Shakespearean Sonnet

Poetic form, also known as "English sonnet", consisting of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. Typically, a poet will introduce some subject in the first quatrain, develop it in the second and third, then reply to it in the final couplet.

For example:

Sonnet CXXXVIII

When my love swears that she is made of truth

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor'd youth,

Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told:

Therefore I lie with her and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

WilliamShakespeare

This is somewhat similar to the Japanese RenGa form, where a series of poems are linked together, starting with a 5/7/5 syllable poem, followed by a 7/7 syllable poem, replied to by a 5/7/5 poem. This last is the origin of the HaiKu form.

Compare to PetrarchanSonnet.

The term sonnet came into English via Italian from the Provençal sonet, a little poem, from son song, from Latin sonus a sound.