Most high school English courses include an introduction to Shakespeare and his voluminous collection of sonnets. But, Shakespeare was not the only poet to hone his skills at waxing poetic to his Muse in iambic pentameter for fourteen lines of three quatrains and a couplet. In fact before Shakespeare, Petrarch wrote his fourteen-line sonnets--or "little songs"--in two stanzas as an octave and a sestet. The rhyme schemes of the Shakespearean (English) and Petrarchan (Italian) sonnets are not the same either. English sonnets tend to have a scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG while the Italian sonnets are structured as ABBAABBA, then CDCDCD or CDECDE. But, then there are Milton's sonnets, Spenser's sonnets, and additional variations of sonnets. (
Poetic Form: Sonnet
Poetic Form: Sonnet
Poetic Form: Sonnet
Most high school English courses include an introduction to Shakespeare and his voluminous collection of sonnets. But, Shakespeare was not the only poet to hone his skills at waxing poetic to his Muse in iambic pentameter for fourteen lines of three quatrains and a couplet. In fact before Shakespeare, Petrarch wrote his fourteen-line sonnets--or "little songs"--in two stanzas as an octave and a sestet. The rhyme schemes of the Shakespearean (English) and Petrarchan (Italian) sonnets are not the same either. English sonnets tend to have a scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG while the Italian sonnets are structured as ABBAABBA, then CDCDCD or CDECDE. But, then there are Milton's sonnets, Spenser's sonnets, and additional variations of sonnets. (