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THE SONNET

The sonnet is a poetic form that belongs to lyric poetry. Sonnet means little song and the name "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word "sonnet" and the Italian word "sonetto".

There are two different structures of the sonnet: the Italian sonnet or Petrarchian sonnet,  a composition of 14 lines arranged into two quatrains with two rhymes and two tercets with two or three rhymes (4+4+3+3).

Sir Thomas Wyatt was an important person, he was a courtier and diplomat serving King Henry VIII, he was an ambassador to Europe in the first half of the 16th century but the most important thing is that he introduced sonnets into England. Wyatt kept the Italian scheme but gradually he changed the structure. He divided the final six lines into a quatrain and a rhyming couplet (4+4+4+2 ). On the contrary Italian sonnets are never marked by a rhyming couple in the end.  

The sonnet gives us messages. In Italian  octaves (two quatrains) a problem is introduced and the sestet( two tercets)provide a possible solution to the problem. Typically, the ninth line creates a "turn" which signals the passage from a problem to a solution. In English sonnets  the problem is solved in the couplet at the end.

Francesco Petrarca's "Canzoniere" became a model for  sonnet writing. Petrarca like other poets gives us messages through his sonnets. The messages of Petrarca's sonnets are reflection above all on love for a woman, on himself, on suffering. While English sonnets included new messages on meditation on time, beauty, poetry, rivalry, friendship and the meaning of life.

Shakespeare is considered an innovator, but he really wasn't the first who used the new form, he was an innovator because he became its most famous practitioner. The form consists of three quatrains and a couplet. The third quatrain generally introduces a "turn". The usual rhyme scheme was abab,cdcd,efef,gg.