Writing Sonnets: Sonnets Form & Structure

Writing Sonnets: Sonnets Form & Structure

son·net

: a fixed verse form of Italian origin consisting of fourteen lines that are typically five-foot iambics rhyming according to a prescribed scheme; poem of 14 lines with fixed rhyme scheme. also : a poem in this pattern

Basic Sonnet Forms
Nelson Miller
From the Cayuse Press Writers Exchange Board

www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm

A sonnet is fundamentally a dialectical construct which allows the poet to examine the nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas, emotions, states of mind, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc., by juxtaposing the two against each other, and possibly resolving or just revealing the tensions created and operative between the two.
O. K., so much for the fancy language. Basically, in a sonnet, you show two related but differing things to the reader in order to communicate something about them. Each of the three major types of sonnets accomplishes this in a somewhat different way. There are, of course, other types of sonnets, as well, but I'll stick for now to just the basic three (Italian, Spenserian, English), with a brief look at some non-standard sonnets.

I. The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet:

The basic meter of all sonnets in English is iambic pentameter (basic information on iambic pentameter), although there have been a few tetrameter and even hexameter sonnets, as well.

The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two different groups of rhyming sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octave and rhymes:

a b b a a b b a

The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can have either two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety of ways:

c d c d c d
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c

The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern) is flexible. In strict practice, the one thing that is to be avoided in the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or ee), as this was never permitted in Italy, and Petrarch himself (supposedly) never used a couplet ending; in actual practice, sestets are sometimes ended with couplets (Sidney's "Sonnet LXXI given below is an example of such a terminal couplet in an Italian sonnet).

The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections by the two differing rhyme groups. In accordance with the principle (which supposedly applies to all rhymed poetry but often doesn't), a change from one rhyme group to another signifies a change in subject matter. This change occurs at the beginning of L9 in the Italian sonnet and is called the volta, or "turn"; the turn is an essential element of the sonnet form, perhaps the essential element. It is at the volta that the second idea is introduced, as in this sonnet by Wordsworth:

"London, 1802"

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

Here, the octave develops the idea of the decline and corruption of the English race, while the sestet opposes to that loss the qualities Milton possessed which the race now desperately needs.

A very skillful poet can manipulate the placement of the volta for dramatic effect, although this is difficult to do well. An extreme example is this sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney, which delays the volta all the way to L 14:

"Sonnet LXXI"

Who will in fairest book of Nature know
How Virtue may best lodged in Beauty be,
Let him but learn of Love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines, which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices' overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And not content to be Perfection's heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy Virtue bends that love to good.
"But, ah," Desire still cries, "give me some food."

Here, in giving 13 lines to arguing why Reason makes clear to him that following Virtue is the course he should take, he seems to be heavily biassing the argument in Virtue's favor. But the volta powerfully undercuts the arguments of Reason in favor of Virtue by revealing that Desire isn't amenable to Reason.

There are a number of variations which evolved over time to make it easier to write Italian sonnets in English. Most common is a change in the octave rhyming pattern from a b b a a b b a to a b b a a c c a, eliminating the need for two groups of 4 rhymes, something not always easy to come up with in English which is a rhyme-poor language. Wordsworth uses that pattern in the following sonnet, along with a terminal couplet:

"Scorn Not the Sonnet"

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress wtih which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

Another variation on the Italian form is this one, by Tennyson's older brother Charles Tennyson-Turner, who wrote 342 sonnets, many in variant forms. Here, Turner uses an a b b a c d c d e f f e f e pattern, with the volta delayed until the middle of L9:

"Missing the Meteors"

A hint of rain--a touch of lazy doubt--
Sent me to bedward on that prime of nights,
When the air met and burst the aerolites,
Making the men stare and the children shout:
Why did no beam from all that rout and rush
Of darting meteors, pierce my drowsed head?
Strike on the portals of my sleep? and flush
My spirit through mine eyelids, in the stead
Of that poor vapid dream? My soul was pained,
My very soul, to have slept while others woke,
While little children their delight outspoke,
And in their eyes' small chambers entertained
Far notions of the Kosmos! I mistook
The purpose of that night--it had not rained.

II. The Spenserian Sonnet:

The Spenserian sonnet, invented by Edmund Spenser as an outgrowth of the stanza pattern he used in The Faeire Queene (a b a b b c b c c), has the pattern:

a b a b b c b c c d c d e e

Here, the "abab" pattern sets up distinct four-line groups, each of which develops a specific idea; however, the overlapping a, b, c, and d rhymes form the first 12 lines into a single unit with a separated final couplet. The three quatrains then develop three distinct but closely related ideas, with a different idea (or commentary) in the couplet. Interestingly, Spenser often begins L9 of his sonnets with "But" or "Yet," indicating a volta exactly where it would occur in the Italian sonnet; however, if one looks closely, one often finds that the "turn" here really isn't one at all, that the actual turn occurs where the rhyme pattern changes, with the couplet, thus giving a 12 and 2 line pattern very different from the Italian 8 and 6 line pattern (actual volta marked by italics):

"Sonnet LIV"

Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectator idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising diversely my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in mirth like to a Comedy;
Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I wail and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone.

