A sonnet is a poetic form that has fourteen lines. It originated in Italy in the thirteenth century, and though it has generally kept some of the original rules, such as the number of lines and having a specific rhyme scheme and meter, the conventions of sonnets have changed over the centuries to some degree. There are two primary branches of the sonnet form—the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet and the English or Shakespearean sonnet. We will look further into the differences between these types of sonnet below.
