SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET:

  • A sonnet: the term derives from the Italian sonetto, 'a little sound' or 'song'. The ordinary sonnet consists of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameters* with considerable variations in rhyme scheme. The 3 basic sonnet forms are:

#the Petrarchan sonnet: an octave (abba abba) + a sestet (cde cde /or/ cd cd cd)

#the Spenserian sonnet: 3 quatrains (abab bcbc cdcd) + a couplet (ee)

#the Shakespearean sonnet: 3 quatrains (abab cdcd efef) + a couplet (gg)

 

The Petrarchan sonnet is the most common. The octave develops one thought; then, there is a turn or 'volta' and the sestet grows out of the octave, varies it and completes it.

In the Spenserian and Shakespearean sonnets, a different idea is expressed in each quatrain; each one grows out of the one preceding it; and everything is tied up in the binding-end couplet.


Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets – printed in 1609. Sonnets were usually used in love poetry in the Elizabethan era.

Source: adapted from Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory by J.A.Cuddon, 1976, 3rd edition.