III. The English (or Shakespearian) Sonnet:

The English sonnet has the simplest and most flexible pattern of all sonnets, consisting of 3 quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet:

a b a b
c b c d
e f e f
g g

As in the Spenserian, each quatrain develops a specific idea, but one closely related to the ideas in the other quatrains.
Not only is the English sonnet the easiest in terms of its rhyme scheme, calling for only pairs of rhyming words rather than groups of 4, but it is the most flexible in terms of the placement of the volta. Shakespeare often places the "turn," as in the Italian, at L9:

"Sonnet XXIX"

When is disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Equally, Shakespeare can delay the volta to the final couplet, as in this sonnet where each quatrain develops a metaphor describing the aging of the speaker, while the couplet then states the consequence--"You better love me now because soon I won't be here":

"Sonnet LXXIII"

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed by that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

IV. The Indefinables

There are, of course, some sonnets that don't fit any clear recognizable pattern but still certainly function as sonnets. Shelley's "Ozymandias" belongs to this category. It's rhyming pattern of a b a b a c d c e d e f e f is unique; clearly, however, there is a volta in L9 exactly as in an Italian sonnet:

"Ozymandias"

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!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman wrote sonnets with free abandon and with virtually no regard for any kind of pattern at all, his rhymes after the first few lines falling seemingly at random, as in this sonnet from his "Sonnets, First Series," which rhymes a b b a b c a b a d e c e d, with a volta at L10:

"Sonnet XXVIII"

Not the round natural world, not the deep mind,
The reconcilement holds: the blue abyss
Collects it not; our arrows sink amiss
And but in Him may we our import find.
The agony to know, the grief, the bliss
Of toil, is vain and vain: clots of the sod
Gathered in heat and haste and flung behind
To blind ourselves and others, what but this
Still grasping dust and sowing toward the wind?
No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead,
But leave straining thought and stammering word,
Across the barren azure pass to God:
Shooting the void in silence like a bird,
A bird that shuts his wings for better speed.

One wonders if the "sod"/"God" rhyme, being six lines apart, actually works, if the reader's ear can pick it up across that distance. Still, the poem has the dialectical structure that a sonnet is supposed to have, so there is justification for in fact considering it one.

Some Sonnet Writing Advice from the Sonnet Board

www.sonnets.org/advice.htm

Below are some comments from visitors to the Sonnet Board that may be of help to those writing their first sonnets. Good luck to you, and don't be discouraged--usually, several revisions will be needed before you find what you are after (it will be well worth the effort). See an example of one sonnet that benefited greatly from revision.
· David Keith Johnson on the basics: Writing in iambic pentameter
· Jason on writing a Shakespearian sonnet (in iambic pentameter)
· Remco van der Zwaag: a demonstration sonnet on writing in iambic pentameter
· Mike Alexander on writing an English or Italian sonnet

From David Keith Johnson

. . . begin by walking. The "foot" of the meter really has to do with how you use your feet. So you go "step-STEP" (that is, fall a little harder on the second step). Do this five times and stop. That is what one line FEELS like, and this is about feelings, not definitions.

Now, what to write about? You wouldn't be the first to write about writing sonnets. But don't try too hard. Start by getting the rhythm, and you will get this by stepping.

For example, you might just start walking:

(step-STEP, step-STEP, step-STEP, step-STEP, step-STEP)

Do it enough times, words might come into your head, maybe on their own. Give them TIME. Here is a silly example.

"Some GOO-fy GUY said I should TAKE a WALK (now pause)
if I would WRITE a GOO-fy SON-net VERSE (pause again)
but I don't UN-der-STAND his CRAZ-y TALK (now you're going)
and WALK-ing ON-ly SEEMS to MAKE it WORSE" (almost half-way)

You will do much better than this silly stuff, but relax and play. It is about pleasure. As a rather older guy who has been wacking at them since I was fourteen or so, I can tell you it is worth it. Good luck. Remember to take TIME.

From Jason

. . . For your purposes, the English or Shakespearian sonnet would be the easiest to write:

It consists of 14 lines of iambic pentameter (an iamb is a "foot" consisting of 2 syllables, 1 unaccented and 1 accented):

when I / con SID / er HOW / my LIFE / is SPENT
that TIME / of YEAR / thou MAYST / in ME / be HOLD

or

when I / have FEARS / that I / may CEASE / to BE

Some people will insist that only the number of accents (5) and not the total number of syllables per line (10) matters, and there is some justification for that view:

ah, DO / NOT, when / my HEART / hath 'SCAP'D / this SOR / row (11 syllables)

The accented syllables can, obviously, be moved about with some degree of variation within the line, but must always remain clearly musical:

WHEN in / dis GRACE / with FOR / tune and / MEN'S EYES

The 14 lines are divided into 3 quatrains (4-line stanzas) and a final couplet by different groups of rhyming words:

a hold
b hang
a cold
b sang

c day
d west
c way
d rest

e fire
f lie
e expire
f by

g strong
g long

Each quatrain develops a complete idea; sometimes the same idea is developed in 3 different ways in the 3 quatrains, sometimes the quatrains develop 3 different but closely related ideas. The closing couplet is a conclusion based on the material contained in the quatrains.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is a good example of all these points:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

From Remco van der Zwaag

The five foot meter: what is the big deal?
Ten syllables per line is what it takes,
"ta TUM" times five, that is the beat it makes.
Just write a few and you will get the feel
.
This penta-thing, it has its own appeal,
Especially if from its swing you break
Away. Slight change will subtly make your bake
More tasty, spicy: practice it with zeal!
And somehow to the sonnet it belongs,
It gives a bronzen sound to all these songs
That suits the thoughts of pensive poets well.

Of this pentameter be not afraid.
Just practice it, and you will get your grade
And when you do, well then, come back and tell!

From Mike Alexander

. . . I'm sure you've looked up enough of the definition of "sonnet" to know that the word refers to a form, in particular a fourteen line poem with a rhyme "scheme." What particular scheme or pattern of rhyming you use is up for discussion, & thereby hangs a lot of the debate that goes on between sonnetizers, but the most common schemes are most commonly known as the English or the Italian. Following one of these or the other variations is half the battle.

