Textuality » 3A Interacting
The sonnet was invented in the early 13th century at the Sicilian court (1208-1250) of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, a multi-lingual monarch of Norman descent.
As a form the sonnet is about seven hundred & fifty years old. They have been written in English from around the turn of the sixteenth century. Most European languages have produced sonnets. There is a strong possibility that it has its ultimate origin in a Sicilian song form.
Petrarch was the first to really extol (lodare) the virtues of the sonnet. His ‘Rime to Laura' established the essential romantic form & stylistic model of the sonnet we think of today.
Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet & diplomat, bought the sonnet to the English court & then Henry Howard, the soldier, poet, & Earl of Surrey became the innovator of the form of three quatrains followed by an heroic couplet. This was primarily to solve the problem of rhyming in a language which does not have a natural abundance of them.