SON'NET, in poetry, a short composi Lion of fourteen or fifteen lines, deca or endecasyllabic, rhymed according to an intricate hut not always precisely similar arrangement. It is the oldest form in which the Italian language was used ; but was, at a still earlier period, employ ed, although not commonly, by the Pro vencal poets. In Italy, Dante, and the Tuscan poets his contemporaries brought the sonnet into public estimation, about the beginning of the 14th century ; but by them it was invariably employed as the vehicle of thoughts wrapped in very obscure language, and probably of a sym bolical nature, though generally, in their outward signification, breathing the spirit of romantic and chivalrous love. By Pe t rareh, in the course of the same century, the sonnet was carried to perfection in point of form and polish ; although ap plied by him, as it had been by his pred ecessors, almost exclusively to the sub ject of his figurative and mystical passion. Since the time of Petrarch the sonnet, has been a favorite form of composition in Italy, especially for the purposes of casional poetry. In France it has had little success ; or rather the french son net is a different poem, less regular in its construction than the Italian. In Ger
many and England the comparative pov erty in rhymes of their respective lan guages has rendered it unusual : but Mil ton has given to it a dignity peculiarly his own, together with much of the melo dy and tenderness which characterize his models.—The proper sonnet con sists of two quatrains. with four lines and two rhymes each, and two terzines, each with three lines and a single rhyme. The last six lines, however. :ire suscepti ble of various arrangements; the one usually adopted in English is the rhym ing of the fifth and sixth lines together, frequently after a, full pause, so that the sonnet ends with a point, as in an epi gram The sonnet generally consists of one principal ides. pursued through the various antitheses of the different stro phes. Pieces of ashnilar metrical structure in octo-syllabic lines are termed by the Italians Anacreontic sonnets. It is some times said that there is" hardly an educat ed Italian who has not composed a sonnet."