E. English Sonnet

The main differences between the Italian and English sonnet lie in the latter's frequency of rhyme and the structural divisions. There is no doubt that English poets, finding their language harder to rhyme in than Italian poets, clung to a sonnet in seven rhymes as something of itself more congenial than a sonnet in four or five rhymes.

But the greater flexibility in rhyming is not the main difference between the English and Italian form. More important is the difference of effect in the structural proportions: eight lines to six and twelve to two; this is particularly true in the ending of the sonnet, where the couplet makes the English sonnet seem particularly summary or epigrammatic. In fact, the Spenserian and Shakespearean patterns offer some relief to the difficulty of rhyming in English and invite a division of thought into 3 quatrains and a closing or summarizing couplet which characterizes the English sonnet; and even though such arbitrary divisions are frequently ignored by the poet, the more open rhyme schemes tend to impress the fourfold structure on the reader's ear and to suggest a stepped progression toward the closing couplet which usually ties things up in a strong and resounding climax.

Just as it is hard n the Italian sonnet to use the second quatrain for constructive organic development, the three isolated quatrains of the English sonnet are similarly prone to simple variation or repetition. Ideally there should be even greater tension in the proposition of the English sonnet, three turns of the screw, so to speak, before the point is driven home in the couplet. But in practice this is not always so.

When a series of sonnets is linked together according to a given theme, situation, or to a given individual, it is called a sonnet cycle or sequence.