatrain) (Quatrain) (Quatrain) (Couplet)

It is usual for there to be a pause for thought ("the turn") in the sonnet’s message at the end of each quatrain, especially the 2nd., in order to add tension, with the sonnet resolving to its objective in the final couplet.

Shakespearean Sonnet(named after William Shakespeare)

End rhyme scheme of:

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

(Quatrain) (Quatrain) (Quatrain) (Couplet)

It is usual for there to be a pause for thought ("the turn") in the sonnet’s message at the end of each quatrain, especially the 2nd., in order to add tension, with the sonnet resolving to its objective in the final couplet.

Why should a poet follow or invent a particular form?

Making use of a particular pattern (such as a sonnet form) allows a poet to display his or her skill. Taking full advantage of a pattern, exploding and exploiting a structure, meter or rhyme scheme, breaking the rules consciously and for effect—these practices are fun and interesting for both poet and reader.

Designing ideas to conform to a particular pattern forces the poet to be concise and imaginative. Fitting a fully expressed idea into the framework of a sonnet (or any other form) serves as a challenge—a problem to be solved elegantly, brilliantly, and sometimes, humorously.

Working with Sonnet Forms

Note on end rhymes:

The rhymes may be ear-rhymes or eye-rhymes: an ear-rhyme is one that rhymes in sound, e.g. “increase” and “decrease”; an eye-rhyme is one that rhymes by sight, e.g. “compare” and “are”.