by Larry Lynn

Created on: June 29, 2010   Last Updated: June 30, 2010

The English Sonnet is just one of many variations of what started out as the word for "little song." Hence, it is called sonnet, or a truncated form of sonnetto. In form, it is not difficult. The content is presented in fourteen lines, which is more flexible than the 17 syllables of haiku but far more restrictive than the three thousand line epics of historical predecessors like Homer and Vergil.

Condition I: 14 lines

Each of the fourteen lines consists of five units of measure with a specific pattern of rhythm.

Rhythm itself is a pattern of syllables that are stressed or unstressed, i.e., they have a pattern of accents or non-accents. The vocabulary of languages consists of multiple-syllable words as well as one-syllable words, the combination of which forms a recognizable pattern of speech, the pattern of which can undulate according to their arrangement in a linear format.

Using just letters to indicate the stress of each syllable, let U = unstressed and let S= stressed

[Other applications use stress marks and unstressed marks: or for stressed and for unstressed .] Methods of practical indicators can be as versatile and creative as the writer can imagine, They can be variably modified as the learning level of the individual or group being taught.

To make the process consistent with historical applications, the rhythmic patterns use the names that were available at the time of their formal inception into classical literature. Their nomenclature included reference not only to their QUANTITY (number of syllables per line but also their QUALITY (the specific kind of named pattern per line). The characteristics of the syllable were likewise classified as LONG (stressed) or SHORT (unstressed).

These are as follows:

1. The IAMB: a pattern two syllables the first of which is unstressed followed by a stressed.

2. The reciprocal of the iamb is the TROCHEE which is the reverse: two syllable, the first being stressed while the second is unstressed.

3. A third pattern is the DACTYL, which consists of three syllables with the first one stressed and the next two unstressed.

4. The reciprocal of the dactyl is the ANAPEST which has a pattern of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed.

5. Two forms which are often used as filler between or among the others are the SPONDEE, two consecutive stressed syllables and the PYRRHIC which is a combination of two unstressed syllables.

How does this apply to the five-foot line? Consider that each of the iambs, dactyls, trochees,

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