Sonnet

A sonnet is a poem in a specific form

which originated in Italy; Giacomo da
Lentini is credited with its invention.

The term sonnet is derived from the Italian

word sonetto (from Old Provençal sonet a
little poem, from son song, from Latin
sonus a sound). By the thirteenth century it
signified a poem of fourteen lines that
follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific
structure. Conventions associated with the
sonnet have evolved over its history.
Writers of sonnets are sometimes called
"sonneteers", although the term can be
used derisively.

Petrarchan sonnet
The sonnet was created by Giacomo da
Lentini, head of the Sicilian School under
Emperor Frederick II.[1] Guittone d'Arezzo
rediscovered it and brought it to Tuscany
where he adapted it to his language when
he founded the Siculo-Tuscan School, or
Guittonian school of poetry (1235–1294).
He wrote almost 250 sonnets.[2] Other
Italian poets of the time, including Dante
Alighieri (1265–1321) and Guido
Cavalcanti (c. 1250–1300), wrote sonnets,
but the most famous early sonneteer was
Petrarch. Other fine examples were written
by Michelangelo.

The structure of a typical Italian sonnet of

the time included two parts that together
formed a compact form of "argument".
First, the octave, forms the "proposition",
which describes a "problem", or "question",
followed by a sestet (two tercets), which
proposes a "resolution". Typically, the ninth
line initiates what is called the "turn", or
"volta", which signals the move from
proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets
that don't strictly follow the
problem/resolution structure, the ninth line
still often marks a "turn" by signaling a
change in the tone, mood, or stance of the
poem.

Later, the ABBA ABBA pattern became the

standard for Italian sonnets. For the sestet
there were two different possibilities: CDE
CDE and CDC CDC. In time, other variants
on this rhyming scheme were introduced,
such as CDCDCD. Petrarch typically used
an ABBA ABBA pattern for the octave,
followed by either CDE CDE or CDC CDC
rhymes in the sestet. The symmetries
(ABBA vs. CDC) of these rhyme schemes
have also been rendered in musical
structure in the late 20th century
composition Scrivo in Vento by Elliott
Carter, inspired by Petrarch's Sonnet 212,
Beato in Sogno.[3])

In English, both the English or

Shakespearean sonnet, and the Italian
Petrarchan sonnet are traditionally written
in iambic pentameter.

The first known sonnets in English, written

by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey, used the Italian, Petrarchan
form, as did sonnets by later English
poets, including John Milton, Thomas
Gray, William Wordsworth and Elizabeth
Barrett Browning. Early twentieth-century
American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay also
wrote mostly Petrarchan sonnets.

On His Blindness by Milton, gives a sense

of the Petrarchan rhyme scheme:

When I consider how my light is spent

(A)
 Ere half my days, in this dark world
and wide, (B)
 And that one talent which is death to
hide, (B)
 Lodged with me useless, though my
soul more bent (A)
To serve therewith my Maker, and
present (A)
 My true account, lest he returning
chide; (B)
 "Doth God exact day-labour, light
denied?" (B)
 I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
(A)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth
not need (C)
 Either man's work or his own gifts;
who best (D)
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him
best. His state (E)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding
speed (C)
  And post o'er land and ocean without
rest; (D)
 They also serve who only stand and
wait." (E)

Dante's variation

Most Sonnets in Dante's La Vita Nuova are

Petrarchan. Chapter VII gives sonnet "O voi
che per la via", with two sestets (AABAAB
AABAAB) and two quatrains (CDDC
CDDC), and Ch. VIII, "Morte villana", with
two sestets (AABBBA AABBBA) and two
quatrains (CDDC CDDC).

