A sonnet is  fourteen line structure with a specific rhyming pattern and meter. The rule is to keep to a set of alternate and/or iambic pentameter variations.

A good example of this is breaking up the stanza into an 8 - 6 verse style, and then forming a structure as a songwriter would with a basic AABA method, i.e. Verse Verse Chorus Verse.

Using this principle the sonnet may follow a rhyming pattern such as ABBAABBA for the first 8 lines and then CDECDE and GG which permits the 14 line sonnet to be broken into 3 groups of 4 and 1 final group of 2 rhyming lines to finish.

If you have never written a sonnet you are probably thinking 'I'll turn over the next page,' but wait; everyone is capable of writing a sonnet.© Denise Aldridge 2001

There are a couple of sonnet structures, the most popular being the Shakespearean or English. It bears Shakespeare's name not because he was the first to use it but because his sonnets in this pattern are the most famous in English literature. Before Shakespeare's sonnet, the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet was practised.

Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter, have fourteen lines and a certain rhyme scheme.

Iambic pentameter is a metre which for some reason strikes fear into the hearts of aspiring poets. This pattern is composed of two syllables - the first unstressed and the second, stressed. There are five of these groups of two syllables across a line of poetry such as a sonnet. Each group is called a foot so a sonnet has five foot in each line.

 Are you feeling stressed? Don't be. It all works out in the end. Count the stressed syllables on your fingers - no one is looking.
    

Below is Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 30. The unstressed syllables are denoted with 'x' and the stressed syllables with '/'. Sometimes in poetry books you will see the unstressed syllables are denoted by 'u'.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought                             I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore –bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end

The last two lines, thirteen and fourteen are called a couplet and rhyme with each other.
     Usually, in the first eight lines, a problem is posed and then in the next six lines, the poem reaches a solution.
     These days, we do not need to write in Old English if we wish to write a sonnet, and although sonnets are equated with romance, we can write satirical sonnets also.

     In this article we won't even discuss the rhyme scheme of the Italian Sonnet. If, however, you would like to write an English sonnet, humorous or romantic, using the seven words: feel; take; light: know; there; lost free, for the end words of seven of your lines - (you need to think of seven corresponding rhyming words), please do so There is something so satisfying about completing a sonnet.

• The first and second line could be:
  Each evening as I sit alone, I feel
  You near to me; and dreaming, kisses take,
  
  or, the sonnet could be humorous:
  
  The flu injection brings me pain, I feel
  that all the pills and potions that I take

    Enjoy writing your sonnet, which may be based on the above words or any others that you choose, and remember, there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that iambic pentameter is the scientific name for a nasty medicine.

© Denise Aldridge 2001http://users.mullum.com.au/jbird/YM-sonnet-aldridge.html 

Sonnet: (Shelly Folkestad)
A poem that is written with the use of rhyme and pattern.  The rhyme is noticeable
and the pattern is in meters.

• An example would be  the poem When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes.  The poem demonstrates the use of rhythmetic pattern  about every other word of the line.  For example some of the words were eyes, cries, hope, scope, etc.

http://www.northern.edu/benkertl/poetry_dictionary.html#S