Sonnets are most often associated with Shakespeare, who popularized the art form, but they were actually first created in Italy over 300 years before the Bard’s birth. There are many forms, from the Italian to the Elizabethan, but most of these differences are in the matter of rhyming patterns. Before we examine the structure and examples, let’s review some terms. iamb: a two syllable patterned poetic foot consisting of a soft syllable, followed by a hard one (dee-DUM). Iambs are used to create iambic meters. pentameter: a metric line count for poetry that contains five poetic feet. In the case of iambic pentameters, this results in ten syllables. quatrains: stanzas consisting of four metered lines triplets: stanzas consisting of three metered lines couplets: stanzas consisting of two metered lines patterns: rhyming sequences, looking at the final syllable(s) in each line of poetry, and assigning them a letter value to show matching rhymes.
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