To put it briefly, the English is made of three quatrains, each with their own rhymes, capped off with a couplet (in "scansion" form: abab cdcd efef gg). The Italian is made of an octave & a sestet (one possible scan: abbaabba cdecde). Obviously you base your decision as to which of the forms to use on the rhetorical strengths & weaknesses of whatever it is you personally wish to express. That's how such a seemingly rigid system ends up turning out so many pieces of such individual personality.

You've got to figure in your own strengths & weaknesses. For instance, if you have trouble holding together anything for more than four lines, stick to the English sonnet. If you think in terms of a Q & A, or a primary point followed by a secondary point, & you need more than a quatrain, go for the Italian. Pick your rhyme words according to whatever scheme you think will work for you.

Hint: Don't try an Italian sonnet with "orange" at the end of the first line; there aren't enough rhymes for you to make it to the eighth line.

Hint: The ninth line hook, where you move either from the second quatrain to the third or from the octave to the sestet, is crucial, possibily more so than the first & last line. This transition is called a "volta." It's the leap in Robert Bly terms.

Ready for the other half of the battle? You've got to maintain a regular meter in every line of the poem, most commonly in iambic pentameter. That's ten syllables with a kick on the even syllables. It's okay, you can count on your fingers. Readers judge the quality on a sonnet by a combination of elements -- how well you write in meter, how deftly you've crossed the volta, how solidly you close up at the end, how inventive & appropriate your rhymes are.

Those are the best technical set-ups I can give you. Just go with what works for you, & know that it can be hit & miss for a while at first. . .Good luck.

The Sonnet
Its Characteristics and History

www.sonnets.org/sharp-c.htm

Sonnet-Structure

It is a matter of surprise that even now there are many well-read people who have no other idea of what a sonnet is than that it is a short poem--what kind of short poem they very vaguely apprehend. I have heard it described as any short poem of one or more stanzas used for filling up blank spaces in magazine pages--a definition not so very absurd when we remember that a poet and critic like Coleridge pronounced it "a medium for the expression of a mere momentary burst of passion." But the majority of readers of poetry know that it is limited to fourteen lines in length: beyond this the knowledge of all save a comparative few does not go. Even among verse-writers themselves there is some vagueness on this point: I have heard one well-known writer say that so-and-so's sonnet was a fine one, when the piece in question consisted of three octosyllabic quatrains; another spoke of In Memoriam as made up of a number of linked sonnets; and one of the contributors to this volume lately remarked to me that any one could write a sonnet--it was simply to say something in fourteen lines instead of in ten or twenty!

The commonest complaint against the sonnet is its supposed arbitrariness--a complaint based on a complete misconception of its nature. In the sense that a steersman must abide by the arbitrary law of the compass, in the sense that the engine-driver must abide by the arbitrary machinery of the engineer, in the sense that the battalion must wheel to the right or the left at the arbitrary word of command--in this sense is the sonnet an arbitrary form. Those who complain seem to forget that the epic, the tragedy, the ode, are also arbitrary forms, and that it is somewhat out of place to rail against established rules of architecture in the erection of a cottage, and to blink those in the building of a mansion or a palace. Any form of creative art, to survive, must conform to certain restrictions: would Paradise Lost hold its present rank if Milton had interspersed Cavalier and Roundhead choruses throughout his epic? What would we think of the Æneid if Virgil had enlivened its pages with Catullian love-songs or comic interludes after the manner of Plautus or Terence? The structure of the sonnet is arbitrary in so far that it is the outcome of continuous experiment moulded by mental and musical influences: it is not a form to be held sacred simply because this or that great poet, or a dozen poets, pronounced it be the best possible poetic vehicle for its purpose. It has withstood the severest test that any form can be put to: it has survived the changes of language, the fluctuations of taste, the growth of culture, the onward sweep and the resilience of the wave of poetry that flows to and fro, "with kingly pauses of reluctant pride," across all civilised peoples: for close upon six hundred years have elapsed since Guittone and Dante and Petrarca found the perfected instrument ready for them to play their sweetest music upon. Guittone was like the first man who adventured frequently upon the waters in a wedge-shaped craft, after whom every one agreed that grooved and narrow bows were better than the roundness of a tub or the clumsy length of a hollowed tree-trunk. Or again, he may be compared with the great Florentine painter Masaccio, who introduced the reality of life into Italian art, or with even greater Fleming, Jan van Eyck, who invented, or any rate inaugurated, painting in oils as now understood: though he too of course had his predecessor, even as Masolino foreshadowed Masaccio, and the monk Theophilus foretold the discovery that is commonly attributed to Hubert van Eyck and his more famous brother.

