Sonnets? ^_^?

Question

How do you tell when a poem is a sonnet? Like the ryhm or rythm? just couriuos cause i can usually tell but i'm not sure exactly how....
thanks in advance! ^_^

Answer 1

The only addition to singing's answer would be that with iambic pentameter, the ten syllables per line should have the emphasis on the even syllables.
da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH
This is important and is what is the hardest part of a sonnet to write.

Answer 2

I believe a sonnet must be 14 lines long, and have 10 syllables per line. Here's my favorite:

SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~William Shakespeare

*Notice that the rhyming scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.

Answer 3

A sonnet follows the rhyme pattern:
ababcdcdefefgg
and each line is 10 syllables long.

Answer 4

also it presents an argument or either discusses something n then procede 2wards its resolve in the 8 lines n then in the final couplet conclusion is given...