• What is a sonnet?
• Structure of the sonnets
• Main sonnets
• Sonnet examples

We explain what a sonnet is and its structure. In addition, the main sonnetists in history and examples of this type of poetic composition.

The sonnet emerged in Europe in the 13th century.

What is a sonnet?

A sonnet is a poetic composition that arose in Europe in the thirteenth century and extremely frequent until the seventeenth century, which is made up of 14 verses major art (generally hendecasyllables, that is, eleven syllables). The sonnets are organized into four stanzas fixed: two quartets (of 4 verses each) and two triplets (of three verses each).

Sonnets usually deal with themes of love, mystical or any other nature. They are a type of poem which, in general, has a structure that is based on: a first stanza that raises the subject, a second stanza that develops it, the first triplet that reflects on what has been said and the last that describes a deep feeling, detached from the above . Thus these poems have a introduction, a developing and one conclusion.

The sonnet is originally from Sicily, Italy, from where it spread to the rest of the country and was cultivated by poets of the Dolce stil novo, such as Guido Guinizelli (1240-1276), Guido Cavalcanti (1259-1300) and Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Later Francesco Petrarca, the great Latin poet of the fourteenth century, popularized the sonnet by developing Petrarchism, which spread throughout the European world during the Renaissance as the ideal poetic form for love.

Structure of the sonnets

A sonnet is characterized by having 14 verses of major art, that is, verses that have more than nine syllables. In most cases, the verses of the sonnets are hendecasyllables (eleven syllables).

The fourteen verses of a sonnet are divided into:

• Four-line stanza
• Four-line stanza
• Three-line stanza
• Three-line stanza

There are two stanzas of four lines each and two stanzas of three lines each. The two stanzas of four lines are at the beginning of the poem and have rhyme, although this may vary according to each author. In the first two stanzas, the first verse rhymes with the fourth and the second with the third (ABBA structure). For example:

It is an oversight, that gives us care, (TO)

a coward, with a brave name, (B)

a lonely walk among the people, (B)

a love only to be loved. (TO)

(Defining love - Francisco de Quevedo)

In the triplets, which are the last two stanzas of the sonnet, the rhyme can be arranged in different ways, according to the poet's taste. For example:

I see without eyes and without tongue I cry; (C)

and ask for help and look longing; (D)

I love others and I feel hated for myself. (AND)

Crying, I scream and the pain transpired; (C)

death and life give me equal wakefulness; (D)

for you I am, Lady, in this state. (AND)

(Sonnet to Laura - Francesco Petrarca)

Main sonnets

Some of the most recognized sonnets throughout the history of literature are:

• In Spanish language. The main representatives of the sonnet in the Spanish language were poets of the Golden age (15th to 17th century), such as Garcilaso de la Vega, Juan Boscán, Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora, Francisco de Quevedo, Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Miguel de Cervantes. At the end of the 19th century, Modernism authors such as Manuel Machado stood out and, later in the 20th century, the members of the generation of 27: Federico García Lorca, Jorge Guillén and Rafael Alberti. In America Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz stood out (in the seventeenth century) and, much later, in the nineteenth century, the Latin American modernists, such as the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (who introduced the Alexandrians, fourteen syllable verses).
• In French language. The precursor of the French sonnet was Clément Marot (1496-1544), who imitated the Italian sonnet and influenced later authors, such as Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, who formed the La Pleyade group during the 16th century. In the 19th century the sonnet reappeared with writers representing the symbolism, like Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé.
• In English language. The sonnet was introduced to England in the 16th century by Thomas Wyatt, Petrarch's translator, and Henry Howard. This genre was mutating over time until William Shakespeare reached the form of "English sonnet" or "Elizabethan sonnet", which had a different structure from the Italian sonnet. The sonnet was also cultivated by John Milton, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Hardy. For its part, in the United States, authors such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edwin Arlington Robinson, among others, stood out.
• In Portuguese language. The sonnet was introduced to the Portuguese language with the author Francisco Sá de Miranda during the 16th century. Then, during that same century, there was the appearance of the most recognized and important Portuguese-language writer in history: Luís de Camões, author of a large number of sonnets. Another author who excelled in this type of poetry It was Antero de Quental, during the 19th century.

