Open Directory - Arts:Literature:Poetry:Forms:Fixed Verse Forms:Sonnet


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Top: Arts: Literature: Poetry: Forms: Fixed_Verse_Forms: Sonnet

Submit to this category sites that are wholly or predominantly devoted to the sonnet. Sites that contain a few sonnets among other poems should be submitted to one of the less specialized categories, such as "Fixed Verse Forms," "Poetic Forms," or "Poetry."

The sonnet, attributed to Petrarch in the early Italian renaissance, is a fourteen-line poem that in its original form had the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde. It was later adapted in England by Wyatt and Surrey with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. This later form is sometimes called the English sonnet (the earlier one being the Italian sonnet). However, since Shakespeare used the English form, it is also often referred to as the Shakespearean sonnet.
Both types of sonnets are written in iambic pentameter.