Sonnet Forms

The sonnet was originally an Italian form, its name deriving from the Italian sonnetto, meaning “little song.” A sonnet consists of 14 lines, and has a rhyme scheme.

There are three different rhyme schemes for three different types of sonnets:

Petrarchan: The fourteen lines are divided into an octet (eight-line stanza) and sestet (six-line stanza) rhymed a-b-ba-a-b-b-a and c-d-e-c-d-e (the sestet is sometimes varied).

Shakespearean: a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g.

Spenserian: Least common, a mix of the other two: a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c-d-c-d-e-e.

(from The Poet’s Companion, by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux)



My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)
William Shakespeare

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.


My Letters! all dead paper. . . (Sonnet XXVIII)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee tonight.
This said—he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing,
Yes I wept for it—this . . . the paper's light. . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . 0 Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!


XXI. Mille fiate, o dolce mia guerrera
A thousand times to make my peace I sought
With your fair eyes, O my sweet warrior foe,
And offer you my heart; but little thought
Had your proud spirit to look down so low.
Yet if another would that heart enchain,
She lives in fickle hopes and dreams untrue;
Since I despise all things that you disdain,
It is no longer mine when scorned by you.
If driven forth, it cannot find at all
Harbour with you upon its wandering way,
Nor stand alone, nor go where others call,
Far from its natural pathway must it stray.
On both our souls this heavy sin will rest,
But most on yours, for you my heart loves best.

Francis Petrarch


What happened, happened once. So now it's best
in memory--an orange he sliced: the skin
unbroken, then the knife, the chilled wedge
lifted to my mouth, his mouth, the thin
membrane between us, the exquisite orange,
tongue, orange, my nakedness and his,
the way he pushed me up against the fridge-
Now I get to feel his hands again, the kiss
that didn't last, but sent some neural twin
flashing wildly through the cortex. Love's
merciless, the way it travels in
and keeps emitting light. Beside the stove
we ate an orange. And there were purple flowers
on the table. And we still had hours.

--Kim Addonizio


posted by Celia at Monday, February 03, 2003