What is a sonnet? A traditional sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in a regular meter and a fixed rhyme pattern, that develops a thought, often turning it in a new direction. That turn, called the volta, is characteristic of the sonnet, though not universal, and appears in other poetic forms and free verse too. Fourteen lines leave little room to develop an idea slowly. The form can press the poet to establish a position and then overturn or deepen it with only a handful of lines left. Its different patterns offer different ways to organize that movement.
In This Article
- Where the Sonnet Came From
- Fourteen Lines and a Measured Beat
- The Italian Pattern: Octave and Sestet
- The English Pattern: Three Quatrains and a Couplet
- The Turn That Gives a Sonnet Its Meaning
- Sonnets That Bend the Rules
- Key Takeaways
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Recognize the Form and Its Turn
Where the Sonnet Came From
The form began in thirteenth-century Sicily. Giacomo da Lentini, a poet at the court of Frederick II, is generally credited with inventing it. The name comes from the Italian sonetto, meaning "little song."
A century later, Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, made the form famous with hundreds of poems addressed to a woman he called Laura. His pattern asks for four words on one rhyme sound and four on another in the first eight lines alone. In Italian that costs little. Nouns, verbs and adjectives pile up on shared vowel endings, so amore finds cuore without effort.
English made the same demand harder. It is comparatively rhyme-poor, so repeating two rhyme sounds across eight lines can constrain the poet's choices. A word like "love" rhymes with "above," "dove" and "glove," but sustaining a whole octave still demands careful choices. When Thomas Wyatt translated Petrarch in the sixteenth century, he kept the Italian opening but often ended on a rhyming couplet. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, broke further away. He built the poem from three quatrains and a couplet, so each rhyme sound needed only one partner.
Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, published in 1609, are the best-known result of Surrey's fix, which is why the English pattern now carries Shakespeare's name.
Fourteen Lines and a Measured Beat
English sonnets usually measure their fourteen lines in iambic pentameter. An iamb is a two-syllable unit with the stress on the second syllable, as in "today." Pentameter means five of those units per line, so each line runs about ten syllables: "Shall I com-PARE thee TO a SUM-mer's DAY?" Italian sonnets used the endecasillabo, an eleven-syllable line, because Italian words tend to end on an unstressed syllable.
The beat is a default, and a poet's departures from it carry the weight. Two lines later, Shakespeare writes "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May." The first two syllables both demand stress. ROUGH WINDS lands like a gust where the ear expects a soft start, so the meter itself shakes before the buds do.
The Italian Pattern: Octave and Sestet
Petrarch's version divides the fourteen lines into an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet. The classic Petrarchan sonnet rhyme scheme runs ABBAABBA in the octave, and the sestet commonly rhymes CDECDE or CDCDCD. Each letter represents a line’s end rhyme; matching letters mark rhyming sounds. The octave usually sets out a problem, and the sestet answers or reconsiders it.
That two-sound octave is the exact demand English resisted, which makes John Milton's "When I consider how my light is spent" a small feat. He holds the full pattern, finding "spent," "bent," "present" and "prevent" for one sound and "wide," "hide," "chide" and "denied" for the other. The octave voices his frustration at going blind and his fear that God will judge his wasted talent.
The sestet, rhyming CDECDE, gives the reply in Patience's voice. It ends: "They also serve who only stand and wait."
The English Pattern: Three Quatrains and a Couplet
Surrey's solution groups the lines as ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. That makes seven rhyme sounds where Petrarch's octave and sestet used four or five, and it changes how an argument moves. Rather than one problem and one answer, the poem can make three passes at an idea before the couplet judges it. The Spenserian sonnet uses the same grouping but links the quatrains through shared rhymes: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
Sonnet 18 uses this sonnet structure like a legal brief. The first quatrain proposes the comparison and finds summer lacking, with those rough winds. The second lists summer's other faults: the sun is sometimes too hot, and every beautiful thing fades. The third quatrain promises that the beloved will not fade. The couplet then closes the case: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
The Turn That Gives a Sonnet Its Meaning
Volta is Italian for "turn." In a Petrarchan sonnet it traditionally falls at line nine, where the octave gives way to the sestet.
In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare places a turn at the traditional Italian point, even inside the English pattern. Line nine opens: "But thy eternal summer shall not fade." For eight lines the speaker has catalogued how summer fails. With that "But," he stops comparing and makes a claim.
The couplet adds a second, sharper turn. The beauty will last because of the poem itself, the "eternal lines" the reader is holding. Its subject is a person, but its argument concerns the power of verse to outlast time. A sonnet's meaning often lives in this movement between two positions more than in either position alone.
Sonnets That Bend the Rules
Poets have stretched every convention described above. Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias," published in 1818, refuses both national patterns and rhymes ABABACDCEDEFEF, a scheme of its own. Its subject is a ruined statue in the desert, its boast to "Look on my works" surrounded by empty sand, with no lover in sight.
Modern poets have dropped rhyme and meter entirely and still called their poems sonnets. Compression and a turn may remain, but neither is a universal requirement or, by itself, enough to identify the form.
Gerard Manley Hopkins also changed the line count. His "curtal sonnet" shrinks Petrarch's design to three-quarters of its size: a six-line opening in place of the octave, then four and a half lines in place of the sestet. "Pied Beauty" begins "Glory be to God for dappled things" and runs to ten and a half lines in total, ending with the shortened line "Praise him."
Key Takeaways
- The Italian pattern splits into octave and sestet; the English pattern into three quatrains and a couplet.
- English examples commonly use iambic pentameter, and breaks in that beat signal emphasis.
- The English pattern reduces the demand for repeated rhymes, making it well suited to comparatively rhyme-poor English.
- Sonnets need not concern romantic love or keep every traditional convention.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a sonnet poem?
"Sonnet poem" means the same thing as "sonnet"; it is not a separate type. A traditional example has fourteen lines, while variants such as Hopkins's curtal sonnet alter that length.
What is an example of a sonnet?
Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", is one of his best-known sonnets. Other standard sonnet examples are Milton's "When I consider how my light is spent," which follows the Italian pattern, and Shelley's "Ozymandias," which mixes its own.
What is a sonnet in poetry?
"Sonnet" names a poetic form, not a subject: sonnets can address love, faith, politics or other concerns. Traditional examples follow inherited conventions of length, meter and rhyme; modern variants may depart from them.
Does the turn have to come at line nine?
No. Line nine is the traditional spot in the Italian pattern, but the turn can come early or late. In many English sonnets the strongest shift waits for the final couplet.
Does every fourteen-line poem count as a sonnet?
Not automatically. Line count alone does not establish the form. Traditional meter and rhyme, a characteristic turn, or a deliberate engagement with the sonnet tradition can help identify one. Modern variants may depart from any of these features, so no single checklist covers them all.
Recognize the Form and Its Turn
Milton's poem on his blindness shows how urgently a thought can change direction inside the sonnet's fixed frame. Tradition puts the turn at line nine. Milton cannot wait that long. Mid-line eight, Milton introduces Patience with "But Patience, to prevent / That murmur, soon replies," cutting off his complaint before the octave is finished. Everything else holds to the strict Petrarchan rhyme pattern described earlier, so the early break is the one thing out of place. The rules exist to make the moment a mind changes visible.