The Guittonian limitation of the sonnet's length to fourteen lines was, we may rest assured, not wholly fortuitous. The musical and poetic instinct probably, have determined its final form more than any apprehension of the fundamental natural law beneath its metrical principles. The multiplicity and easy facility of Italian rhymes rendered the more limited epigram of the ancients too malleable a metrical material in one way, and too obstinate a material in another, for while almost any one with a quick ear and ready tongue could have rattled off a loose quatrain, it was difficult to give sufficient weight and sonority thereto with a language where rhyme-sounds are as plentiful as pebbles in a shallow mountain stream. It became necessary, then, to find a mould for the expression of a single thought, emotion, or poetically apprehended fact, which would allow sufficient scope for sonority of music and the unfolding of the motive and its application, and which yet would not prove too ample for that which was to be put into it. Repeated experiments tended to prove that twelve, fourteen, or sixteen lines were ample for the presentation of any isolated idea or emotion; again, that the sensitive ear was apt to find the latter number a shade too long, or cumbrous; and still later, that while a very limited number of rhymes was necessitated by the shortness of the poem, the sixteen reverberations of some three or four terminal sounds frequently became monotonous and unpleasing. Ten or twelve-line poems were ascertained to be as a rule somewhat fragmentary, and only worthily served when the poet was desirous of presenting to his readers a simple pearl rather than a diamond with its flashing facets, though here also there was not enough expansion for restrected rhyme, while there was too much for merely two or at the most three distinct terminal sounds. Again, it was considered advisable that the expression should be twofold, that is, that there should be the presentation of the motive, and its application; hence arose the division of the fourteen-line poem into two systems. How were these systems to be arranged? were seven lines to be devoted to the presentation of the idea or emotion, and seven to its application: seven to the growth of the tree, and seven to its fruitage: seven to the oncoming wave, and seven to its resurge? The sensitive ear once more decided the question, recognising that if there were to be a break in the flow of melody--and the necessity of pauses it had already foreseen--it could not be at a seventh line, which would bring about an overbalance of rhyme. Experience and metrical music together coincided to prove that the greatest amount of dignity and beauty could be obtained by the main pause occurring at the end of the eighth line. Here, then, we arrive at the two systems into which the sonnet is divided--the major and the minor: and because the major system consists of eight lines, it is called th "octave," and correspondingly the minor system is known as the "sestet." It soon became evident, however, that something more was wanted: it was as if a harpist had discovered that with another string or two he could greatly add to the potential powers of his instrument. This was the number and the true distribution of rhyme-sounds. How many were to occur in the octave, how many in the sestet? or were they to pervade both systems indiscriminately? Even before Dante and Petrarca wrote their sonnets it was an accepted canon that the octave lost its dignity if it contained more than two distinct rhyme-sounds, or at most three. In the sestet it was recognized that a greater freedom was allowable, if not in the number of rhyme-sounds, at least in their disposition. Again, Guittone had definitely demonstrated that in length each sonnet-line should consist of ten syllables, the decasyllabic metre permitting a far greater sonority than the octosyllabic; and that acute experimentalist probably quite realised that continuous sonority and unbroken continuity of motive were two of the most essential characteristics of the sonet. No one who has any knowledge of the laws both of music and of poetical forms would be surprised if it were proved, as has been asserted, that Fra Guittone or his predecessors perceived and acted in accordance with the close analogy existing between their chosen metrical form and the musical system established by Guido Bonatti in the eleventh century. Throughout Fra Guittone's work it is evident that he is no blind blunderer, but a poet striving to make his vehicle the best possible, working upon it with a determinate aim.

In most of his sonnets we find the following arrangement: in the octave the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth lines rhyme, and so do the second, third, sixth, and seventh. By this arrangement the utmost attainable dignity and harmony is obtained, there being no clashing of rhymes, no jingle, but a steady, sweeping, wave-like movement entirely satisfactory to the ear. There have been some fine sonnets written with the introduction of a third rhyme-sound into the octave (the terminations of the sixth and seventh lines), and there can be no doubt that if this were equally satisfactory to the ear, a still greater and most valuable expansion would be given to the English sonnet; but to the sensitive ear, especially sensitive among Italians, it is as out of place as some new strain is in a melody that is already in itself amply sufficient, and that loses in effect by the alien introduction. This variation never gained ground in Italy, though in Spain it found favour with some of the Castilian sonneteers as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century.

It gained instead of losing in what Mr. Theodore Watts calls the solidarity of the outflowing wave by its nominal subdivision into two basi or bases, as the Italians name what we call the quatrains: upon these basi the poetic image could rest, either rendered dear to the reader supported on both, or appealing to him by an illuminating gleam from one base, and then by an added light from the other. The octave of the perfect sonnet, then, we find to consist of two quatrains, capable of divisional pause yet forming a solid whole: in all, eight lines following a prescribed rhyme-arrangement, which may be thus expressed—

a--b--b--a--a--b--b—a

The sestet in like manner is subdivided equally, in this case into sections of three lines each: these sections are called the tercets. There can be either three rhymes or two, and the variations thereupon are numerous. The Guittonian, or, as it is generally called, the Petrarcan sestet-type, is one containing three distinct rhyme-sounds, and employing the valuable pause permitted by the true use of the double-tercet; but a system of two rhyme-sounds is, as far as "metrical emphasis" goes, much stronger, and any arrangement of the rhymes (whether two or three) is permissible, save that of a couplet at the close. It is a difficult question to decide even for one's-self whether it is better for sestet to contain only two rhymes or three: personally I am inclined to favour the restriction to two, on account of the great accession of metrical emphasis resulting to this restriction. But, on the other hand, the normal type (the Petrarcan) affords a better opportunity for a half-break at the end of the first tercet, corresponding to the same midway in the octave and to the full break at the latter's close. It would be a mistake, however, to dogmatise upon the point, and the poet will probably instinctively use the tercets in just correspondence with his emotional impulse. The Italian masters recognised as the best that division of the sestet into two distinct tercets (which they termed volte, or turnings), which, while not interfering with what Mr. Watts calls the ebb-movement of the sestet, are fully capable of throwing out two separate lights in one gleam--like azure hollow and yellow flame in burning gas.

