Sonnets & Variations, That's a sonnet? Options

[Merlin]

The following is an edited section out of my own volume being compiled, containing verse forms (still incomplete). This is my own wording, meaning the copyright is mine, and I grant the use to anyone for personal learning, not commercial gain. The collection comes from numerous sources, checked and crosschecked, and believed to be correct. It may well be that there is no one authority on matters, and certainly, names do overlap as I state below.
Since this is out of my volume, the reader has pages available to refer back to things like “heroic couplet”, should that meaning be unclear. Here, the reader is free to ask for clarification, or do a Google search for any unknowns.

Sonnet
“Little sound, little song” is what “sonnet” means in Italian. Sonnets are 14-line poems with a set rhyme scheme, Volta usually around L9, and iambic pentameter. Many variations exist, but the purist will adhere to the guidelines.
We break sonnets into 2 main categories, Italian and English. Italian sonnets are composed of an octet, followed by a sestet. English sonnets are mostly quatrains with a closing couplet.

Names, nomenclature, and branding are not always the same with different people. Robert Browning wrote, “Whom shall my soul believe?” in his Rabbi Ben Ezra, and that seems to be the case in sonnet styles also. What is a corona to one (7-sonnet series) is a crown to another (15-sonnet series), and vice-versa.
There seems to be no single set of title-ware, a fact that holds true to several of this section.

Sonnet (Other)
This is a sonnet as described above, but having different parameters. Many of these listed in this section will fit this category, and many are not 14-line sonnets.

Alternating Sonnet
This is a French form made up of alternating tercets and quatrains. Iambic Pentameter; Volta at L8, L11, or L12; rhyme scheme is
· abba – ccd – abba – ede, or
· ccd – abba – ede – abba, or
· similar rearrangement of other sonnet rhyme schemes.

Blank Sonnet
Standard sonnet characteristics, unrhymed. Blank verse is defined as unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Blues Sonnet
This American form is based on tercets. There are 4 Blues Stanzas and a Heroic Couplet, and the theme is most often a complaint.

Bowlesian Sonnet
Three quatrains and a heroic couplet, in English fashion but the rhyme pattern shifts to the Italian enveloped rhyme rather than English abab. The Volta comes somewhere between L9 and L13.
Rhyme: abba cddc effe gg

Caudate Sonnet
An Italian form; other names are Caudated or Tailed Sonnet. This is a Petrarchan sonnet with extras to make a total of 20 lines –
· Petrarchan sonnet abbaabba cdecde
· A 3-foot tail, rhyme is e
· A heroic couplet, rhyme is ff
· A 3-foot tail, rhyme is f
· Another heroic couplet, rhyme is gg.

Chained Sonnet
The chain links are – an end-word of a line becomes the next line’s opening word. This requires those end/starting words to be of multiple syllables, iambic in nature.

Corona – Sonnet of Sonnets, Crown, Garland, Redouble, Sonnet Sequence, & Cycle
These are multiple sonnets on a common theme, requiring a thread of their own. Here, especially, names overlap. (I’ve left the Redouble definition in.) Should anyone be interested, I have a garland (15 interlocked) and a corona (7 interlocked) available for discussion.

Couplet Sonnet
A sonnet made up of seven rhymed couplets in iambic pentameter. Rhyme is simply: aabbccddeeffgg

Curtal Sonnet
This is a sonnet that is not a sonnet. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in this form in 1877, creating an abbreviated sonnet in eleven lines of two stanzas.
Stanza 1 has rhyme scheme abcabc; then there is the Volta to Stanza 2, which rhymes either dbcdc or dcbdc. The final line is shorter and often indented. It is either a half-line or a single spondee, depending on the authority, and even Hopkins described it as the former, but usually executed it as the latter.
Rhyme: abcabc dbcdc, or abcabc dcbdc, Volta after L6.

Diaspora or Terza Rima Sonnet
See definition of Terza Rima and write 14 lines accordingly. It’s another Italian form, from the land of the Sonnet. Rhyme is aba bcb cdc ded ee, in iambic pentameter.

Dorn Sonnet
After Alfred Dorn, has two sestets and a couplet midstream. The rhyme scheme is abcabc dd aeaeae.

Double Sonnet
1. Simply put, two sonnets as a single poem.
2. Two sonnets together keeping the same rhyme scheme.
3. Two sonnets of a theme in any form, repeating rhyme pattern.

Envelope Sonnet
This is a Petrarchan version, but due to English rhyming words being sometimes sparse, the envelope rhyme is abbacddc efgefg or abbacddc efefef. The Volta should appear around L9, and meter is the usual iambic pentameter.

French Sonnet
Another Petrarchan variation, the French sonnet changes the sestet rhyme to ccdede or ccdccd or ccdeed while retaining the octet abbaabba. IP is standard and Volta comes between octet and sestet.

Heroic Sonnet
This is an 18-line sonnet (?) in iambic pentameter that tags a heroic couplet to make –
· two Sicilian octave stanzas, or
· four Sicilian quatrain stanzas
· and that heroic couplet.
Volta, one or more, may appear after one or both octaves, or anywhere following a quatrain. Rhyme scheme is mostly abababab cdcdcdcd ee or abab cdcd efef ghgh ii, but there is no restriction on Petrarchan or enveloped schemes.

Indefinable Sonnet
Certain sonnets are clearly sonnets – IP, 14-lines, volta, rhyme scheme, and all recognizable features. Ozymandias, by Shelley, is perhaps the best known sonnet that doesn’t fit into a specific niche. Its rhyme scheme is unique, (abab acdc ede fef) and the Volta begins at L9 where the present tense appears.

