English Literature

SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS The Sonnet ... Defined The sonnet may be defined as a poem expressing one main idea and consisting of fourteen decasyllabic lines with a certain rhyme scheme. Sonnet is Italian in origin, having been practiced by Dante (1265-1321) and Petrarch (1304-74). In France its main exponent was Ronsard (1525-85) but in French the fourteen lines were usually in alexandrines and not decasyllabic. In English, however, while the decasyllabic (iambic pentameter) has been the normal metrical form, the rhyme scheme has been varying. Following are the four most commonly used forms in English literature. The Petrarchan Form The Petrarchan sonnet has two parts: the first eight lines, called the 'octave' follow the rhyme scheme 'abba abba' ; and the remaining six lines, callked the 'sestet' has the rhyme scheme 'cde cde' or 'cdc dcd' or any similar combination avoiding a couplet at the end. The octave puts forward the theme to be developed