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The History of the Sonnet
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The History of the Sonnet The word "sonnet" is derived from the Italian word "sonneto", meaning little sound. It is a fourteen line poem, written in Iambic Pentameter, meaning short beat, long beat rhythm. The first word or syllable is unstressed, while the second is stressed, as in "delight". A line in a sonnet has five of these, meaning there are ten syllables to a line. Different poets change the structure slightly or dramatically, not because they are incapable of writing a sonnet like that, but because they want to call attention to the change or use it differently. This difference in structures is called the pattern of rhyme. The Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet was perfected by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). It consists of two parts, and octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines). The octave addresses one theme or thought, turning on the Volta or shift, and the poem ends dramatically in...
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