Sonnets

This article aims to give you an outline of sonnets, including what they are, their history and some examples of the different kinds of sonnet.  Hopefully along the way you'll pick up some tips to help you write sonnets (or write better sonnets!).

What is a sonnet?

Sonnets feature:

• Fourteen lines
• Fixed metre
• Fixed rhyme scheme
• A shift in mood or perspective during the poem
  

Sonnets are short poems which traditionally have 14 lines, a fixed metre and a fixed rhyme scheme. Despite, or perhaps because of, the formal constraints of sonnets, they often deal with themes of emotions, love, and freedom. The name ‘sonnet’ comes from the Italian meaning ‘little sound’ or ‘little song’

Sonnets usually have two sections; a proposition or argument followed by an answer, solution, or a different way of looking at the original issue. In this, sonnets are similar to Japanese Tanka. Between the two sections, sonnets have a volta or turn - a change in the mood or argument of the poem. The volta is a central feature of the sonnet and is often emphasised by a shift in the rhyme scheme. It causes the reader to re-examine the assumptions of the first part of the poem or casts the whole central idea of the piece in a different light. Because of this, a sonnet can be used effectively to mirror the human thought process or to show the progress of an emotion.

Often contemporary sonnets will not follow the fixed metrical pattern and rhyme scheme of traditional sonnets, but they may still use a sonnet structure by having two distinct sections and a volta.

Sonnets are often grouped by theme in connected groups called ‘sonnet sequences’.

Metre

Although sonnets have been written in a variety of different metres, traditionally sonnets in English were most commonly written in Iambic Pentameter.

‘Iambic’ means that the basic repeating sound pattern of the poem, known as the metrical foot, is the Iamb. An Iamb is made of two syllables, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable ‘da-DUM’ (examples of iambs include absurd, unite, alarm and expand). ‘Pent’ means five, so ‘Pentameter’ means that there are five Iambs in each line of the poem.

Each line of a poem in regular Iambic Pentameter has ten syllables broken up into five feet. These follow the unstressed-stressed pattern.

Example (the bolding indicates the stresses):

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand errors note,

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.

(From Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141)

For a more in-depth explanation of metre and how it works, and of other different types of metre, check out:

A brief history of the sonnet

Sonnets originated in Italy in the 13th century. They are thought to derive from the Sicilian Octave, an eight line form which has only two rhyme sounds throughout, similar to the first eight lines of a traditional Italian sonnet.

One of the most notable early Italian sonneteers was Francesco Petrarch, who wrote sonnets celebrating courtly love and featuring ‘Laura’, a woman with whom he had fallen in love at first sight. Many of Petrarch’s sonnets are in the form of a blason. Blasons are poems which describe the features of the woman about whom the poem is written using metaphors. One example of a Petrarchan sonnet in translation can be found at link. Petrarch also introduced the notion, adopted by many later sonnet-writers, of love as a kind of religious experience.

Italian sonnets, and sonnets written in imitation of the early Italian sonnets, split the 14 lines of the poem into an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines) with the volta or shift after the octave.

Sonnets arrived in England in the 16th century, initially as translations of Italian and French sonnets. By the mid 16th century, sonnets in English were highly fashionable, particularly amongst the aristocracy, owing to their intricacy and the potential for self-aggrandizement. The features and themes which came to characterise English sonnets were established. Sonnets generally had three quatrains (groups of four lines) and ended with a rhyming couplet. A common theme of the 16th century sonnet was unrequited love, or courtly love. Shakespeare, writing in the late 16th century, began to subvert and play upon the sonnet conventions.

From the 17th century onwards, sonnets in English branched away from the traditional themes of love and devotion. John Donne used the sonnet from to explore themes of religious faith and doubt, and the sonnet experienced a revival in the early 19th century when Romantic poets such as Wordsworth used it to criticise the materialism of the age. Early 20th century poets such as Robert Frost and William Butler Yeats tackled a variety of themes using variations on the sonnet form. Frost said, “The sonnet is the strictest form I have behaved in, and only then by pretending it wasn’t a sonnet.”

Contemporary English sonnets rarely follow strict iambic pentameter and rhyme schemes, and don’t always have 14 lines. They are recognisable as a sonnet by the two distinct sections and the volta, by the intricacy of the form, and often by the heavy use of allusion, metaphor and rhetorical tropes.