Occitan
The sole confirmed surviving sonnet in the
Occitan language is confidently dated to
1284, and is conserved only in troubadour
manuscript P, an Italian chansonnier of
1310, now XLI.42 in the Biblioteca
Laurenziana in Florence.[4] It was written
by Paolo Lanfranchi da Pistoia and is
addressed to Peter III of Aragon. It
employs the rhyme scheme ABAB ABAB
CDCDCD. This poem is historically
interesting for its information on north
Italian perspectives concerning the War of
the Sicilian Vespers, the conflict between
the Angevins and Aragonese for Sicily.[4]
Peter III and the Aragonese cause was
popular in northern Italy at the time and
Paolo's sonnet is a celebration of his
victory over the Angevins and Capetians in
the Aragonese Crusade:
   Valenz    Valiant Lord, king of
Senher, rei dels the Aragonese
Aragones to whom honour grows
a qi prez es every day closer,
honors tut iorn remember, Lord, the
enansa, French king[5]
remembre vus, that has come to find
Senher, del Rei you and has left
franzes France
qe vus venc a    With his two sons[6]
vezer e laiset and that one of
Fransa Artois;[7]
   Ab dos sos but they have not dealt
fillz es ab aqel a blow with sword or
d'Artes; lance
hanc no fes and many barons have
colp d'espaza left their country:
ni de lansa but a day will come
e mainz baros when they will have
menet de lur some to remember.
paes:    Our Lord make
jorn de lur vida yourself a company
said n'auran in order that you might
menbransa. fear nothing;
   Nostre that one who would
Senhier faccia appear to lose might
a vus win.
compagna    Lord of the land and
per qe en ren the sea,
no vus qal[la] as whom the king of
duptar; England[8] and that of
 tals quida hom Spain[9]
qe perda qe are not worth as much,
gazaingna. if you wish to help
   Seigner es de them.
la terra e de la
mar,
per qe lo Rei
Engles e sel
d'Espangna
ne varran mais,
si.ls vorres
aiudar.

An Occitan sonnet, dated to 1321 and

assigned to one "William of Almarichi", is
found in Jean de Nostredame and cited in
Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni's, Istoria della
volgar poesia. It congratulates Robert of
Naples on his recent victory. Its
authenticity is dubious. There are also two
poorly regarded sonnets by the Italian
Dante de Maiano.

In France
In the 16th century, around Ronsard
(1524–1585)), Joachim du Bellay (1522–
1560) and Jean Antoine de Baïf (1532–
1589), there formed a group of radical
young noble poets of the court (generally
known today as La Pléiade, although use
of this term is debated), who began writing
in, amongst other forms of poetry, the
Petrarchan sonnet cycle (developed
around an amorous encounter or an
idealized woman). The character of La
Pléiade literary program was given in Du
Bellay's manifesto, the "Defense and
Illustration of the French Language"
(1549), which maintained that French (like
the Tuscan of Petrarch and Dante) was a
worthy language for literary expression
and which promulgated a program of
linguistic and literary production (including
the imitation of Latin and Greek genres)
and purification.
By the late 17th century poets on
increasingly relied on stanza forms
incorporating rhymed couplets, and by the
18th century fixed-form poems – and, in
particular, the sonnet – were largely
avoided. The resulting versification – less
constrained by meter and rhyme patterns
than Renaissance poetry – more closely
mirrored prose.[10]

The Romantics were responsible for a

return to (and sometimes a modification
of) many of the fixed-form poems used
during the 15th and 16th centuries, as well
as for the creation of new forms. The
sonnet however was little used until the
Parnassians brought it back into favor,[11]
and the sonnet would subsequently find its
most significant practitioner in Charles
Baudelaire (1821–1867) . The traditional
French sonnet form was however
significantly modified by Baudelaire, who
used 32 different forms of sonnet with
non-traditional rhyme patterns to great
effect in his Les Fleurs du mal.[12]

In English
Renaissance
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, c.1542 by Hans Holbein

William Shakespeare, in the famous "Chandos" portrait.

Artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait
Gallery (UK).

When English sonnets were introduced by

Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) in the early
16th century, his sonnets and those of his
contemporary the Earl of Surrey were
chiefly translations from the Italian of
Petrarch and the French of Ronsard and
others. While Wyatt introduced the sonnet
into English, it was Surrey who developed
the rhyme scheme – ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
– which now characterizes the English
sonnet. Having previously circulated in
manuscripts only, both poets' sonnets
were first published in Richard Tottel's
Songes and Sonnetts, better known as
Tottel's Miscellany (1557).

It was, however, Sir Philip Sidney's

sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591) that
started the English vogue for sonnet
sequences. The next two decades saw
sonnet sequences by William
Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Michael
Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Fulke Greville,
William Drummond of Hawthornden, and
many others. These sonnets were all
essentially inspired by the Petrarchan
tradition, and generally treat of the poet's
love for some woman, with the exception
of Shakespeare's sequence of 154
sonnets. The form is often named after
Shakespeare, not because he was the first
to write in this form but because he
became its most famous practitioner. The
form consists of fourteen lines structured
as three quatrains and a couplet. The third
quatrain generally introduces an
unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic
"turn", the volta. In Shakespeare's sonnets,
however, the volta usually comes in the
couplet, and usually summarizes the
theme of the poem or introduces a fresh
new look at the theme. With only a rare
exception, the meter is iambic pentameter.

