The sonnet has long been one of my favourite poetic forms; it’s a 14-line firework display of ideas, imagery, voices, tones, punctuation and line breaks. It’s no surprise that some poets are known for their sonnets; it’s a poetic form which can showcase a poet's skill, craft and ability to walk the line between freedom of expression and formal constraints, and the readers love them because they don't go on too long.

At 14 lines, it’s not too long and it’s not too short. It has rules but you can adapt them and manipulate them to suit your poem or voice, so, in essence it allows you to be free but within a structure. Much has been written about the sonnet but if you’re looking for something more in depth after you’ve read this, I’d recommend Don Paterson’s 101 Sonnets (Faber & Faber, 2002) which has an excellent introduction to the form. 

Here’s what you need to know about the sonnet:

• The sonnet originates from 13th Century Italy. Giacomo da Lentini from Sicily is credited with creating the sonnet. 

  
  

• Following da Lentini, Francesco Petrarch refined and popularised the form in the 14th century. 

  
  

• The sonnet was introduced to England (and the English language) in the 1520s by Sir Thomas Wyatt who had travelled to Italy on diplomatic missions. He translated many of Petrarch’s sonnets. For example, his famous sonnet “Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind" is a translation and adaptation of Petrarch's sonnet 190, "Una candida cerva.”

  
  

• The Petrarchan sonnet is a very well known and popular sonnet form, generally about unrequited love. The Petrarchan rhyme scheme goes ABBA ABBA CDECDE or ABBA ABBA CDCDCD. An example of one would be Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s ‘How do I love thee?’ (Sonnet 43) 

  
  

• The word sonnet comes from the Italian sonetto meaning ‘little song’ in Italian.

  
  

• There are several types of sonnet including: the Petrarchan; the Shakeseperean; the Spenserian. Generally speaking, they differ in rhyme schemes and how the poet separates the verses. 

  
  

• The octet (octave) and sestet are the two sections of a sonnet. The octet refers to the first eight lines, and the sestet refers to the last six. Don Paterson, in 101 Sonnets, argues that this ratio of 8 lines to 6 conforms to the Golden Ratio, used in art and architecture for balance and proportion. 

  
  

• The volta, or the turn, is where the poem transitions from the octave to the sestet. Poets play around with this jump in the poem and have been known to use it to change something in the poem whether that be voice, perspective, tone, mood, imagery. Generally speaking the volta signals a shift of some kind. We can see this beautifully in Seamus Heaney’s The Skylight. 

  
  

• The general term for a 14-line poem is a quatorzain. However, a quatorzain is not necessarily a sonnet, as it has to conform to the sonnet’s conventions. 

  
  

I recently wrote about P. B. Shelley’s famous sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ on my blog as part of the Desert Island Poems thread.