Sonnet
Also known as fourteen-line poem
A fourteen-line poem, in English usually in iambic pentameter, with a set rhyme scheme and a turn in its argument called the volta. The two main kinds are the Shakespearean and the Petrarchan sonnet.
- Shakespearean
- 4 + 4 + 4 + 2: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
- Petrarchan
- 8 + 6: ABBAABBA CDECDE
In practice
A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines with a set rhyme scheme and a turn in its argument, called the volta. In English the lines are usually iambic pentameter: ten syllables, five stresses, da-DUM five times. The form came from Italy in the thirteenth century and reached English in the sixteenth.
There are two main kinds. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet divides into an octave of eight lines, rhymed ABBAABBA, and a sestet of six, often CDECDE or CDCDCD; the volta falls at line nine, where the problem the octave raised meets an answer. The Shakespearean or English sonnet is three quatrains and a couplet, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and often saves its sharpest turn for the final two lines.
The volta is what makes fourteen lines a sonnet rather than a short poem. Something shifts: a question gets its answer, a praise becomes a doubt, a complaint finds its limit. When you read a sonnet, find the line where the direction changes. When you write one, decide what that change will be before you write the first line.
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Shakespearean vs. Petrarchan sonnet
Petrarchan: octave plus sestet, ABBAABBA then CDECDE or CDCDCD, with the volta at line nine. Its octave needs four words on each of two rhymes, which Italian supplies easily and English less so. The two halves suit a problem and its resolution.
Shakespearean: three quatrains and a couplet, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Seven rhyme sounds instead of five make it easier in English. Each quatrain can take one step of an argument, and the couplet sums up or reverses it. Sonnet 130, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun", spends twelve lines mocking love poetry's clichés and turns in the couplet to say his love is as rare as any. The Spenserian sonnet links its quatrains with shared rhymes: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
How to write a sonnet, line by line
Decide on the turn first: what the poem believes at the start and what it understands by the end. Then choose a form. In a Shakespearean sonnet, give each quatrain one step toward the turn and leave the couplet for the conclusion or the twist.
Draft in plain sentences, then shape them into lines of about ten syllables, reading aloud until the stresses fall on every second syllable. Choose rhyme words that carry meaning rather than ones that only fit the sound. Last, check the couplet: if it only repeats what the quatrains said, rewrite it until it adds something.
Sonnet examples to read
Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", compares a beloved to summer and turns in the couplet to the poem itself: "So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." Sonnet 116, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds", defines love by what it is not.
John Milton's "When I consider how my light is spent" is Petrarchan, with its turn at line nine where Patience answers his complaint about blindness. Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" mixes the two schemes and frames a ruined statue inside a traveler's story. Modern poets have stretched the form, writing unrhymed or curtal sonnets, but most keep the fourteen lines and the turn.
Common questions
What is a sonnet?
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a set rhyme scheme and a turn in its argument called the volta. In English it is usually written in iambic pentameter.
What are the rules of a sonnet?
Fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with a set rhyme scheme such as ABAB CDCD EFEF GG or ABBAABBA CDECDE, and a turn in the argument, the volta.
What is a volta in a sonnet?
The volta is the turn in a sonnet's thought: a shift in argument, tone or direction. It usually falls at line nine in a Petrarchan sonnet and at the final couplet in a Shakespearean one.
What is the difference between a Shakespearean and a Petrarchan sonnet?
A Shakespearean sonnet is three quatrains and a couplet, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. A Petrarchan sonnet is an octave and a sestet, ABBAABBA then CDECDE or CDCDCD, with the turn at line nine.
Does a sonnet have to rhyme?
Traditional sonnets rhyme. Many modern poets write unrhymed sonnets that keep the fourteen lines and the turn, and readers still recognize them as sonnets.