Others also have written in a style that doesn’t fit any category, yet are proper sonnets. American poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman’s sonnets are among these; he does not hold to rigid rhyme scheme but has very recognizable sonnets.

Italian – Petrarchan Sonnet
The two names are interchanged regularly, but there are more Italians and only one Petrarch. Other sonnets could fit under the “Italian” title.

A sonnet is recognized as a fourteen-line poem with a Volta, turn, or pivot coming at about L9. Petrarchan sonnets are Italian, which get divided into octave and sestet, where the change of meaning or direction happens between those.

The rhyme scheme is: abbaabba cdecde or cdcdcd.

Napoleonic – Redondilla – Sardine – Sonondilla Sonnet
Here’s an American sonnet version, using tetrameter in iambic, trochaic or other meter.
Redondilla is Spanish from “redondo”, meaning “round”, and the verse form was generally four trochaic lines of eight syllables each, rhymed abba. The alternate rhyme scheme, abab, are also called redondillas, but more commonly are referred to as serventesios. Redondillas appear in Castilian poetry since the 16th century.
This sonnet is based on the Redondilla, with a rhyme scheme of abbacddceeffee or abbaabbaccddcc.

Pushkin Sonnet
This is a sonnet with standard IP and Volta, but a different rhyme combination. It can be taken as:
· Italian, two quatrains plus two tercets, abab ccdd eff egg, or
· English, three quatrains plus a closing couplet, abab ccdd effe gg.

Reverse English Sonnet
The comic form found in “Sonnet Reversed” by Rupert Brooke is sometimes erroneously credited to Wilfred Owen, for his poem entitled with Brooke’s sonnet’s starting words, altho such work may not exist.
Rhyme scheme is the reverse of a regular English sonnet – aa bcbc dede fgfg.

Scupham Sonnet
A newer form coming out of England, using two Scupham stanzas and a couplet as its rhyme scheme, looks like this: abccba abccba dd. There is no noticeable Volta, but other forms fall into the sonnet category without holding certain parameters.

Shakespearean Sonnet
Shakespearean and Spenserian are the 2 main categories of English sonnets. The Shakespearean holds true to the values of sonnets – IP, Volta, rhyme, etc.
English sonnets break into quatrains rather than an octet, and there is a concluding couplet. Rhyme is abab cdcd efef gg, and the Volta can be anywhere from L9 to L13. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is credited with bringing the sonnet to England.

Sicilian Sonnet
This sonnet has an octet and sestet, differentiated by the Volta. Both octave and sestet are Sicilian, with a rhyme pattern of abababab cdcdcd or abababab cdecde.

Song That Luc Bat Sonnet
From the Asian forms. LBS is a Vietnamese non-sonnet. It is made up of three -and-a-half Song That Luc Bat stanzas, as follows. There is some resemblance to a sonnet.

xxxxxxa
xxxxxxa
xxxxxb
xxxxxbxc

xxxxxxc
xxxxxxc
xxxxxd
xxxxxdxe

xxxxxxe
xxxxxxe

Sonnet Redoubled – Redoublé
Here’s a 210-line undertaking, kin of the Corona-Crown-Garland set. The first sonnet of this 15-sonnet chain is the main feature, as its lines appear in each of the others downstream. Two versions are known:
1. The first sonnet’s lines become the end lines of each subsequent sonnet.
2. Each sonnet begins with one of the first sonnet’s lines, in order.

Spenserian Sonnet
The less popular English version of sonnet, this 3-quatrain, 1-couplet version actually employs couplets mid-stream, as its rhyme scheme is abab bcbc cdcd ee. It uses fewer rhyme sets than Shakespearean, but needs more rhyme words to go around. The Volta is as usual, around L9.

Stretched Sonnet
A sonnet stretched to 16 or more lines by someone who couldn’t compress thoughts into the required 14.

Terza Rima Sonnet
See Diaspora sonnet.

Wordsworth’s Sonnet
Here’s a version of Italian with octet and sestet, a proper Volta, and a rhyme slightly different than the regular Italian ones: abbaaccb, dedeff.

[Cleo_Serapis]

OK all.

I finally did it - I wrote my first sonnet (the September book title challenge inspired me)!

This one is the sonnet variation: Alternating Sonnet, which is a French form made up of alternating tercets and quatrains in Iambic Pentameter; Volta at L8 & L12; rhyme scheme = abba – ccd – abba – ede.

Here it is.

Rejoice

Inside her mind an act of treason calls
to tempt those fragile things she can’t erase
from years of blood and thunder - her disgrace
parades itself on camouflaged red walls.

For one more day her life is all but dead
to he who casts the stones, victim instead;
first light will bring her justice: this she knows.

The missing song will echo through the halls;
truth’s harmony will find its ‘just’ embrace.
Exploits by perjured soon profess their place
releasing her from years of hate-filled mauls.

Once victim, now the victor, finds her voice
and freedom from the bondage she had chose…
‘Not guilty’ serenades her, she’ll rejoice.

Copyright © Lorraine M Kanter 01 Oct 2006

[JustDaniel]

couplet sonnet:

prophet’s eye

this side of up and out or down in flames
we search through life for what a body claims
is dashed between our first date and our last
to learn about the future ere it’s passed

round corners everywhere we try to sneak
from someone who may volunteer to leak
a secret insight, lob a crumb our way
diverting us from living in today

dwell out beyond the suburbs, work in town…
to do whatever prompts the leased renown
with every resource lying in our field
for profits, eying maximizing yield

who'll chair the harvest of your bumper crop
or soak in all that gravy with a sop

© MLee Dickens’son 08 Oct 2006