A fixed form consisting of fourteen lines of five-foot iambic verse. In the English or Shakespearean sonnet, the lines are grouped in three quatrains (with six alternating rhymes) followed by a detached rhymed couplet which is usually epigrammatic. In the original italian form, such as Longfellow's Divina Commedia, the fourteen lines are divided into an octave of two rhyme-sounds arranged abba abba and a sestet of two additional rhyme sounds which may be variously arranged. This latter form tends to divide the thought into two opposing or complementary phases of the same idea.
NOTE: A variant of the Shakespearean form is the Spenserian sonnet which links the quatrains with a chain or interlocked rhyme scheme, abab bcbc cdcd ee.
NOTE: A sonnet sequence is a seies of sonnets in which there is a discernable unifying theme, while each one retains its own structural independence. All of Shakespeare's sonnets, for example, were part of a sequence.
(Source: Dictionary of Poetic Terms, Pathetic.org)
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