A Sonnet, derived from the Italian word "sonetto," means "little song." Sonnets have 14 lines with each line consisting of 10 syllables. The typical rhyme scheme for a sonnet is abab-cdcd-efef-gg for an English sonnet and abba-abba-cde-cde for an Italian sonnet. 

​

There are six major categories for sonnets:

1) Italian Sonnet

2) Shakespearean Sonnet

3) Spenserian Sonnet

4) Miltonic Sonnet

5) Terza Rima Sonnet

6) Curtal Sonnet

​

However, for the purpose of this unit, students are only expected to develop either an Italian or Shakespearean sonnet.

​

Example of Italian sonnet:

​

Poor William turns and moans within his grave:

Within a phrase, one simple turn can bind

the most creative stirrings of the mind

and poet to cliché becomes a slave.

Exist but in uniqueness and repent

for rhyming verse you penned with “love” and “dove”

and last week’s sonnet found “push comes to shove” -

the future of our language I lament…

 

But surely, there must be another choice

than bland insertions placed but for the rhyme

which, with their frequency, are meaningless.

‘Tis poet death to speak with borrowed voice –

transcend the obvious to reach sublime,

allow poor William his most peaceful rest.

(Tracy Decker)

​

Example of Shakespearean sonnet:

​

“From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die.
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee…”

(William Shakespeare)