A sonnet is a type of poem that has 14 lines, usually written in iambic pentameter (a rhythm of 10 syllables per line), and follows a specific rhyme scheme (a pattern of rhymes at the end of each line).
The name comes from the Italian word sonetto, meaning “a little sound or song”. There are different types of sonnets, but the most common are the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean.
The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines), while the Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains (4 lines each) and a couplet (2 lines).
The sonnet is a popular classical form that has been used by many poets for centuries to express various themes and sentiments.
History and Origin of English Sonnet
The English sonnet, also known as the Shakespearean sonnet, is a poetic form that originated in England in the 16th century. It is a 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme and structure.
The English sonnet was popularized by William Shakespeare, who wrote over 150 sonnets in this form. However, the sonnet was not invented by Shakespeare or even in England. The sonnet originated in Italy in the 13th century and was popularized by the Italian poet Petrarch in the 14th century.
The Italian sonnet, also known as the Petrarchan sonnet, has a different rhyme scheme and structure than the English sonnet. It is a 14-line poem divided into two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet. The rhyme scheme of the octave is typically ABBAABBA, while the sestet can have various rhyme schemes.
The English sonnet, on the other hand, is structured into three quatrains (four-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet (two-line stanza). The rhyme scheme of the English sonnet is typically ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The first twelve lines present a problem or situation, while the final couplet provides a resolution or conclusion.
The English sonnet became popular in England in the 16th century and was used by many poets, including Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser. It continues to be a popular poetic form today, and many contemporary poets still use the English sonnet in their work.
Examples of Famous English Sonnets
Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? by William Shakespeare
This is one of the most famous love poems in the English language, in which the speaker praises his beloved’s beauty and immortality.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun by William Shakespeare
This is a humorous and realistic sonnet that mocks the conventional comparisons of love poetry and celebrates the speaker’s mistress for her flaws and imperfections.
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.
Sonnet 1 by Sir Philip Sidney
This is the first sonnet in Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sequence, in which he expresses his unrequited love for Penelope Devereux. The sonnet explores the relationship between poetry and love, and the speaker’s struggle to find the right words to express his feelings.
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay:
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”
Leda and the Swan by William Butler Yeats
This is a modern sonnet that retells the myth of Zeus raping Leda in the form of a swan. The sonnet uses vivid imagery and contrasts to convey the violence and significance of the act, which leads to the birth of Helen of Troy and the Trojan War.
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
Sonnet 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
This is part of a sonnet sequence called Sonnets from the Portuguese, in which Browning expresses her love for her husband Robert Browning. The sonnet lists various ways and reasons that she loves him, and concludes with a vow of eternal love.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes by William Shakespeare.
This is a sonnet that expresses the speaker’s feelings of isolation and despair, but also his gratitude and hope for his beloved, who makes him feel rich and happy.
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,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
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 remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare.
This is a sonnet that defines and praises true love as constant, faithful, and unshaken by time and circumstances.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Sonnet 19: On His Blindness by John Milton.
This is a sonnet that reflects on the poet’s loss of sight and his struggle to accept God’s will and serve him in his condition.
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Sonnet 75: One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand by Edmund Spenser.
This is a sonnet that depicts the poet’s attempt to immortalize his beloved’s name on the sand, only to be washed away by the waves. He then vows to make her name eternal through his poetry.
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
“Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.”
“Not so,” (quod I) “let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.”
Sonnet 43: The World Is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth.
This is a sonnet that laments the loss of connection with nature and the spiritual values of humanity due to the materialism and consumerism of modern society.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