This example, Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116",

illustrates the form (with some typical
variances one may expect when reading
an Elizabethan-age sonnet with modern
eyes):
Let me not to the marriage of true
minds (A)
Admit impediments, love is not love
(B)*
Which alters when it alteration finds,
(A)
Or bends with the remover to remove.
(B)*
O no, it is an ever fixèd mark (C)**
That looks on tempests and is never
shaken; (D)***
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
(C)**
Whose worth's unknown although his
height be taken. (D)***
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips
 and cheeks (E)
Within his bending sickle's compass
come, (F)*
Love alters not with his brief hours
and weeks, (E)
But bears it out even to the edge of
doom: (F)*
If this be error and upon me proved,
(G)*
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
(G)*

* PRONUNCIATION/RHYME:
Note changes in pronunciation
since composition.
 ** PRONUNCIATION/METER:
"Fixed" pronounced as two-
syllables, "fix-ed".
*** RHYME/METER: Feminine-
rhyme-ending, eleven-syllable
alternative.

The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet is also a

sonnet, as is Romeo and Juliet's first
exchange in Act One, Scene Five, lines
104–117, beginning with "If I profane with
my unworthiest hand" (104) and ending
with "Then move not while my prayer's
effect I take" (117).[13] The Epilogue to
Henry V is also in the form of a sonnet.

Spenserian

A variant on the English form is the

Spenserian sonnet, named after Edmund
Spenser (c.1552–1599), in which the
rhyme scheme is ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
The linked rhymes of his quatrains
suggest the linked rhymes of such Italian
forms as terza rima. This example is taken
from Amoretti:

Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily

hands
Happy ye leaves. whenas those lily
hands, (A)
Which hold my life in their dead doing
might, (B)
Shall handle you, and hold in love's
soft bands, (A)
Like captives trembling at the victor's
sight. (B)
And happy lines on which, with starry
light, (B)
Those lamping eyes will deign
sometimes to look,(C)
And read the sorrows of my dying
sprite, (B)
Written with tears in heart's close
 bleeding book. (C)
And happy rhymes! bathed in the
sacred brook (C)
Of Helicon, whence she derived is, (D)
When ye behold that angel's blessed
look, (C)
My soul's long lacked food, my
heaven's bliss. (D)
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to
please alone, (E)
Whom if ye please, I care for other
none. (E)

17th century
In the 17th century, the sonnet was
adapted to other purposes, with John
Donne and George Herbert writing
religious sonnets (see John Donne's Holy
Sonnets), and John Milton using the
sonnet as a general meditative poem.
Probably Milton's most famous sonnet is
"When I Consider How My Light is Spent",
titled by a later editor "On His Blindness".
Both the Shakespearean and Petrarchan
rhyme schemes were popular throughout
this period, as well as many variants.

19th century
The fashion for the sonnet went out with
the Restoration, and hardly any sonnets
were written between 1670 and
Wordsworth's time. However, sonnets
came back strongly with the French
Revolution. Wordsworth himself wrote
hundreds of sonnets, of which amongst
the best-known are "Upon Westminster
Bridge", "The world is too much with us"
and "London, 1802" addressed to Milton;
his sonnets were essentially modelled on
Milton's. Keats and Shelley also wrote
major sonnets; Keats's sonnets used
formal and rhetorical patterns inspired
partly by Shakespeare, and Shelley
innovated radically, creating his own rhyme
scheme for the sonnet "Ozymandias".
Sonnets were written throughout the 19th
century, but, apart from Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese
and the sonnets of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
there were few very successful traditional
sonnets. Modern Love (1862) by George
Meredith is a collection of fifty 16-line
sonnets about the failure of his first
marriage.

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote several

major sonnets, often in sprung rhythm,
such as "The Windhover", and also several
sonnet variants such as the 101⁄2-line
curtal sonnet "Pied Beauty" and the 24-line
caudate sonnet "That Nature is a
Heraclitean Fire". Hopkin's poetry was,
however, not published until 1918.[14] By
the end of the 19th century, the sonnet had
been adapted into a general-purpose form
of great flexibility.

