A Sonnet is a type of poem in which the structure is very specific, following a clear rhyme scheme that flowed through fourteen lines. There have been many different forms of the sonnet, generally speaking, throughout the centuries passed; However, many "sonneteers" (as they are often known) claim that the basis of a sonnet in poetry has indeed evolved throughout this time.
History
The word 'sonnet' is derivative from the Italian word 'sonnetto', which loosely translates into many different meanings, specifically a little poem, song, or sound. The sonnet was also created in Italy by Giacomo da Lentini, who headed the Sicilian School in Tuscany in the late 1200s. Back during that time period, many of the sonnets that were written were meant to portray the means of an argument; However, as time has gone on, we have seen the structural aspects of sonnets, as well as themes, take varying turns and changes. Sonnets have been written and published all throughout the world -- By the English, Russians, Dutch, Germans, to name a few -- and continue to be popular still today in the 21st century.
Structure
Sonnets are Lyric poems that are 14 lines and usually have one or more conventional rhyme schemes like the poem below.
Sonnet CXXX: My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun
by William Shakespeare
(a) My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
(b) Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
(a) If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
(b) If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
(c) I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
(d) But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
(c) And in some perfumes is there more delight
(d) Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
(e) I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
(f) That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
(e) I grant I never saw a goddess go:
(f) My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
(g) And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
(g) As any she belied with false compare.
Example
ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day 5
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track 10
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true.
Petrarchan Sonnet
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Shakespearean Sonnet
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.