Aspects of a Sonnet

Aspects of a Sonnet

Explore aspects of the sonnet tradition through reference to a range

of material you have studied?

A sonnet is a 14-line poem with each line having 10 syllables. It

originated in the 13th century and was introduced into England in the

16th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

The Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet characteristically consists of an

eight-line octave, rhyming abbaabba, that states a problem, asks a

question, or expresses an emotional tension, followed by a six-line

sestet, of varying rhyme schemes, that resolves the problem, answers

the question, or resolves the tension. The rhyme scheme for the sestet

is cdecde.

For instance, Wilfred Owen uses the first eight-lines to describe how

deaths at war are laid to rest and the sestet to describe how the same

thing is done back home (Anthem for Doomed Youth).

The rhyme scheme for the sestet is cdecde.

This is how the famous poet Francesco Petrarca, thus why it is named

the "Petrarchan Sonnet" chose to write his sonnets.

However William Shakespeare, a famous English poet, used another

sonnet-rhyming scheme his is as follows:

The first twelve lines are made up of three quatrains (blocks of four

lines linked by rhyme).

The last two lines form a rhyming couplet, e.g. a rhyming pair:

abab, cdcd, efef, gg

William Shakespeare is often considered the greatest writer of English

literature that ever lived. By 1594 he was a rising playwright in

London and an actor in a leading theatre company, who performed at the

Globe Theatre from 1599. His 154 sonnets were originally published in

1609 but it is argued that they were mostly written in the 1590s,

often expressed strong feeling within an exquisitely controlled form.

His son...

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...question.

"What candles may be held to speed them all?"

(Anthem for Doomed Youth, line 9)

To conclude, the six poets I have written about all had their

different views upon their own chosen subjects. And how sonnet have

been passed down through the generations and what a sonnet has become

today in the modern world. Shakespeare wrote about how love was

timeless whereas Keats had found love too late. Browning wrote of how

dedicated she was to her husband whereas Rossetti wrote of how she

wanted to be remembered when she was gone. Wordsworth saw things that

other people could not see and thus achieved his romantic poetic

title. And finally Owen portrayed his anguish and hatred of war in his

sonnets with an equisetic use of language and vocabulary. All the

poets who wrote sonnets, young and old have entranced millions of

readers throughout the world.