Types of sonnet

Here are some examples of a few different types of sonnet. There are many others out there.  Why not see what other kinds of sonnet you can find?

Petrarchan or Italian sonnet:

• ABBAABBA CDECDE or ABBAABBA CDCDCD rhyme scheme
• The rhyme scheme used in the final sestet varies
• The poem rarely ends with a rhyming couplet.

Shakespearean or English sonnet:

• ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme
• Usually split into four quatrains (groups of four lines)
• Ends with a rhyming couplet
• The final couplet gives a sense of finality to the poem.

Spenserian sonnet:

• ABAB BCBC CDCD EE rhyme scheme
• Named after Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
• Tighter rhyme scheme with less variation than Shakespearean sonnets
• Structurally similar to Shakespearean sonnets.

Curtal Sonnets:

• ABCABC DBCDC rhyme scheme
• Devised by Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Ten-and-a-half lines long
• Three quarters the size of a Petrarchan sonnet and shrunk proportionally.

Pushkin sonnets:

• aBaBccDDeFFeGG rhyme scheme (the lowercase letters represent feminine endings, where more than one syllable rhymes and the line ends with an unstressed rhyming syllable)
• Named after Aleksandr Pushkin
• Also known as Onegin stanzas after the novel in verse in which Pushkin famously used them
• Written in Iambic Tetrameter, which has four Iambs to a line
• No set way of dividing up into groups of lines; more flexible than many sonnet forms
• The Golden Gate, a novel by Vikram Seth, is written entirely in this form.

Caudate sonnet:

• ABBAABBACDCDCD DEE (CFF FGG) rhyme scheme
• A standard 14 line sonnet with a coda or tail on the end
• The poem is usually 17 to 24 lines long
• Features a standard Petrarchan sonnet in Iambic Pentameter followed by a tail
• The tail is 'half a line' in Iambic trimeter (three Iambs) and a rhyming couplet in Iambic Pentameter
• The tail can be repeated
• It was invented in Italy in the 16th century and was often used for satire.

Sonnet Redoublé

• Also known as Heroic Crown of sonnets
• A set of 15 sonnets in which the last line of one sonnet is the first line of the next
• The last sonnet is traditionally made up from the repeated lines of the previous 14 sonnets in order

Nonce sonnet:

• Sonnets which feature variations in rhyme scheme or metre are sometimes termed ‘nonce sonnets’
• Nonce means ‘once’ or ‘for the one time’
• Nonce sonnets are one-offs which don’t adhere to established sonnet rules
• Defined as “a poem, generally of fourteen lines, rhyming by no set pattern, which suggests the sonnet form by its rhetorical unity and closure and by the intricacy of its construction,” (from The Robert Frost Encyclopedia, Eds. Nancy Lewis Tuten, John Zubizarreta)
• Many contemporary sonnets can be classed as nonce sonnets.

Cornish Sonnet

• ABACBC DEDFEF AD or ABACBC DEDFEF CF rhyme scheme

• The underlining here indicates that the whole line is repeated

• Can include the use of a regular metre, although it is not required.

All the sonnets

• See how many different kinds of sonnet you can find in this piece:

Resources

Groups on dA where you can find sonnets and tutorials:

• formfindsfunction (gallery at formfindsfunction.deviantart.c…)
• Crowns-of-Sonnets (gallery at crowns-of-sonnets.deviantart.c…)
• Fixed-Form-Poetry (gallery at fixed-form-poetry.deviantart.c…)
• Rhyme-and-Reason (gallery at rhyme-and-reason.deviantart.co…)

Off-site sonnet resources and information:

• Sonnets.org - Sonnet central.  An archive of sonnets and information about sonnets
• Poets.org - Sonnets, articles about sonnets, a glossary and more
• Poetryfoundation.org - Browse a list of excellent contemporary sonnets.

Questions:

• Have you ever written a sonnet?
• What did you find easiest or most difficult about sonnet writing?
• What is your favourite sonnet to read?
• Which of the different types of sonnet do you prefer?
• Do you think you'll try writing a sonnet in future?

And finally...

• A sonnet in lolspeak: