Overview
sonnet
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A poem consisting of fourteen lines (of eleven syllables in Italian, generally twelve in French, and ten in English), with rhymes arranged according to one or other of certain definite schemes, of which the Petrarchan and the Elizabethan are the principal, viz.:
The sonnet was introduced to England by Wyatt and developed by Surrey (see also Metre) and was thereafter widely used, notably in the sonnet sequences of Shakespeare, Sidney, Daniel, Spenser, and other poets of the Golden period, most of which are amatory in nature, and contain a certain narrative development: later sonnet sequences on the theme of love include those of D. G. Rossetti and E. B. Browning. Milton, Donne, Keats, and Yeats have all used the form to great and varied effect, and it continues to flourish in the 20th cent.
Subjects: Literature