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Sonnet Forms

This document discusses several traditional verse forms including the sonnet, ottava rima, Spenserian stanza, and rhyme royal. It defines each form, providing the line structure and rhyme scheme. For the sonnet it notes the main types are Shakespearean, Petrarchan, and Spenserian. It also mentions some variants like the tailed sonnet and curtal sonnet. Examples of poems written in each form are provided.

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Zainab Nawaz
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53 views2 pages

Sonnet Forms

This document discusses several traditional verse forms including the sonnet, ottava rima, Spenserian stanza, and rhyme royal. It defines each form, providing the line structure and rhyme scheme. For the sonnet it notes the main types are Shakespearean, Petrarchan, and Spenserian. It also mentions some variants like the tailed sonnet and curtal sonnet. Examples of poems written in each form are provided.

Uploaded by

Zainab Nawaz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Some traditional verseforms

(d) The ‘O m ar K h ayyam ’ quatrain— iambic pentameter


rhym ing aaba.
(e) The ‘Gondibert’ or ‘Elegiac’ stanza o f G ray’s Elegy,
Sir William Davenant’s Gondibert.

SONNET

Definition: A poem o f fourteen iambic pentameter lines,


with one o f the follow ing rhyme-schemes:
Shakespearian: abab cdcd efef gg.
Petrarchan or Italian: abba abba cde cde or abba abba ccd eed.
Spenserian: ababbcbccdcdee
There is usually a break in the sense between the octave
(first eight lines) and sestet (last six lines) or, in the
Shakespearian sonnet, the only break is sometimes before
the final couplet.
e x a m p l e s : The sixteenth century was the time when the

sonnet, and the long sonnet sequence, enjoyed a vogue


— almost an epidemic. M inor sonneteers can be tedious; but
the age produced the sonnets o f Shakespeare, Spenser,
Sidney, Daniel, Drayton. The fashion ended, but the sonnet
never died; see, e.g. the Holy Sonnets o f Donne; E. B.
Brow ning, Sonnets from the Portuguese; G. M . Hopkins, the
sonnets in his collected poems; Peter Porter, The Sanitized
Sonnets.
The t a i l e d s o n n e t surprises the reader by adding extra
lines, e.g. M ilton, On the New Forcers of Conscience under the
Long Parliament; Hopkins, Tom's Garland. The sixteen-line
poems o f George M eredith’s Modern Love may perhaps be
seen as extended sonnets, though not the usual ‘tailed’ form.
In addition to the extended sonnet forms, G. M. Hopkins
invented the curtal sonnet, o f ten and a half lines; his Pied
151
Some traditional verseforms

Beauty is well known. This form has ten and a half lines,
grouped in six and four with one short final line.

OTTAVA RIMA

Definition: Eight iambic pentameters rhyming abababcc.


ex am ples:Byron, Don Ju a n , Beppo; Keats, Isabella; Yeats,
The Municipal Gallery Revisited.

SPENSERIAN STANZA

Definition: Eight iambic pentameters followed by one iam­


bic hexameter (Alexandrine) and rhyming ababbcbcc.
Probably the most ornate and splendid English verse-form
to be found in narrative poems.
e x a m p l e s : Spenser, The Faerie Queene; Byron, Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage; Shelley, The Revolt of Islam; Keats, The
Eve of St Agnes.

RHYME ROYAL

sometimes called ‘ Troilus’ stanza or Chaucerian stanza


Definition: Seven iambic pentameters rhyming ababbcc.
e x a m p l e s : Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, The Clerk's Tale;

Henryson, The Taill of the Uponlandis Mous, and the Burges


Mous (and other fables); Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece;
Auden, Letter to Lord Byron; Peter Levi, Thoughts out of
Doors.
Certain forms more at home in France than in Britain
need space out o f proportion to their frequency or import­
ance. H ow ever, for the reader they often have the charm o f
152

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