In the United States, Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow wrote many sonnets, among
others the cycle Divina Commedia (Divine
Comedy).[15] He used the Petrarchan
rhyme scheme. Emma Lazarus also
published many sonnets. She is the author
of perhaps the best-known American
sonnet, "The New Colossus".[16]
In Canada during the last decades of the
century, the Confederation Poets and
especially Archibald Lampman were
known for their sonnets, which were
mainly on pastoral themes.

20th century

This flexibility was extended even further

in the 20th century. Among the major
poets of the early Modernist period, Robert
Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay and E. E.
Cummings all used the sonnet regularly.
William Butler Yeats wrote the major
sonnet "Leda and the Swan", which uses
half rhymes. Wilfred Owen's sonnet
"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is another
sonnet of the early 20th century. Spaniard
Federico García Lorca also wrote sonnets.
W. H. Auden wrote two sonnet sequences
and several other sonnets throughout his
career, and widened the range of rhyme-
schemes used considerably. Auden also
wrote one of the first unrhymed sonnets in
English, "The Secret Agent" (1928). Robert
Lowell wrote five books of unrhymed
"American sonnets", including his Pulitzer
Prize-winning volume The Dolphin (1973).
Half-rhymed, unrhymed, and even
unmetrical sonnets have been very
popular since 1950; perhaps the best
works in the genre are Seamus Heaney's
Glanmore Sonnets and Clearances, both of
which use half rhymes, and Geoffrey Hill's
mid-period sequence "An Apology for the
Revival of Christian Architecture in
England". The 1990s saw something of a
formalist revival, however, and several
traditional sonnets have been written in
the past decade.

Other modern poets, including Don

Paterson, Edwin Morgan, Joan Brossa,
Paul Muldoon have used the form. Wendy
Cope's poem "Stress" is a sonnet.
Elizabeth Bishop's inverted "Sonnet" was
one of her last poems. Ted Berrigan's
book, The Sonnets, "is conventional almost
exclusively in [the] line count)".[17] Paul
Muldoon often experiments with 14 lines
and sonnet rhymes, though without regular
sonnet meter. The advent of the New
Formalism movement in the United States
has also contributed to contemporary
interest in the sonnet. This includes the
invention of the "word sonnet", which are
fourteen line poems, with one word per
line.[18] Frequently allusive and imagistic,
they can also be irreverent and playful. The
Canadian poet Seymour Mayne published
a few collections of word sonnets, and is
one of the chief innovators of the form.[19]
Contemporary word sonnets combine a
variation of styles often considered to be
mutually exclusive to separate genres, as
demonstrated in works such as "An Ode to
Mary".[20] The Greek poet Yannis Livadas
in 1993 invented the so-called "fusion
sonnet", which first appeared in a poetry
collection entitled The Hanging Verses Of
Babylon/Οι Κρεμαστοί Στίχοι Της
Βαβυλώνας (Melani Books, Athens 2007),
ISBN 978-960-8309-78-4.[21]

In German
Paulus Melissus (1539–1602) was the
first to use the sonnet and the terza rima in
German lyric. In his lifetime he was
recognized as an author fully versed in
Latin love poetry.[22]

The Sonnets to Orpheus are a cycle of 55

sonnets written in 1922 by the Bohemian-
Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–
1926). It was first published the following
year.[23] Rilke, who is "widely recognized as
one of the most lyrically intense German-
language poets",[24] wrote the cycle in a
period of three weeks experiencing what
he described a "savage creative storm".[25]
Inspired by the news of the death of Wera
Ouckama Knoop (1900–1919), a playmate
of Rilke's daughter Ruth, he dedicated
them as a memorial, or Grab-Mal (literally
"grave-marker"), to her memory.[26]

In Dutch
In the Netherlands Pieter Corneliszoon
Hooft wrote sonnets. A famous example is
Mijn lief, mijn lief, mijn lief. Some of his
poems were translated by Edmund
Gosse.[27] More recent examples include
Martinus Nijhoff and Jan Kal.

Urdu
In the Indian subcontinent, sonnets have
been written in the Assamese, Bengali,
Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri,
Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali,
Oriya, Sindhi and Urdu languages.[28] Urdu
poets, also influenced by English and other
European poets, took to writing sonnets in
the Urdu language rather late.[29]
Azmatullah Khan (1887–1923) is believed
to have introduced this format to Urdu
literature in the very early part of the 20th
century. The other renowned Urdu poets
who wrote sonnets were Akhtar Junagarhi,
Akhtar Sheerani, Noon Meem Rashid, Mehr
Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi, Salaam
Machhalishahari and Wazir Agha.[30] This
example, a sonnet by Zia Fatehabadi taken
from his collection Meri Tasveer,[31] is in
the usual English (Shakespearean) sonnet
rhyme-scheme.

