Sonnet





What is Sonnet?

- a very structured type of poetry in which the author attempts to show two related but differing thinhs to the reader in order to communicate something about them.

- this was first developed in Italy, porbably in the 13th century.

-  a sonnet consists of 14 lines

- there are 3 types of sonnet. There are the following:

      ● SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET (English)
      ● PETRARCHAN SONNET (Italian)
      ● SPENSERIAN SONNET


SONNET VOCABULARY

Quatrain
- a stanza of 4 lines

Octave
- an 8 line stanza. Used primarily to denote the first eight-line division of the Italian Sonnet as separate from the six-line division, the sestet.

Sestet
- the second six-line division of an Italian Sonnet. Following the eight-line division (octave), the sestet usually makes specific a general statement that has been presented in the octave or indicates the personal emotion of the author in a situation that the octave has developed.

Volta
- the turn in tought. From question to answer, problem to solution - that occurs at the beginning of the sestet (line 9) in the Italian Sonnet. Marked by "but", "yet" or "and yet".

SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET (ENGLISH)

- Four divisions are used:
      ● three quatrains
      ● each with a rhyme scheme of its own, usually rhyming alterating lines

- And a rhymed concluding couplet

The typical rhyme scheme is:
     ● abab cdcd efef gg


PETRARCHAN SONNET (ITALIAN)

 - Distinguished by its division into the octave and sestet:
      ● the octave rhyming: (abba abba)
      ● the sestet rhyming: (cdecde, cdcdcd or cdedce)

- The octave typically:
      ● presents a narrative
      ● states a preposition
      ● or raises a question


SPENSERIAN SONNET

- Invented by Edmund Spenser, complicates the Shakespearean form, linking rhymes among the quatrains.
      ● bab bcbc cdcd ee

- There does not appear to be a requirement that the initial octave sets up a problem that the closing sestet "answers" as is the case with a Petrarchan Sonnet.

- The Spenserian Sonnet is very rare among modern poets.


     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. Shakepeare often places the "turn" as in the Italian L9.

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