Sonnet examples

• "A sonnet tells me to do Violante", by Lope de Vega Carpio

A sonnet tells me to do Violante
and in my life I have been in such a predicament;
fourteen verses say that it is a sonnet;
mocking, mocking, the three go ahead.

I thought it would not find a consonant
and I'm in the middle of another quartet;
more, if I see myself in the first triplet,
there is nothing in quartets that scares me.

For the first triplet I am entering
and I still presume that I entered with the right foot,
Well, end with this verse I am giving.

I'm already in the second, and I still suspect
that I am finishing the thirteen verses;
count if there are fourteen, and it is done.

• "Defining love", by Francisco de Quevedo

It's burning ice, it's frozen fire
It is hurt, it hurts and it does not feel,
it is a dreamed good, a bad present,
it's a very tiring short break.

It is an oversight, that gives us care,
a coward, with a brave name,
a lonely walk among the people,
a love only to be loved.

Is a Liberty imprisoned,
that lasts until the last paroxysm,
disease that grows if it is cured.

This is the Love child, this is your abyss:
look which friendship will have with nothing,
he who is contrary to himself in everything.

• "Sad sighs, tired tears", by Luis de Góngora

Sad sighs, tired tears,
that throws the heart, the eyes rain,
the trunks bathe and the branches move
of this plants consecrated Alcides;

more than the wind the forces conjured
sighs unleash and stir,
and the trunks the tears are drunk,
bad them and worse they spilled.

Even on my tender face that tribute
that give my eyes, invisible hand
shadow or air it leaves me lean,

because that fiercely human angel
do not believe my pain, and so is my fruit
cry without reward and sigh in vain.

• "Sonnet to Laura", by Francesco Petrarca

Peace I cannot find nor can I do the war,
and I burn and I am ice; and I fear and all postponement;
and I fly over the sky and lie on the ground;
and nothing squeezed and everyone hugged.

Whoever keeps me in prison, neither opens nor closes,
neither holds me nor looses the snare;
and love does not kill me or dismantle me,
neither loves me nor does it take away my pregnancy.

I see without eyes and without tongue I cry;
and ask for help and look longing;
I love others and I feel hated for myself.

Crying, I scream and the pain transpired;
death and life I do not care about the same;
for you I am, Lady, in this state.

• "Sonnet IX", by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Stop, shadow of my elusive good,
image of the spell that I love the most,
beautiful illusion for whom I happily die,
sweet fiction for whom I live.

If the magnet of your thanks, attractive,
serve my chest of obedient steel,
Why do you make me fall in love flattering
if you have to mock me then fugitive?

More emblazon can not, satisfied,
that your tyranny triumphs over me:
that although you leave the narrow bond mocked

that your fantastic form belted,
it does not matter to mock arms and breasts
if my fantasy carves you prison.

• "Sonnet XVII", by Garcilaso de la Vega

Thinking that the road was going straight,
I came to stop in such misfortune,
I can't imagine, even with madness,
something that is a while satisfied.

The wide field seems narrow to me;
the clear night for me is dark;
the sweet company, bitter and hard,
and a hard battlefield the bed.

Of the dream, if there is any, that part
alone what is to be the image of death
it suits the weary soul.

Anyway, whatever you want, I'm art,
that I judge by the hour less strong,
although in her I saw the one that is sword.

• "Night of insomniac love", by Federico García Lorca

Night up the two with a full moon,
I started to cry and you laughed.
Your disdain was a god, my complaints
moments and pigeons in a chain.

Night down the two. Crystal of sorrow,
you wept for deep distances.
My pain was a group of agonies
on your weak heart of sand.

The dawn united us on the bed,
their mouths on the icy jet
of endless blood that spills.

And the sun came through the closed balcony
and the coral of life opened its branch
over my shrouded heart.

• "To the line", by Rafael Alberti

To you, contour of human grace,
straight, curved, danceable geometry,
delusional in the light, calligraphy
that dilutes the lightest mist.

To you, submissive the more tyrannical
mysterious flower and astronomy
essential to sleep and poetry
urgent to the course that your law emanates.

To you, beautiful expression of the different
complexity, spider, maze
where the figure moves prey.

The infinite blue is your palace.
Sings the burning point in space.
To you, scaffold and support of the painting.