"Dubkani"
“

Pas e pardaa kisii

‫ڈﺑﮑﯩﯽ‬
ne mere armaanon
‫ﭘﺲ ﭘﺮدہ ِﮐﺴﯽ ﻧﮯ ﻣﯿﺮے‬
ِ
kii mehfil ko (A) ‫ﻣﺤﻔﻞ ﮐﻮ‬ ‫ارﻣﺎﻧﻮں ﮐﯽ‬،
ِ
Kuchh is andaaz ‫ﮐﭽﮫ ِاس اﻧﺪاز ﺳﮯ‬
se dekhaa, kuchh ‫ ﮐﭽﮫ اﯾﺴﮯ ﻃﻮر‬،‫دﯾﮑﮭﺎ‬
aise taur se ‫ﺳﮯ دﯾﮑﮭﺎ‬،
dekhaa (B) ِ ‫ُﻏ‬
‫ﺒﺎر آہ ﺳﮯ دے ﮐﺮ ﺟﻼ‬
‫آﺋﯿﻨ دل ﮐﻮ‬،
Ghubaar e aah se
‫ﮨﺮ ِاک ﺻﻮرت ﮐﻮ ﻣﯿﮟ ﻧﮯ‬
de kar jilaa aainaa
‫ ﻏﻮر ﺳﮯ‬،‫ﺧﻮب دﯾﮑﮭﺎ‬
e dil ko (A)
‫دﯾﮑﮭﺎ‬
Har ik soorat ko ، ‫ﻧﻈﺮ آﺋﯽ ﻧﮧ وہ ﺻﻮرت‬
maine khoob ‫ﻣﺠﮭﮯ ﺟﺲ ﮐﯽ ﺗﻤﻨّﺎ ﺗﮭﯽ‬
‫‪dekhaa, ghaur se‬‬ ‫ﺑﮩﺖ ُ‬
‫ڈﮬﻮﻧﮉا ﮐﯿﺎ ﮔﻠﺸﻦ‬

‫)‪dekhaa (B‬‬ ‫ﻣﯿﮟ‪ ،‬وﯾﺮاﻧﮯ ﻣﯿﮟ‪ ،‬ﺑﺴﺘﯽ‬

‫ﻣﯿﮟ‬
‫‪Nazar aaii na woh‬‬
‫ﺷﻤﻊ ﻣﮩﺮ و ﻣﺎہ ﺳﮯ‬
‫ِ‬ ‫ﻣﻨّﻮر‬
‫‪soorat, mujhe jiskii‬‬
‫ِدن رات دُ ﻧﯿﺎ ﺗﮭﯽ‬
‫)‪tamanaa thii (C‬‬
‫ﻣﮕﺮ ﭼﺎروں ﻃﺮف ﺗﮭﺎ‬
‫‪Bahut dhoondaa‬‬ ‫ﮔُﮭﭗ اﻧﺪﮬﯿﺮا ﻣﯿﺮی‬
‫‪kiyaa gulshan‬‬ ‫ﮨﺴﺘﯽ ﻣﯿﮟ‬
‫‪mein, veeraane‬‬ ‫ﻣﺠﺮوح‬
‫ِ‬ ‫دل ﻣﺠﺒﻮر ﮐﻮ‬ ‫ِ‬
‫‪mein, bastii mein‬‬ ‫ُاﻟﻔﺖ ﮐﺮ دﯾﺎ ِﮐﺲ ﻧﮯ‬
‫ﻣﺮے اﺣﺴﺎس ﮐﯽ‬
‫)‪(D‬‬
‫ﮔﮩﺮاﯾﻮں ﻣﯿﮟ ﮨﮯ ُﭼﺒﮭﻦ‬
‫‪Munnawar‬‬
‫ﻏﻢ ﮐﯽ‬
‫‪shamma e mehar‬‬
‫ﻣﭩﺎ ﮐﺮ ﺟﺴﻢ‪ ،‬ﻣﯿﺮی روح‬
‫‪o maah se din raat‬‬ ‫ﮐﻮ اﭘﻨﺎ ﻟﯿﺎ ﮐﺲ ﻧﮯ‬
‫)‪duniyaa thii (C‬‬ ‫ﺟﻮاﻧﯽ ﺑﻦ ﮔﺌﯽ آﻣﺎ ﺟﮕﮧ‬
‫‪Magar chaaron‬‬ ‫ﺻﺪﻣﺎت ﭘﯿﮩﻢ ﮐﯽ‬
‫ِ‬
‫‪taraf thaa ghup‬‬ ‫ﺣﺠﺎﺑﺎت ﻧﻈﺮ ﮐﺎ ﺳﻠﺴﻠﮧ‬
‫ِ‬
andheraa merii ‫ﺗﻮڈ اور آ ﺑﮭﯽ ﺟﺎ‬

