sonnet examples by students with 14 lines 10 syllables

A 'volta' (or turn in the argument/thought) at or about the ninth line.

An argument: opens with proposition, shifts to resolution.

Lines of regular length, syllabically or metrically.

Lines of irregular metre but five strongly stressed syllables in each line.

Shape - an oblong box, perhaps with a gap just below the middle.

Metrical pattern: most likely iambic pentameter.

Only that they are to me the most obvious indicators, based on the English sonnet tradition. Before anybody gets aerated, I'm not suggesting any of these characteristics are essential. If more than one box is ticked, I figure the poem could be thinking of itself as a sonnet. If the poem looks sonnet-ish (size and shape) my mental checklist pops up. Is it a sonnet or isn't it? And what difference does it make what you call it? So I thought I might explain - as much for myself as anybody else - how I read a poem that looks like it might be a sonnet. I love this particular way of tying up human consciousness in an electric box. In the sonnets I most love, which include Shakespeare (of course) and Wyatt and Sydney, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edna St Vincent Millay, Elinor Wylie and Eleanor Farjeon, it's the tension between constraint and experiment that gives me pleasure. So I may be harder on them than anybody else.Ī few centuries ago, when sonnets first became popular in courtly circles, the formal rules were clear enough, though even then not fixed. But I've been thinking about sonnets for more than half a century (because I am OLD) and of course I've written them (or attempted to) at intervals.

This form (unlike the villanelle) is close to my heart, so sending some to me ought theoretically to be a good thing. During the last ever reading window, there were many sonnets.

Sonnet examples by students with 14 lines 10 syllables