Sonnet

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Sonnet

a poem, properly expressive of a single, complete thought, idea, or sentiment .

It has a specific form:

-The most general form of a sonnet is a poem of 14 lines,

- Written iambic pentameter, ( hendecasyllable or the Alexandriene meter) .

- There are two specific forms of sonnets which have a certain structure: Petrachan (or Italian) Sonnet and the Shakespearean Sonnet. These two styles generally employ a specific rhyme scheme.

- Shakespearean sonnet: A-B-A-B C-D-C-D E-F-E-F G-G.

- Italian Sonnets: A-B-B-A A-B-B-A and then C-D-E-C-D-E or C-D-C-C-D-C

There is one other major form of English Sonnet, this was the Spencerian (named after the poet Edmund Spencer) Sonnet which had a different rhyme scheme again. It followed A-B-A-B B-C-B-C C-D-C-D E-E.

Example:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.