hastii mein (D) ‫ﻣﺠﮭﮯ ِاک ﺑﺎر اﭘﻨﺎ ﺟﻠﻮۂ‬

‫رﻧﮕﯿﮟ دﮐﮭﺎ ﺑﮭﯽ ﺟﺎ‬
Dil e majboor ko
majrooh e ulfat kar ”

diyaa kisne (E) Sonnet 'Dubkani'

Mere ahsaas kii ‫ ڈﺑﮑﯩﯽ‬by Zia
ghahraiion mein Fatehabadi taken
hai chubhan gham from his book titled

kii (F) Meri Tasveer

Mitaa kar jism,

merii rooh ko
apnaa liyaa kisne
(E)
Jawanii ban gaii aamaajagaah sadmaat
e paiham kii (F)
 Hijaabaat e nazar kaa sisilaa tod aur aa
bhii jaa (G)
Mujhe ik baar apnaa jalwaa e rangiin
dikhaa bhii jaa. (G)

In Russian
Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse Eugene
Onegin consists almost entirely of 389
stanzas of iambic tetrameter with the
unusual rhyme scheme
"AbAbCCddEffEgg", where the uppercase
letters represent feminine rhymes while
the lowercase letters represent masculine
rhymes. This form has come to be known
as the "Onegin stanza" or the "Pushkin
sonnet."[32]
Unlike other traditional forms, such as the
Petrarchan sonnet or Shakespearean
sonnet, the Onegin stanza does not divide
into smaller stanzas of four lines or two in
an obvious way. There are many different
ways this sonnet can be divided.

In post-Pushkin Russian poetry, the form

has been utilized by authors as diverse as
Mikhail Lermontov, Vyacheslav Ivanov,
Jurgis Baltrušaitis and Valery Pereleshin,
in genres ranging from one-stanza lyrical
piece to voluminous autobiography.
Nevertheless, the Onegin stanza, being
easily recognisable, is strongly identified
as belonging to its creator.
John Fuller's 1980 "The Illusionists" and
Jon Stallworthy's 1987 "The Nutcracker"
used this stanza form, and Vikram Seth's
1986 novel The Golden Gate is written
wholly in Onegin stanzas.

In Polish
The sonnet was introduced into Polish
literature in the 16th century by Jan
Kochanowski,[33] Mikołaj Sęp-Szarzyński
and Sebastian Grabowiecki.[34] Later in
1826 Adam Mickiewicz wrote a series
known as Crimean Sonnets, which was
translated into English by Edna Worthley
Underwood.[35] Sonnets were also written
by Adam Asnyk, Jan Kasprowicz and
Leopold Staff. Polish poets usually shape
their sonnets according to Italian or French
practice. The English sonnet is not
common. Kasprowicz used a Shelleyan
rhyme scheme: ABA BCB CDC DED EE.[36]
Polish sonnets are typically written in
either hendecasyllables (5+6 syllables) or
Polish alexandrines (7+6 syllables).

