SONNET ANALYSIS #1

I was absent the day we learned about sonnets, so for this assignment I'll be posting what I've learned about sonnets from the interwebs (and of course the gratutitous xkcd comic of the day)

• sonnets usually compare two or more contrasting ideas, emotions, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc.
• usually in iambic pentameter
• there are three main types of sonnets:
• Petrarchan/Italian
• first 8 lines are called an octave, and have a rhyming scheme A B B A   A B B A
• next 6 lines are called a sestet and can have either 2 or 3 rhyming sounds, with much more freedom in how they can be arranged (like CDCDCD, CDECDE, CDDCEC, basically whatever! Even unpaired lines are okay [sometimes])
• however, they usually don't end in a couplet (as in, last two lines can't rhyme)
• often, the transition from the octave to the sestet signals a change of subject (called a "volta," or "turn")
• Spenserian
• invented by Edmund Spenseras
• pattern A B A B   B C B C   C D C D   E E
• 14 lines: 3 quatrains and a couplet
• like the Petrarchan sonnet, the different divisions usually talk about distinct ideas
• volta often goes at the beginning of the final couplet
• Shakespearian/English
• pattern A B A B   C D C D   E F E F   G G
• 14 lines: 3 quatrains and a couplet (like Spenserian, but without the overlapping rhymes)
• most flexible of all the sonnet structures because each line only has one rhyme, and there aren't strict rules about the placement of the volta (Shakespeare usually puts it after the first two quatrains, like the Petrarchan structure, or at the beginning of the final couplet, like the Spenserian structure)
• source: Sonnets.org

Furthermore, as promised:

THE BEST SONNET REMIX EVER

(Shakespeare's original here)

UPDATE: check out my Allegory of the Cave sonnet. Can you guess which rhyme scheme I used?