The sestet of the pure Guittonian sonnet, then, may be expressed by the following formula:--

a--b--c:--a--b—c

The following are among the more or less appropriate variations:--

1 (ababab) ex

2 (abbaab) ex

3* (abbaba) ex

4 (ababba) ex

5 (aabbab) ex

6 (aabaab) ex

7 (abcbac) ex

8 (abacbc) ex

9 (abccba) ex

10 (abcbca) ex

11 (abccab) ex

12 (abbcca) ex

13 (aabccb) ex

14 (aabcbc) ex

15 (abaccb) ex

16 (abbcac) ex

17 (abcacb) ex

18 (aabbcc) ex

"ex" in the third division of this Table denotes examples among the Sonnets in this book of the variation in question.

*Rossetti used to say that he considered this (No. 3) to be the best form of sestet, if it could be achieved without any damage to intellectual substance.

Of these, it seems to me that the two most musical--the least disturbant to the melodic wave--are the first and third,

a--b--a--b--a--b
a--b--b--a--b--a

The occurrence of a rhymed couplet at the close of the sonnet is rare indeed in Italian literature. I cannot recall a single example of it among the classic masters of the sonnet, and even in later times I fancy it would be difficult to find a single good Italian example worthy the name with this termination. But it does not necessarily follow that a dosing couplet is equally unpleasant to the ear in English, for in the latter practically all sonnets are what the Italians call mute, that is, the rhyming terminals are in one syllable, while in the language of Petrarca and Dante they are trisyllabic and dissyllabic--a circumstance materially affecting our consideration of this much-debated point. Not only are there few good English sonnets with dissyllabic terminals (I remember none with trisyllabic throughout, and do not suppose there is an example thereof to be found), but there are few of any quality. In Mrs. Alice Meynell's Preludes there are one or two partially so constructed, e.g., "A Day to Come," quoted in the Appendix to this volume. But, notwithstanding the differences in terminal structure, it is open to question whether the rhymed couplet-ending be not almost as disagreeable to the English as to the Italian ear, unless the form be that of the so-called Shakespearian sonnet. One of the chief pleasures of the sonnet is the expectancy of the closing portion, and when the ear has become attuned to the sustained flow of the normal octave and also of the opening lines of the sestet, the couplet is apt to come upon one with an unexpected jar, as if some one had opened and banged-to a door while the musician was letting the last harmonious chords thrill under his touch. There has been a good deal written on this point, and Mr. Hall Caine and others have succinctly pointed out their reasons for strongly objecting to it. It is, moreover, perhaps the last point on which sonneteers themselves will agree. Writing some three or four years ago on this subject, I stated that "if the arrangement of lines suit the emotion, I am not offended by a concluding rhymed couplet, or by the quatrains used to such purpose by Shakespeare, Drayton, and Tennyson-Turner;" but then, undoubtedly, only one side of the question was clear to me. Continuous study of the sonnet has convinced me that while many English sonnets of the Guittonian type, even by good writers, are markedly weakened by rhymed couplet endings, in the Skakespearian form the closure in question is not only not objectionable but is absolutely as much the right thing as the octave of two rhymes is for the Petrarcan sonnet. Most writers on the sonnet either state generally that they object or that they do not object to the rhymed couplets at the close: thus one anonymous critic writes that he fails "to see wherein a couplet ending is not musical as any other arrangement, that indeed it is demonstratably so by the citation of some of the most striking sonnets in our language"--while, on the other hand, Mr. Caine refers to the closure in question as being as offensive to his ear as the couplets at the ends of scenes and acts in some Shakespearian plays. It seems to me now that there are, broadly speaking, but two normal types in English of sonnet-structures--the Petrarcan and the Shakespearian: whenever a motive is cast in the mould of the former a rhymed couplet ending is, to my own ear at least, quite out of place; whenever it is embodied in the latter the couplet is eminently satisfactory.

Before, however, considering the five chief types (primarily, two), I may finish my general remarks on the early history of the sonnet.

That by the fourteenth century the mature sonnet was fully understood and recognised is evident from the facts (set forth by Mr. Tomlinson) that of the forty attributed (one or two of them somewhat doubtfully) to Dante, thirty-three belong to the strict Guittonian type: of the three hundred and seventeen produced throughout a long period by Petrarca, not one has more than two rhymes in the octave, and only fifteen have any variations from the normal type (eleven in alternate rhymes, and four with the first, third, sixth, and eighth lines harmonising); while two hundred and ninety agree in having nothing more than a double rhyme both in the major and in the minor system--one hundred and sixteen belonging to the pure Guittonian type, one hundred and seven with the tercets in two alternate rhymes (Type I. in foregoing table), and sixty-seven with three rhyme-sounds, arranged as in Type VII. in foregoing table. Again, of the eighty sonnets of Michael Angelo, seven-eighths are in the normal type. It is thus evident that, at a period when the Italian ear was specially keen to all harmonious effects, the verdict of the masters in this species of poetic composition was given in favour of two sonnet formations--the Guittonian structure as to the octave, and the co-relative arrangement of the sestet a--b--c--a--b--c, or a--b--b--a--b, with a preference for the former. Another variation susceptible of very beautiful effect is that of Type IX. (ante), but though it can most appropriately be used when exceptional tenderness, sweetness, or special impressiveness is sought after, it does not seem to have found much favour. I may quote here in exemplification of it one of the most beautiful of all Italian sonnets. It is one of Dante's, and is filled with the breath of music as a pine-tree with the cadences of the wind--the close being supremely exquisite: while it will also afford to those who are unacquainted with Italian an idea of the essential distinction between the trisyllabic and dissyllabic terminals of the southern and the one-syllable or "mute" endings of the English sonnet, and at the same time serve to illustrate what has been already said concerning the pauses at the quatrains and tercets:--

Tanto gentile, e tanto onesta pare
La donna mia, quand' ella altrui saluta,
Ch' ogni lingua divien tremando muta,
E gli occhi non l' ardiscon di guardare.

