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Sonnet

This document defines and provides examples of three types of sonnets: Petrarchan, Shakespearean, and Spenserian. It explains that Petrarchan sonnets have an octave rhyme scheme of abba abba and a sestet of cd cd or cde cde. Shakespearean sonnets have three quatrains of abab cded efef followed by a rhyming couplet. Spenserian sonnets also have three quatrains but with a rhyme scheme of abab bebe cdcd ee. Examples of each type are then provided.

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65 views7 pages

Sonnet

This document defines and provides examples of three types of sonnets: Petrarchan, Shakespearean, and Spenserian. It explains that Petrarchan sonnets have an octave rhyme scheme of abba abba and a sestet of cd cd or cde cde. Shakespearean sonnets have three quatrains of abab cded efef followed by a rhyming couplet. Spenserian sonnets also have three quatrains but with a rhyme scheme of abab bebe cdcd ee. Examples of each type are then provided.

Uploaded by

abdullah kakar
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Sonnet:

A lyric poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. It is of


three types: Petrarchan (also known as ltalian),
Shakespearean (also known as English) and Spenserian.
The first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet are called
octave and the last six lines of it are called sestet. The
rhyme scheme of the octave of a Petrarchan sonnet is
abba abba and that of sestet is cd ca cd or cde cde.
Milton, Wordsworth, Wyatt, Rossetti and a few other
English poets have used Petrarchan form in their sonnets.
Here is an example:
• The world is too much with us; late and soon,. a
• Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; b
• Little we see in Nature that is ours; b
• We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! a Octave
• This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, a
• The winds that will be howling at all hours, b
• And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, b
• For this, for everything, we are out of tune; a
• It moves us not. Great God! l'd rather be c
• A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; d
• So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, c
• Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; d Sestet
• Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; c
• Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. d
• (Wordsworth: "The World Is Too Much with Us")
• One more example for the variation in the sestet:
• 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 Octave
• To serve therewith my Marker, 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 gitts; who best d
• Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state e Sestet
A Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three
quatrains followed by a couplet. lts rhyme scheme is
abab cded efef gg. The concluding couplet is often
used as a comment on the preceding lines. Here is an
example:
• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? a
• Thou art more lovely and more temperate: b
• Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a
• And summer's lease hath all too short a date: b
• Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, c
• And often is his gold complexion dimmed; d
• And every fair from fair sometimes declines, c
• By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; d
• But thy eternal summer shall not fade, e
• Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; f
• Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade. e
• When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: f
• So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see g
• So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. g
(Shakespeare: " Sonnet XVIll)
• The Spenserian sonnet is named ater
Edmund Spenser who developed a different
rhyme scheme for his sonnets. Like a
Shakespearean sonnet, it consists of three
quatrains followed by a couplet but its
rhyme scheme differs from that of
Shakespearean. Its rhyme scheme is abab
bebe cdcd ee. For example:
• Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace, a
• Seeing the game from him escapt away, b
• Sits downe to rest him in some shady place, a
• With panting hounds beguiled of their pray: b
• So after long pursuit and vaine assay, b
• When I all weary had the chace forsooke, c
• The gentle deare return'd the selfe-same way, b
• Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke, c
• There she beholding me with mylder looke, c
• Sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide: d
• Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke, c
• And with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde. d
• Strange thing me seem'd to see a beast so- wyld, e
• So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyl’d. e
• (Spenser: Amoretti, Sonnet

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