how do you write a sonnet?

Question

I don't understand that "a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f " stuff at all...

Answer 1

A sonnet is fourteen lines long. The alternate lines have to rhyme.

The first line rhymes with the third line. The second lines rhymes with the fourth line. This is where the letters come into handy, so you can see which lines are meant to rhyme with one another.

William Shakespeare wrote some of the world's most famous sonnets. Below is a link to have a look at them so you can see how they rhyme.

Answer 2

What was already answered is correct, but just for clarification:

In any poetic rhyme-scheme situation, a letter denotes the ending of the line so that two letters should rhyme. A rhymes with a, b rhymes with b, and so on and so forth. There are also two kinds of sonnets, Elizabethan and Italian, though I don't remember the scheme for Italian sonnets.

Answer 3

There are other rhyme schemes for sonnets as well.

A popular one is abab abab cdecde (the octet having the same two rhymes, and the sestet having three rhymes). You can also have abab cdcd efgefg, or abba cddc effe gg, or any other combination. But it HAS to be fourteen lines long. Traditionally, it also has to be in iambic pentameter (five metrical feet per line, most of those feet iambs - think of your basic Shakespeare lines, here, like 'But SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS', or 'Cry HAVoc and LET SLIP the DOGS of WAR'), though many have messed with the classical rules successfully.

And you don't need exact rhyme, either. But try a few WITH exact rhyme first, just to get them under your belt before you start experimenting with the form.

Here's my favorite sonnet, and I'll mark the rhymes for you...

"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (John Keats)

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold (rhyme A - 'gold')
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; (rhyme B - 'seen')
Round many western islands have I been (B - 'been')
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. (A - 'hold')
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told (A again - 'told')
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; (B again - 'demesne')
Yet never did I breathe its pure serene (B - 'serene')
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: (A - 'bold')
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies (C - 'skies')
When a new planet swims into his ken; (D - 'ken')
Or, like stout Cortez when the eagle eyes (C - 'eyes')
He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men (D - 'men')
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise - (C - 'surmise')
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. (D - 'Darien')

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

the a-b stuff represents which lines rhyme with which lines.

The a's rhyme with each other, the b's, and so on.

A super simple example would be:

cat
dog
hat
log
car
truck
bar
...luck
grass
tree
glass
sea
line
fine!