Flatpack Sonnet Assembly Instructions

Stressed/unstressed syllables (ten to a line, remember!) take their turns. Fourteen in all (that’s lines, not syllables), which often fall in blocks of eight and six. You’ve got that? Fine. Now for the rhymes. Petrarchans intertwine like this, in staggered couplets, as they sprawl the page. Americans are apt to call Shakespearians, “English” sonnets. These align in neat alternatives, until the end, which forms a rhyming couplet. The sestet (the six-line bit) has ordered rhymes, which tend to vary. Feminines are lines that get a final, unstressed, syllable tacked on it. And there, in fourteen lines, you have a sonnet.