How to Write a Sonnet

The sonnet is one of the most famous fixed forms of poetry. It was invented in Sicily by Giacomo da Lentini, and was brought to the English language by several poets in the 16th century. It is defined by its meter and length, and its name means “little song.”

Sonnets are fourteen lines long. Ever since their early days in Italian, they have been divided into sections. The first, called the octave, is eight lines long, and the remaining six lines are called the sestet. Traditionally, the octave introduces the subject or some kind of argument, and the sestet is a counterpoint, an emotional shift. The transition between the octave and the sestet, the point where the emotion turns, is called the volta. Evidently, sonnets are defined by rich emotion, and how it is transformed.

1. Pencil and paper, or computer; something to write with
2. Imagination

What do you want to write about? Sonnets are often about love or sorrow, but can be about anything. They frequently concern great emotion, and evoke what impacts the heart of the poet. So, what is poetic to you? Is there a lost romance, a grand injustice? What is beautiful to you? Consider things that stick with you day-to-day, what you feel like deserves to be known by other people. Maybe it's something you struggle to put into words.

Consider how your idea might fit into existing structures. Knowing the form of your sonnet, and the emotional flow associated with it, will help you understand how to express yourself.

Types of sonnets are differentiated by their rhyme schemes and the placements of their voltas. These variations were mostly invented in the Renaissance or Early Modern period, when many English poets were experimenting with the classic, Italian style. Some important variations are the Italian form — also called Petrarchan — the Shakespearean or Elizabethean form, and the Spenserian form.

Italian/Petrarchan

Petrarch was the Italian poet from whom the English poets took most of their inspiration. Petrarch did not invent this form, but used it extensively. In the Italian language, each line was eleven syllables long. The rhyme scheme for the Italian sonnet is ABBAABBACDCDCD. Sometimes, the sestet went CDECDE, and in English was varied further. Here it is in action, in Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus”(1883).

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Shakespearean/Elizabethean

The form most commonly known in English is the one popularized by William Shakespeare in over 150 poems. This form rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Therefore, rather than having a traditional octave and sestet, the form features three quatrains — a group of four lines — and a concluding couplet. Somewhat because of this, the volta happens at the end of the third quatrain, marking the final two lines as the emotional shift. Check out Shakespeare’s eighteenth sonnet(1609):

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Spenserian Sonnet

Edmund Spenser was an immensely popular poet in the late 1500s. Though his work is famous for influencing the Romantics of the 1800s, who utilized his nine-line stanza, Spenser also charmed the Scottish court with his sonnet form. He penned a sonnet cycle using an ABABBCBCCDCDEE scheme. Here, the rhymes are interlaced, creating a unique pace. Also, though the poem ends in a rhymed couplet, it retains the Petrarchan volta after the eighth line. Here’s a piece from Spenser’s sonnet cycle, Amoretti(1595):

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise."

"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."

Do any of these forms speak to you? Think about how the placement of the volta creates the emotional pacing of the poem. Where does your idea change emotion?

Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter. This is a technical term describing poetic meter, or rhythm. An iamb is a unit of two syllables, in which the first is unstressed, or weak, and the second is stressed, strong. Think of words like “above,” “divide,” or “compare.” Pentameter means one line has five — penta — iambs. This gives the sonnet a bouncing sound, a consistent, flowing feeling.

Play with iambs on your own before attempting to put them into rhyming lines. Make entire sentences of iambs, and read them out loud to yourself. Observe how they sound musical. Once you're comfortable with the sound, cut the lines at ten syllables, and try to rhyme them. This may be the hardest part. In order to get an idea of how to structure your lines, hink about some other poetic terms:

Enjambment: When the ending of a line doesn't end a sentence, and the rhythm continues into the next line. Ex: "her mild eyes command//The air-bridged harbor"

Caesura: A pause in the middle of a line that adds an extra rhythm besides the iambs. Ex: "To die in dust, but you shall live by fame"

Elision: The removal of sounds from a word so that it uses less syllables, in order to make it fit better into meter. Ex: "complexion dimm'd" - in Shakespeare's day, dimmed was pronounced dim-med, as two syllables, so here he shortens it. Another example is shortening "the" so that it combines with an upcoming vowel, like "th'example"

Write a complete sonnet. Then, once you've got all fourteen lines, return to the poem, and see if it feels true to your idea. With fixed form poetry, it’s always important to see if it’s still accurate to what you mean. Don’t let the form dominate your ideas. Let your ideas work with the form, not against it. You want the words to feel as powerful and impactful as the idea you started with. Remember, the sonnet only exists to express the poet, not the other way around.