Poetic form, also known as "English sonnet", consisting of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. Typically, a poet will introduce some subject in the first quatrain, develop it in the second and third, then reply to it in the final couplet.
For example:
Sonnet CXXXVIII
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- When my love swears that she is made of truth
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- I do believe her, though I know she lies,
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- That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
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- Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
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- Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
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- Although she knows my days are past the best,
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- Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
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- On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
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- But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
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- And wherefore say not I that I am old?
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- O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
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- And age in love loves not to have years told:
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- Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
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- And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.
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- WilliamShakespeare
This is somewhat similar to the Japanese
RenGa form, where a series of poems are linked together, starting with a 5/7/5 syllable poem, followed by a 7/7 syllable poem, replied to by a 5/7/5 poem. This last is the origin of the
HaiKu form.
Compare to PetrarchanSonnet.
The term sonnet came into English via Italian from the Provençal sonet, a little poem, from son song, from Latin sonus a sound.