An Introduction to Sonnets
What is a sonnet?
• Sonnets are poems that meet the following
rules:
1. All sonnets are 14 lines long.
2. Sonnets in English are written in iambic pentameter,
which means that each line has 10 syllables,
alternating in an unstressed/stressed pattern.
3. Sonnets follow a predetermined rhyme scheme; the
rhyme pattern determines if the sonnet is Petrarchan
(Italian), Shakespearean, or Spenserian.
4. All sonnets are characterized by a “turn” located at a
designated point in the sonnet.
History of the Sonnet
The sonnet began in Italy, where the poet
Francesco Petrarch first established it as a
serious form of poetry. Petrarch wrote a
large collection of sonnets addressed to a
young woman named Laura he saw one
afternoon at church. She was not
interested, but he didn’t let that stop
him, and proceeded to publish some 260
sonnets about her—followed by another
hundred or so after her death. Petrarch
is, quite possibly, the first recorded
literary stalker.
In these sonnets, Petrarch used witty
plays on Laura’s name (l’oro=the golden
one or the golden; references to laurel
trees, etc.) to both honor and attack the
object of his affection. He would praise
her for her beauty in one sonnet, then
condemn her as an icy monster who
rejects his love in another. Laura was
completely unable to respond to these
poems, as women did not write, and her
public persona was thus basically
Petrarch’s to define.
Petrarch also refined a particular type
of sonnet known as the blazon (blahzohn). A blazon is a sonnet that
catalogues the features or traits of its
subject, usually a woman, and
describes them using hyperbole,
metaphor, or simile. A typical example
of a blazon is Sir Philip Sidney’s verse:
Note how Sidney lists off the elements
of the woman’s face—hair, forehead,
eyebrows, eyelids, and finally, eyes.
This is the source of the “your eyes are
like deep pools I could dive into, etc.”
school of poetry, which, while
occasionally flattering, should be
noted as being problematic as well, as
it reduces the subject to nothing more
than a collection of good-looking body
parts. This objectification of the
subject, usually a woman, has in turn
contributed to the impossible
standards of beauty for women today,
as well as the problem of seeing
women only as objects of sexual
desire.
What tongue can her perfections tell,
In whose each part all pens may dwell?
Her hair fine threads of finest gold,
In curled knots man’s thought to hold:
But that her forehead says, “In me
A whiter beauty you may see”;
Whiter indeed, more white than snow,
Which on cold winter’s face doth grow.
That doth present those even brows
Whose equal line their angles bows,
Like to the moon when after change
Her horned head abroad doth range;
And arches be to heavenly lids,
Whose wink each bold attempt forbids.
For the black stars those spheres contain,
The matchless pair, even praise doth stain.
Sir Philip Sidney
Some poets would go on to play with this idea and take it a
ridiculous extreme, while others used it as source for satire:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXXX
Giuseppi Archimboldo’s
Summer
The two major sonnet forms:
Petrarchan (Italian)
A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
C
D
E
C
D
E
Octave (8 lines)
The TURN
Sestet (6 lines)
Shakespearean
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
3 quatrains
The TURN
Rhyming
Couplet
The Turn of the Sonnet
A sonnet’s turn is the point in the
sonnet where the poet
changes perspective or alters
his/her approach to
description. This often
results in a sonnet following
a “position-contrasting
position” type of structure,
or occasionally a “change of
heart” in the poet at the end
of the verse. Look at this
sonnet as an example:
Notice that the poem’s turn is a
change from discussing what
Sleep itself is to what the
poet will offer Sleep as
tribute if Sleep comes to him.
“Come Sleep, O Sleep!”
Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof shield me from out the press
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw!
O make in me those civil wars to cease! I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light,
A rosy garland, and a weary head;
And if these things, as being thine in right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.
Nothing is ever easy.
• Note that at times the turn
does NOT occur in the
traditional spot. Instead of
occurring at the normal line
12-13 in this sonnet by
Shakespeare, the turn
instead occurs between lines
8-9—where you’d normally
find the turn for an Italian
sonnet.
Sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Sonnet
All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here while we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.
Billy Collins
Sonnet 17 – Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
in which there is no I or you
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand
so intimate that when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close