A sonnet is made up, at it's most basic, of 14 rhymed iambic pentameter lines. The differences between sonnet styles lies in how they are partitioned off. The type of sonnet we like to use is the Shakespearean Sonnet.

A Shakespearean Sonnet (named after William Shakespeare who composed several beautifully written sonnets) is blocked off in the following rhythmic pattern: abab, cdcd, efef, gg (each letter stands for a line, all lines with the same letter are supposed to rhyme). Though there are distinct divisions in the rhyming pattern (i.e., between the abab and cdcd), the divisions are not visually implicated.

For example, in Shakespeare's sonnet number 30, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth lines, though the beginning and end of 2 sections of the sonnet (the last ab and first cd) they are written like so:

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes' new wail my dear times waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

They are NOT written like so:

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes' new wail my dear times waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

Here is the complete Sonnet 30, by William Shakespeare:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes' new wail my dear times waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned* moan,
Which I now pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think of thee, dear friend
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
*the last "e" in "bemoaned" is stressed. Perhaps we should have written it as bemoanEd?

It may seem difficult to write this type of poetry, but it is really quite simple, becuase the format is so exactly laid out for you. Just remember the rhyming sequence and that there are 10 sylables in iambic pentameter, that means that there are exactly 10 sylables in every line. Simple!

When you have written one, of if you have already written one, please send it to us!

This page maintained by Alice Vo Edwards and Angeline Tiamson.
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