In Czech

Karel Hynek Mácha

The sonnet was introduced into Czech
literature at the beginning of the 19th
century. The first great Czech sonneteer
was Ján Kollár, who wrote a cycle of
sonnets named Slávy Dcera (The daughter
of Sláva / The daughter of fame[37]). Kollár
was Slovak and a supporter of Pan-
Slavism, but wrote in Czech, as he
disagreed that Slovak should be a
separate language. Kollár's magnum opus
was planned as a Slavic epic poem as
great as Dante's Divine Comedy. It
consists of The Prelude written in
quantitative hexameters, and sonnets. The
number of poems increased in subsequent
editions and came up to 645.[38] The
greatest Czech romantic poet, Karel Hynek
Mácha also wrote many sonnets. In the
second half of the 19th century Jaroslav
Vrchlický published Sonety samotáře
(Sonnets of a Solitudinarian). Another poet,
who wrote many sonnets was Josef
Svatopluk Machar. He published Čtyři
knihy sonetů (The Four Books of Sonnets).
In the 20th century Vítězslav Nezval wrote
the cycle 100 sonetů zachránkyni věčného
studenta Roberta Davida (One Hundred
Sonnets for the Woman who Rescued
Perpetual Student Robert David). After the
Second World War the sonnet was the
favourite form of Oldřich Vyhlídal. Czech
poets use different metres for sonnets,
Kollár and Mácha used decasyllables,
Vrchlický iambic pentameter, Antonín Sova
free verse, and Jiří Orten the Czech
alexandrine. Ondřej Hanus wrote a
monograph about Czech Sonnets in the
first half of the twentieth century.[39]

In Slovenian

France Prešeren
In Slovenia the sonnet became a national
verse form. The greatest Slovenian poet,
France Prešeren,[40] wrote many sonnets.
His best known work worldwide is Sonetni
venec (A Wreath of Sonnets),[41] which is an
example of crown of sonnets. Another
work of his is the sequence Sonetje
nesreče (Sonnets of Misfortune). In writing
sonnets Prešeren was followed by many
later poets. After the Second World War
sonnets remained very popular. Slovenian
poets write both traditional rhymed
sonnets and modern ones, unrhymed, in
free verse. Among them are Milan Jesih
and Aleš Debeljak. The metre for sonnets
in Slovenian poetry is iambic pentameter
with feminine rhymes, based both on the
Italian endecasillabo and German iambic
pentameter.

See also
Associated forms
Fourteener (poetry)
Quatorzain

References
1. Ernest Hatch Wilkins, The invention of the
sonnet, and other studies in Italian literature
(Rome: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura,
1959), pp. 11–39
2. Medieval Italy: an encyclopedia, Volume
2, Christopher Kleinhenz
3. Mailman 2009, pp. 377–378, 402–405,
407–410, 412–413.
4. Bertoni, 119.
5. Philip III of France
6. Philip the Fair and Charles of Valois
7. Robert II of Artois
8. Edward I of England
9. Alfonso X of Castile
10. Henri Morier, Dictionnaire de poétique et
de rhétorique. Paris: PUF, 1961. p. 385.
11. Morier, p. 385. Vigny wrote no sonnets;
Hugo only wrote 3.
12. Monier, pp. 390–393. Morier terms
these sonnets faux sonnets, or "false
sonnets"
13. Folger's Edition of "Romeo and Juliet"
14. Norman White, "Hopkins, Gerard Manley
(1844–1889)", Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford University Press.
15. Full text at Sonnet Central
16. Full texts at Sonnet Central
17. Publisher's Weekly, 10 February, 2000
18. "Preface". Foreplay: An Anthology of
Word Sonnets, ed., Edited by Seymour
Mayne and Christal Steck. [1]
19. See Ricochet: Word Sonnets / Sonnets
d'un mot , by Seymour Mayne, French
translation: Sabine Huynh, University of
Ottawa Press, 2011.
20. Bundschuh, Jessica. "G3: History of the
Sonnet". Page 1 Universität Stuttgart Institut
für Amerikanistik. Missing or empty |url=
(help)
21.
https://livadaspoetry.blogspot.fr/2011/11/y
annis-livadas-regarding-fusion-sonnet.html
22. Erich Schmidt (1885), "Melissus, Paul
Schede" , Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
(ADB) (in German), 21, Leipzig: Duncker &
Humblot, pp. 293–297
23. The full title is listed as Die Sonette an
Orpheus: Geschrieben als ein Grab-Mal für
Wera Ouckama Knoop (translated as
Sonnets to Orpheus: Written as a
Monument for Wera Ouckama Knoop)
24. Biography: Rainer Maria Rilke 1875–
1926 on the Poetry Foundation website.
Retrieved 2 February 2013.
25. Polikoff, Daniel Joseph. In the Image of
Orpheus Rilke: a Soul History. (Wilmette,
Illinois: Chiron Publications, 2011), 585-588.
26. Freedman, Ralph. Life of a Poet: Rainer
Maria Rilke. (Evanston, Illinois:
Northwestern University Press, 1998), p.
491
27. Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (1581–1647),
To Hugo Grotius. Translated by Edmund
Gosse.
28. The Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature
(Volume Five), 1992, pp. 4140–4146
https://books.google.com/books?
isbn=8126012218
29. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Urdu
literature, 2007, p. 565
https://books.google.com/books?
isbn=8182201918
30. Zarina Sani (1979). Budha Darakhat .
New Delhi: Bazm - e - Seemab. p. 99.
"Akhtar Junagarhi kaa sonnet ghaaliban
1914 kaa hai- Rashid kaa 1930 kaa aur
Akhtar Sheerani ne andaazan 1933 se 1942
tak sonnet likhe- isii dauraan 1934 se 1936
tak Zia Fatehabadi ne bhi keii sonnet likhe
(Akhtar Junagarhi's sonnet is from the year
1914. Rashid's sonnet is of 1930 and Akhtar
Sheerani wrote sonnets between 1932 and
1942. During the period of 1932 to 1936, Zia
Fatehabadi also wrote many sonnets)"
31. Meri Tasveer published by GBD Books,
Delhi ISBN 978-81-88951-88-8 p.206
32. The Poet's Garret .
33. Lucylla Pszczołowska, Wiersz polski.
zarys historyczny, Wrocław 1997, p.95 (In
Polish).
34. Mirosława Hanusiewicz, Świat
podzielony. O poezji Sebastiana
Grabowieckiego, Lublin 1994, p. 133 (In
Polish).
35. Edna W. Underwood, "Sonnets from the
Crimea/A biographical sketch "Adam
Mickiewicz: A Biographical Sketch", in
Sonnets from the Crimea, Paul Elder and
Company, San Francisco (1917).
36. Text available at:
http://literat.ug.edu.pl/kasprow/046.htm .
37. Here the poet used a pun on the word
sláva (fame) and the general name for
Slavic nations, suggesting that the Slavs are
predestined to heroic deeds and great fame
among the nations.
38. Full text at Slovak digital library
39.
https://www.academia.edu/1804495/%C4%
8Cesk%C3%BD_sonet_v_prvn%C3%AD_polo
vin%C4%9B_20._stolet%C3%AD_Czech_Son
net_In_the_First_Half_of_The_Twentieth_Ce
ntury_
40. Biography at Encyclopædia Britannica
41. English Translation on-line

