The Sonnet has long been lauded as one of poetry's most interesting and challenging forms.Generally styled in the form of fourteen lines with each line holding ten syllables of text, the possibilities have expanded over the years, since first introduced in the Renaissance. The following types and examples are recognized:
A. Shakespearean. The rhyme scheme found in the form that Shakespeare is so well known for is the abab cdcd efef gg pattern. The last syllables of the like letters rhyme in the pattern as shown. The typical fashion in which the ten syllables of the sonnet line is in iambic pentameter. The theme of the sonnet typically is introduced or presented in the first half and then a solution or result is shown in the last lines.
Sonnet 60 by Shakespeare
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, (a)
So do our minutes hasten to their end; (b)
Each changing place with that which goes before, (a)
In sequent toil all forwards do contend (b)
Nativity, once in the main of light, (c)
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd (d)
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight, (c)
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. (d)
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth (e)
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow (f)
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth (e)
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: (f)
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, (g)
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. (g)
B. Italian or Petrarchan. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet is based on the works of Petrarch, who wrote in the fourteenth century. It uses bipartite division into the octave and the sestet, the octave consisting of a first division of eight lines rhyming and the sestet, or second division, consisting of six lines rhyming: abbaabba cdecde (or cdcdcd).
On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-three by Milton
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, (a)
Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! (b)
My hasting days fly on with full career, (b)
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. (a)
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, (a)
That I to manhood am arrived so near, (b)
And inward ripeness doth much less appear, (b)
That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. (a)
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, (c)
It shall be still in strictest measure even (d)
To that same lot, however mean or high, (e)
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. (d)
All is, if I have grace to use it so, (c)
As ever in my great Task-master's eye. (e)
C. Spenserian. A variant on the English form is the Spenserian sonnet, named after Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599) in which the rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b, b-c-b-c, c-d-c-d, e-e. In a Spenserian sonnet there does not appear to be a requirement that the initial octave sets up a problem which the closing sestet answers as is the case with a Shakespearean sonnet. Instead, the form is treated as three quatrains connected by the interlocking rhyme scheme and followed by a couplet. The linked rhymes of his quatrains suggest the linked rhymes of such Italian forms as terza rima.
Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hand by Amoretti
Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands, (a)
Which hold my life in their dead doing might, (b)
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands, (a)
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight. (b)
And happy lines! on which, with starry light, (b)
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look, (c)
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite, (b)
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book. (c)
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook (c)
Of Helicon, whence she derived is, (d)
When ye behold that angel's blessed look, (c)
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss. (d)
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone, (e)
Whom if ye please, I care for other none. (e)