SONNET

(It. so net to.) In Poetry, a short composition of fourteen or fifteen lines, dec a or cndecasyllabic, rhymed according to an intricate but not always precisely hiinilar arrangement It is the oldest form in which the Italian language was used; but was, at a still earlier period, employed, although not commonly, by the Proven cal poets. In Italy, Dante, and the Tuscan poets his ron^s^orarles, Brought the sonnet into public estimation, abou ^-- «e?inning of the 14th century; but by them it was...** __;j\y employed as the vehicle of thoughts wrapped L «iv obscure language, and probably of a symbolical nature, - Jgh generally, in their outward signification, breathing J s spirit of romantic and chivalrous love. By Petrarch, in the course of the same century, the sonnet was carried to perfection in point of form and polish; although applied by him, as it had been by his predece or-, almost exclusively to the subject of his figurative and mystical pa ion. Since the Hum of Petrarch the sonnet has been a favourite form of composition In Italy, especially for the purposes of occasional poetry. In France it has had little succe ; or rather the French sonnet is a different poem, le regular in its construction than the Italian. In Germany and England the comparative poverty in rhymes of their respective languages has rendered it unusual; but Milton has given to it a dignity peculiarly his own, together with much of the melody and tenderne which characterize his Italian models. The proper sonnet is divided into two quatrains, with four lines and two rhymes each, and two terzines, each with three lines and a single rhyme. Pieces of a similar metrical structure in octo-syllabic lines are termed by the Italians Anacreontic sonnets. It is sometimes said that there is " hardly an educated Italian who h*as not composed a sonnet." [s. 1153]