Followed by one rhyming two-line stanza (or couplet) gg. 
Three four-line stanzas (or quatrains) following the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef. Shakespeare was an acknowledged master of the form, to the extent that the English sonnet (whose structure differs from the Italian or ‘Petrarchan’ sonnet, above) is more often called a ‘Shakespearean sonnet’ in recognition of his influence.Ī Shakespearean sonnet usually (but not always!) includes the following elements: The popularity of the sonnet soon spread, and several Elizabethan poets, including Philip Sidney, Thomas Wyatt and Edmund Spenser, were quick to jump onto the sonnet bandwagon. The Italian poet Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) is credited with originating the form, whose strict, fourteen-line structure he used to express his feelings for his beloved muse, Laura. The word ‘sonnet’ itself comes from the Italian sonnetto, meaning ‘little song’. The sonnet was already a well-established poetic form in England when Shakespeare began writing his own. 
It’s thought Shakespeare first turned his attention seriously to poetry when plague hit London in the early 1590s and theatres were shut down to help prevent the spread of disease – poetry was a way of earning his keep!
Shakespeare’s name may be synonymous with some of the world’s greatest dramatic works, but he also wrote a considerable amount of poetry – in addition to the 154 published sonnets, Shakespeare also produced the poems ‘Venus and Adonis’, ‘The Rape of Lucrece’, ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’, ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’, and ‘A Lover’s Complaint’. Explore the controversies surrounding this extraordinary collection of poems, and trace the legacy of Shakespeare’s sonnets right up to the present day. To commemorate the 400 th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Young Poets Network is taking a closer look at some of his most famous poetic works – the sonnets.
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