Ella sen va, sentendosi laudare,
Umilimente d' onestà vestuta;
E par che sia una cosa venuta
Di cielo in terra a miracol mostrare.

Mostrasi si piacente a chi la mira,
Che dá per gli occhi una dolcezza al core,
Che'ntender non la puó chi non Ia pruova.

E par, che dalla sua labbia si mova,
Uno spirito soave, pien d' amore,
Che va dicendo all' anima: sospira.

I need not here enter into detail concerning all the variations that have been made upon the normal type; in Italian these are very numerous, as also in French. In Germany the model type (where, by-the-by, the sonnet was first known by the name of Klang-gedicht, a very matter-of-fact way of rendering sonetto in its poetic sense!) has always been the Petrarcan, as exemplified in the flawless statuesque sonnets of Platen. The following six Italian variations represent those most worthy of notice:--(I) Versi sdruccioli, twelve-syllabled lines, i.e. (Leigh Hunt) slippery or sliding verses, so called on account of their terminating in dactyls--tenere--venere. [Boldface used to indicate stress rather than the original long/short vowel marks, which are unreproducible here.] (2) Caudated, or Tailed Sonnets--i.e., sonnet to which as it were an unexpected augmentation of two or five or more lines is made: an English example of which will be found in any edition of Milton's works, under the title, "On the New Forcers of Conscience." (3) Mute Sonnets: on one-syllable terminals, but generally used only for satirical and humorous purposes--in the same way as we, contrariwise, select dissyllabic terminals as best suited for badinage. (4) Linked, or Interlaced Sonnets, corresponding to the Spenserian form, which will be formulated shortly. (5) The Continuous or Iterating Sonnet, on one rhyme throughout, and (6) the same, on two rhymes throughout. French poets (who, speaking generally, are seen to less advantage in the sonnet than in any other poetic vehicle) have delighted in much experimentalising: their only commendable deviation, one commonly made, is a commencement of the sestet with a rhymed couplet (a mould into which Mr. Swinburne is fond of casting his impulsive speech)--but their octosyllabic and dialop sonnets, and other divergences, are nothing more than experiments, more or less interesting and able. The paring-down system has reached its extreme level in the following clever piece of trifling by Comte Paul de Resseguier--a "sonnet" of single-sylIable lines:--

EPITAPHE D'UNE JEUNE FILLE.

Fort
Belle,
Elle
Dort!

Sort
Frêle
Quelle
Mort!

Rose
Close--
La

Brise
L'a
Prise.

Among English sonnets the chief variations are the rhymed-couplet ending added to the preceding twelve lines cast in the regular form: the sonnet ending with an Alexandrine (example): the sonnet with an Alexandrine closing both octave and sestet (example): the Assonantal Sonnet, i.e., a sonnet without rhymes, but with the vowel sounds of the words so arranged as to produce a distinctly harmonious effect almost identical with that of rhyme-music. Of this form Mr. Wilfred Blunt, among others, has given a good example in his Love-Sonnets of Proteus: the octosyllabic sonnets (mere experiments), written by Mr. E. Cracroft Lefroy and Mr. S. Waddington and others; and the sonnet constructed on two rhyme-sounds throughout. Among the last named I may mention Mr. William Bell Scott's "Garland for Advancing Years," Mr. Edmund Gosse's "Pipe-Player," and Lord Hanmer's "Winter." The latter I may quote as a fine but little-known example of this experimental variation:--

WINTER.

To the short days, and the great vault of shade
The whitener of the hills, we come--alas,
There is no colour in the faded grass,
Save the thick frost on its hoar stems arrayed.
Cold is it: as a melancholy maid,
The latest of the seasons now doth pass,
With a dead garland, in her icy glass
Setting its spikes about her crispéd braid.
The streams shall breathe, along the orchards laid,
In the soft spring-time; and the frozen mass
Melt from the snow-drift; flowerets where it was
Shoot up--the cuckoo shall delight the glade;
But to new glooms through some obscure crevasse
She will have past--that melancholy maid.

This interesting and poetic experiment would have been still better but for the musical flaw in the first line (days---shade) and those in the 13th-14th (crevasse--past), though of course in this instance the terminal is intentional, and is a metrical gain rather than a flaw. In the Appendix will be quoted a sonnet by Mr. J. A. Symonds, constructed on three rhymes throughout. Dialogue-sonnets are not an English variation: I am aware of very few in our Ianguage,--the earliest which I have met with is that written by Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1580-1640). There are one or two sonnets in French with octaves where the first three lines rhyme, and therewith also the fifth, sixth, and seventh: one, in English, will be found in the Appendix.

We may now pass to the consideration of the five standard formal types, thereby closing the first section of this Introduction, that on "Sonnet-structure."

These formal types are (I) The Petrarchan. (2) The Spenserian. (3) The Shakespearian. (4) The Miltonic: and (5) The Contemporary.

The Guittonian, or Petrarcan sonnet, has already been explained from the structural point of view: but its formal characteristics may be summarised once more. (I) It, like all sonnets, must primarily consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines. (2) It must be made up of a major and minor system: the major system consisting of eight lines, or two quatrains, to be known as the octave; the minor consisting of six lines, or two tercets, to be known as the sestet. (3) Two rhyme-sounds only must pervade the octave, and their arrangement (nominally arbitrary, but in reality based on an ascertainable melodic law) must be so that the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth terminals rhyme, while the second, third, sixth, and seventh do so also on a different note. (4) What is generally looked upon as completing the normal type is a sestet with the tercet divisions clearly marked, and employing three rhyme-sounds, the co-relatives being the terminals of lines I and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6.

