Sonnet

The sonnet is one of the poetic forms
that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe.

The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and
the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound".
By the 13th century, it had come to signify a poem of 14 lines
that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure.
The conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history.
The writers of sonnets are sometimes referred to as "sonneteers,"
although the term can be used derisively.
One of the best-known sonnet writers is William Shakespeare,
who wrote 154 of them (not including those that appear in his plays).
A Shakespearean, or English, sonnet consists of 14 lines,
each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter,
in which a pattern of an unemphasized syllable followed by
an emphasized syllable is repeated 5 times.
The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is
a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g;
the last two lines are a rhyming couplet.

Traditionally, English poets employ iambic pentameter when writing sonnets.
In the Romance languages,
the hendecasyllable and Alexandrine are the most widely used metres.

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The Italian sonnet was created by Giacomo da Lentini,
head of the Sicilian School under Frederick II.[1] Guittone d'Arezzo
rediscovered it and brought it to Tuscany where he adapted it
to his language when he founded the Neo-Sicilian School (1235–1294).
He wrote almost 250 sonnets.[2]
Other Italian poets of the time, including Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
and Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250–1300) wrote sonnets,
but the most famous early sonneteer was Petrarca
(known in English as Petrarch).
Other fine examples were written by Michelangelo.

The Italian sonnets included two parts.
First, the octave (two quatrains), which describe a problem,
followed by a sestet (two tercets), which gives the resolution to it.
Typically, the ninth line creates a "turn" or volta
which signals the move from proposition to resolution.
Even in sonnets that don't strictly follow the problem/resolution structure,
the ninth line still often marks a "turn" by signaling a change in the tone,
mood, or stance of the poem.

In the sonnets of Giacomo da Lentini,
the octave rhymed a-b-a-b, a-b-a-b;
later, the a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets.
For the sestet there were two different possibilities,
c-d-e-c-d-e and c-d-c-c-d-c. In time,
other variants on this rhyming scheme were introduced such as c-d-c-d-c-d.

The first known sonnets in English,
written by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,
used this Italian scheme, as did sonnets by later
English poets including John Milton, Thomas Gray, William Wordsworth
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Early 20th-century American poet
Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote most of her sonnets using the Italian form.

This example, On His Blindness By Milton,
gives a sense of the Italian rhyming scheme;

When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b)
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a)
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d)
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c)
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)
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Soon after the introduction of the Italian sonnet,
English poets began to develop a fully native form.
These poets included Sir Philip Sidney, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel,
the Earl of Surrey's nephew Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and
William Shakespeare. The form is often named after Shakespeare,
not because he was the first to write in this form but because
he became its most famous practitioner.
The form consists of 14 lines structured as 3 quatrains and a couplet.
The 3rd quatrain generally introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic "turn" called a volta. In Shakespeare's sonnets,
the couplet usually summarizes the theme of the poem or
introduces a fresh new look at the theme.
The usual meter is iambic pentameter, which means five iambic feet,
i.e., 10-syllable lines in which even-numbered syllables are naturally
accented—although there is some accepted metrical flexibility
(e.g., lines ending with an extra-syllable feminine rhyme,
or a trochee at the beginning of a line rather than an iamb).
The usual rhyme scheme is end-rhymed a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.

This example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, illustrates the form
(with some typical variances one may expect when reading an
Elizabethan-age sonnet with modern eyes):

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)*
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a)
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)*
O no, it is an ever fixéd mark (c)**
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)***
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c)
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)***
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)*
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)*

If this be error and upon me proved, (g)*
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)*

* PRONUNCIATION/RHYME: Note changes in pronunciation since composition.
** PRONUNCIATION/METER: "Fixed" pronounced as two-syllables, "fix-ed."
*** RHYME/METER: Feminine-rhyme-ending, eleven-syllable alternative.

The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet is also a sonnet, as is Romeo and Juliet's
first exchange in Act One, Scene Five, lines 104-117,
beginning with "If I profane with my unworthiest hand" (104) and
ending with "Then move not while my prayer's effect I take." (117).[9]

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A variant on the English form is the Spenserian sonnet,
named after Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599) in which
the rhyme scheme is, abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee.
In a Spenserian sonnet there does not appear to be a requirement that
the initial octave set up a problem that the closing sestet answers,
as is the case with a Petrarchan sonnet.
Instead, the form is treated as three quatrains connected by
the interlocking rhyme scheme and followed by a couplet.
The linked rhymes of his quatrains suggest the linked rhymes of
such Italian forms as terza rima.
This example is taken from Amoretti.

Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands

Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands, (a)
Which hold my life in their dead doing might, (b)
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft hands, (a)
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight. (b)
And happy lines on which, with starry light, (b)
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,(c)
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite, (b)
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book. (c)

And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook (c)
Of Helicon, whence she derived is, (d)
When ye behold that angel's blessed look, (c)
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss. (d)
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone, (e)
Whom if ye please, I care for other none. (e)