Further reading
I. Bell, et al. A Companion to
Shakespeare's Sonnets. Blackwell
Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-4051-2155-6.
Bertoni, Giulio (1915). I Trovatori d'Italia:
Biografie, testi, tradizioni, note. Rome:
Società Multigrafica Editrice Somu.
T. W. H. Crosland. The English Sonnet.
Hesperides Press, 2006. ISBN 1-4067-
9691-3.
J. Fuller. The Oxford Book of Sonnets.
Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-
19-280389-1.
J. Fuller. The Sonnet. (The Critical Idiom:
#26). Methuen & Co., 1972. ISBN 0-416-
65690-0.
U. Hennigfeld. Der ruinierte Körper:
Petrarkistische Sonette in transkultureller
Perspektive. Königshausen & Neumann,
2008. ISBN 978-3-8260-3768-9.
J. Hollander. Sonnets: From Dante to the
Present. Everyman's Library, 2001.
ISBN 0-375-41177-1.
P. Levin. The Penguin Book of the Sonnet:
500 Years of a Classic Tradition in
English. Penguin, 2001. ISBN 0-14-
058929-5.
J.B. Mailman. "Imagined Drama of
Competitive Opposition in Carter's
'Scrivo in Vento' (with Notes on
Narrative, Symmetry, Quantitative Flux
and Heraclitus)" Music Analysis v.28, 2-
3, 373–422
S. Mayne. Ricochet, Word Sonnets -
Sonnets d'un mot. Translated by Sabine
Huynh. University of Ottawa Press,
2011. ISBN 978-2-7603-0761-2
J. Phelan. The Nineteenth Century
Sonnet. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
ISBN 1-4039-3804-0.
S. Regan. The Sonnet. Oxford University
Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-289307-6.
M. R. G. Spiller. The Development of the
Sonnet: An Introduction. Routledge,
1992. ISBN 0-415-08741-4.
M. R. G. Spiller. The Sonnet Sequence: A
Study of Its Strategies. Twayne Pub.,
1997. ISBN 0-8057-0970-3.
External links
Sixty-Six: The Journal of Sonnet Studies
BBC discussion on "The Sonnet". Radio
4 programme In our time. (Audio, 45
minutes)
List of Sonnets at Poets.org

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