Among the numerous sonnets (the great majority naturally) in this anthology conforming to the two archetypal forms, the reader of these remarks may glance for reference at Mr. Matthew Arnold's Immortality, and at Mr. Theodore Watts' Foreshadowings.

Building Blocks of Sonnets

by M. Wendy Hennequin
Contents

· Coming to Terms
· A Review and a Warning
· Types of Sonnets
· Sonnet Structure
· The Subjects of Sonnets
· Sonnets on the Web

www.sp.uconn.edu/~mwh95001/sonnets.html

Coming to Terms

1. Sonnet

First of all, a sonnet is a short poem; the word in fact comes from the Italian for "little song." A sonnet consists of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming in different patterns (see Types of Sonnets below). The sonnet form was created by the Italian Giacomo da Lentino in the 1200's (thanks to Seth Jeppesen at BYU who kindly pointed this out to me). However, folks studying English poetry will probably never hear of Lentino, even though he invented a form that has been flourishing for over seven hundred years. Students of English poetry will, however, hear a lot about Petrarch, another Italian sonneteer, whose work was translated into English by the poets Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Wyatt and Surrey not onlyl translated Petrarch's sonnets, but used the sonnet form to do so, and published them in in Tottel's Miscellany.

2. Iambic Pentameter

Iambic pentameter is the elemental building block of a sonnet's poetic line, the template or pattern on which its structure is built. Iambic pentameter is a rhythmical pattern. The "iambic" part means that the rhythm goes from an unstressed syllable to a stressed one, as happens in words like divine, caress, bizarre, and delight. It sounds sort of like a heartbeat: daDUM, daDUM, daDUM. The "pentameter" part means that this iambic rhythm is repeated five times.
Here are a few examples of lines written in iambic pentameter:
o "Oh, gentle Faustus, leave this damnèd art," Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, 5.1.37
o "I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." John Milton, "Methought I Saw My Late Espousèd Saint"
o "But surely Adam cannot be excused," Aemilia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, line 777
o "We hold these truths to be self-evident," Thomas Jefferson, "The Declaration of Independence," line 1
Iambic pentameter is actually the building block of about two-thirds of medieval and Renaissance English poetic forms. Iambic pentameter is used in rime royal, Chaucerian couplets, blank verse (one of the play-writing media of Shakespeare and his contemporaries), ballades, sestinas, and Spenserian stanza. Neoclassical poets used iambic pentameter in heroic couplets, and later poets have added their sonnets and works in blank verse to English and American literature. The upshot: people master iambic pentameter and the ability to rhyme can write a good many medieval, Renaissance forms, eighteenth, and nineteenth century poetic forms.

3. Rhyme

Words that rhyme have the same ending vowel and consonant sounds--might rhymes with flight and delight, and begin rhymes with within. There's also such a thing as half-rhyme, where words almost rhyme: heard and hoard are half-rhymes. Sonnets use end rhyme, which means, logically enough, that the rhymes come at the end of the line. The ending words can be masculine (ending in a stressed syllable: delight) or feminine (ending in an unstressed syllable: delighted).

Back to Contents

A Review and a Warning

A quick review: A sonnet consists of fourteen of these iambic pentameter lines . . . usually. Although I plan to focus on the "typical" sonnet (fourteen lines, iambic pentameter), it is fair to note that occasionally, poets break the rules. John Milton wrote a sixteen line sonnet (one of my professors tried to avoid this conclusion, labelling the poem a "sonnet with a codicil," as if it were a will). Sir Philip Sidney wrote a sonnet in iambic hexameter (six iambs per line, also called "alexandrines") at the beginning of Astrophel and Stella. Yes, there are period examples of non-typical sonnets and of poets breaking the rules. But these violations are not the result of ignorance or accident; Sidney and Milton were educated poets who knew the rules and were breaking them deliberately for effect. Be sure you know and can follow the rules before you decide to break them, and only break them for good reason, not because you can't follow them.

Back to Contents

Types of Sonnets

Most sonnets in English follow one of the three patterns, differentiated by rhyme scheme.

1. Italian or Petrarchan. The original. Although called "Italian" and pioneered by Italian poet Petrarch, Spanish sonnets also generally follow this form, and some English sonneteers also use it. The Italian sonnet form consists of an "octet" (group of eight lines) and a "sextet" (you guessed it; a group of six lines) in one of the following rhyme schemes:

o abbaabba cde cde
o abbaabba cc dd ee
o abbaabba cdcd ee

2. Spenserian. This form was created and pioneered by Sir Edmund Spenser, famous author of The Faerie Queene, in his sonnet sequence, The Amoretti. It is one of the more difficult sonnet forms because the rhyme interlocks: abab bcbc cdcd ee.

3. Shakespearean (also called English). This form is probably the most common in English. Shakespeare didn't invent the form, but his sonnets are probably the best know of this type. A Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains and a final couplet. The rhyme scheme goes abab cdcd efef gg.

Sonnet Structure

Which form of sonnet you choose to write will depend on what you want to say and how you want to say it. Prof. Jack Manning at UConn, whom I assisted in a Shakespeare class, compared Shakespeare's sonnets to an argument with three main points, each taking up one quatrain, and a counter to that argument or a conclusion to that argument in the ending couplet. Spensererian sonnets could follow much the same structural pattern. Of course, instead of logical argument, you could use a series of images or metaphors--Shakespeare and Spenser do this, too--and use these images, metaphors, or whatever, to make a concluding point in the final couplet.

