While the Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnet forms are indisputably the most famous and most popular kinds of sonnets, several other sonnet structure types do exist. Portrait of Edmund Spenser. The Spenserian sonnet is a sonnet form named for 16th-century English poet Edmund Spenser , who introduced this structure in his collection of sonnets titled Amoretti.
The Spenserian sonnet is extremely similar to the Shakespearean sonnet. The main difference is the rhyme scheme: whereas the Shakespearean rhyme scheme introduces a new rhyme in each quatrain, the Spenserian sonnet carries over the latter rhyme from the previous quatrain in a chain rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
Like both the Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets, Spenserian sonnets are normally written in iambic pentameter. Here is an example of a Spenserian sonnet, written by Edmund Spenser himself. Portrait of a young John Milton. The Miltonic sonnet was named for 17th-century English poet John Milton , who is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost.
While this sonnet form is mostly the same as that of the Petrarchan sonnet it uses the Petrarchan rhyme scheme of abba abba cde cde , Miltonic sonnets use enjambment to offer a more compact, interconnected presentation of the thoughts being expressed. Enjambment is when a sentence, thought, or phrase continues beyond a line in poetry without pause. The terza rima sonnet is named for a poetic convention called terza rima, which is a three-line stanza that uses a chain rhyme the carrying over of the rhyme used in a previous stanza.
The rhyme scheme of the terza rima sonnet is aba bcb cdc ded followed by a rhyming couplet that usually echoes the first rhyme of the poem: aa. Here is an example of a terza rima sonnet written by renowned American poet Robert Frost. The poem is titled "Acquainted With the Night":. Gerard Manley Hopkins. The curtal sonnet is a shortened, or curtailed, version of the sonnet invented by 19th-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Unlike the majority of sonnets, the curtal sonnet does not strictly abide by the line rule; rather, it maintains the overall proportions of the Petrarchan sonnet by contracting two quatrains in the octet into two tercets three-line stanzas and the final sestet into a quintet five-line stanza. The final line of the quintet and the sonnet as a whole is much shorter than other lines and is called a "tail" or "half-line. The curtal sonnet rhyme scheme is abc abc followed by dbcdc or dcbdc.
What's more, this sonnet form uses a type of meter called sprung rhythm , which differs from iambic pentameter in that each line starts with a stressed instead of unstressed sound and usually contains four stressed syllables. One famous curtal sonnet written by Hopkins is "Pied Beauty. In this section, we'll give you our six best tips for writing a great sonnet. The first step to writing a great sonnet poem is to get more acquainted with sonnets and their characteristics as a whole, including how they sound in terms of both rhythm and rhyme, what kinds of themes and subjects they focus on, and what types of volta they employ.
Another option is to search for sonnets in online databases, such as Poets. On this website, you can search for a specific sonnet or poet, or browse all available sonnets by choosing "Sonnet" under "Forms" and letting the page load.
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Updated January 24, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Jamieson, Lee. What Is a Sonnet? The 5 Most Romantic Shakespeare Sonnets. Robert Frost's 'Acquainted With the Night'. Petrarchan Sonnet The first and most common sonnet is the Petrarchan, or Italian. Shakespearean Sonnet The second major type of sonnet, the Shakespearean, or English sonnet, follows a different set of rules. Featured Poems. Featured Poets The following poets, as well as many others, are known for their work in the sonnet form.
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. 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.
Educator Resources Browse lesson plans featuring poems in the sonnet form. Related Resources I think of the modern sonnet as an increment of time within a frame. Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter. Teach This Poem. Follow Us. Find Poets. Poetry Near You. Jobs for Poets. Read Stanza. Privacy Policy. Press Center. First Book Award. 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!
Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. This is one of the few examples of Gerard Manley Hopkins' variation on the sonnet, which is known as the curtal sonnet. All things counter, original, spare, strange ; Whatever is fickle, freckled who knows how?
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim ; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change : Praise him. As an early practitioner of the sonnet, the 13th century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch defined the sonnet's subject matter for centuries to come: until the 17th century, virtually all sonnets that were written in any language were, like Petrarch's sonnets, expressions of unrequited love. The sonnet's structure was well-suited to the subject because the octave's "proposition" and the sestet's "resolution" together comprise a sort of call and response, two pieces of a conversation in miniature.
This enables the poet to converse with himself in his lover's absence, thereby offering a temporary release from the pain and frustration of romantic rejection. John Donne and John Milton's pioneering sonnets of the 17th century took on subjects beyond unrequited love. This expanded the scope of what could be addressed in a sonnet, and since that time poets have used the form to write about every subject imaginable.
Poets may choose to write in the form of a traditional sonnet including meter and rhyme scheme as a way of making their language more musical through rhythm and rhyme and therefore more beautiful. Some people choose to write in fixed forms, such as the sonnet, because they like imposing restrictions on what they write, since many artists of all fields and practices find it helpful to the creative process to work within set guidelines.
Others might write sonnets that vary the traditional form in all sorts of ways, because breaking guidelines can also aid the creative process and make a statement. In addition, a poet may choose to write a sonnet because of the form's incredibly rich and extensive history as a poetic form, thereby situating their own writing in the tradition of writers, such as Shakespeare and Keats.
Sonnet Definition. Sonnet Examples. Sonnet Function. Sonnet Resources. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this entire guide PDF.
Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Editions can help. Sonnet Definition What is a sonnet? Some additional key details about sonnets: For hundreds of years, the sonnet form was reserved for poems about unrequited love, but since the 17th century sonnets have been written about a wide variety of subjects.
Sonnets have become so popular, and are written in so many places, that over time many, many variations of the sonnet form have evolved. Sonnets are sometimes written in groups, where each individual sonnet can stand alone but are also linked with the others in the group. How to Pronounce Sonnet Here's how to pronounce sonnet: sahn -it Sonnets, Meter, and Rhyme Scheme Many but not all sonnets have a strict meter and a defined rhyme scheme. We provide more details about these terms on their own pages, but here's a quick primer: Meter : A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the rhythm of lines of poetry.
The units of meter are called feet. Feet have different stress patterns.
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