What is a Sonnet? Sonnets are poems of 14 lines done in an iambic pentameter style. There are three main styles of sonnet:
Shakespearian
Italian
Spencerian
The style popularized by Shakespeare has this rhyming scheme:
abab cdcd efef gg
The Italian is based on the works of Petrarch, who wrote in the fourteenth century. It uses the following scheme:
abbaabba cdecde (or cdcdcd)
Edmund Spencer popularized the final style of sonnet with this rhyme:
abab bcbc cdcd ee
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