Of course, the structure of the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet is different. The sonnet is divided, but its very form, into two parts, not four. This form is better for arguments with two parts--a happens (octet), therefore b (sextet). Another use is to tell a brief story or allegory (octet) and draw a conclusion from it (sextet).

The best advice: Read sonnets! After reading enough of them, you'll internalize the uses of the structures and won't even think about them.

The Subjects of Sonnets

So what are sonnets about? Well, that depends on your poet and your time period. Shakespeare wrote about a woman he loved or at least lusted after, and about a friend, about his own mortality and the immortality of poetry. John Milton wrote about his dead wife in one sonnet, and martyred Protestants in another. Dr. John Donne wrote about his relationship with God (The Holy Sonnets), and at a much later time period, John Keats wrote about his experience with the Iliad ("On First Looking into Chapman's Homer") and William Wordsworth wrote about the state of England ("London, 1802"). Many English Renaissance poets wrote in praise of Queen Elizabeth. The field is therefore fairly wide open.

Many famous sonneteers, Petrarch, Sir Phillip Sidney, Sir Edmund Spenser, and the newly admired Lady Mary Wroth, wrote long sequences of love sonnets, called, rather logically, sonnet sequences. Often these long sonnet sequences detail the agonies of the lover over a (usually) beautiful, cruel, and unattainable beloved and tell a sequence of stories about the relationship. Some of these stories involve the beloved's cruel use of power over the lover; an early one in Wroth's sequence tell of a dream in which Venus makes the speaker, Pamphilia, a lover; and Sidney's first sonnet in Astrophel and Stella tells about his decision to base his poetry on his feelings, instead of poetic conventions (he doesn't, but that discussion belongs on a Sidney page).

Spenser's Amortetti break the rule here; his beloved is beautiful and cruel, but she is wooed and eventually marries the speaker, Spenser himself. The sequence ends with a wedding poem called "The Epithalamion."

Sonnets on the Web

First, try Sonnet Central, a site I ran across entirely by chance. It archives all sorts of sonnets, from the earliest in English until the twentieth century, and accepts admissions.

- Renaissance Sonnets
- Petrarch
- In the original . . .
- Some translations
- Sir Thomas Wyatt
- Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
- Sir Philip Sidney
- Astrophel and Stella, full text in original spelling
- Selections from Astrophel and Stella
- Sir Edmund Spenser
- The Amoretti, complete text
- Selections from The Amoretti
- William Shakespeare
- The Sonnets, with some introduction. The link brings you to the introductory material; to skip it and go straight to the sonnets' table of contents, click here.
- Shake-speare's Sonnets, an old spelling edition available in different formats. It also has some introductory material.
- Selected Sonnets of Shakespeare, four to be exact, with some commentary, by Jocelyn Satin and Keith Curran. A shameless plug for two of my industrious students. They also include some facsimilies of the original printing of the sonnets, a really cool touch.
- Lady Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
- John Donne, Holy Sonnets, including a Corona
- John Milton
- "How Soon Hath Time, the Subtle Thief of Youth"
- "Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint", a personal favorite.
- "On the Late Massacre at Piedmont"
- "When I Consider How My Light is Spent"
- After the Renaissance . . .
- William Wordsworth
- "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 1802"
- "London, 1802"
- "Scorn Not the Sonnet"
- John Keats
- "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
- "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again"
- George Manley Hopkins
- "Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord"
- "No Worst, There is None"

This page was created for my own amusement and for the education of others on May 27, 2000, and last modified on June 30, 2000. It is based on a workshop that I have occasionally taught.

Links to Various Sonnet Sequences

In addition to the sonnets and sequences available at Sonnet Central, there are several included in the Poets' Corner archive, listed below.
www.geocities.com/Athens/...2012/poems

William Shakespeare, Sonnets: www.geocities.com/~spanou...net01.html

Edmund Spenser, Amoretti: www.geocities.com/~spanou...nser1.html

Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella: www.geocities.com/~spanou...ney01.html

Samuel Daniel, Delia: www.geocities.com/~spanou...iel02.html

Michael Drayton, Idea: www.geocities.com/~spanou...yton2.html

John Donne, Holy Sonnets: www.geocities.com/~spanou...nne02.html

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese: www.geocities.com/~spanou...ebb01.html

Willaim Lisle Bowles, Fourteen Sonnets: www.geocities.com/~spanou...les01.html

Two "sonnet calendars":

Helen Hunt Jackson: www.geocities.com/~spanou...02.html#20

John Payne: www.geocities.com/~spanou...e02.html#3

A few early 20th Century sonnets:

Wilfred Owen, "Anthem for Doomed Youth": www.geocities.com/~spanou...n01.html#3

William Carlos Williams, "The Uses of Poetry": www.geocities.com/~spanou...m2.html#10

William Carlos Williams, "On a Proposed Trip South": www.geocities.com/~spanou...m2.html#11

Ezra Pound, "A Virginal": www.geocities.com/~spanou...d01.html#6

Elinor Wylie, "Wild Peaches: A Four-Sonnet Cycle": www.geocities.com/~spanou...e01.html#3

Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Only until this cigarette is ended": www.geocities.com/~spanou...01.html#20

Claude McKay, "If We Must Die": www.geocities.com/~spanou...03.html#45

Claude McKay, "The Harlem Dancer": www.geocities.com/~spanou...02.html#35

Claude McKay, "The Lynching": www.geocities.com/~spanou...03.html#43