Facts about Sonnet History

1. 05

   Milton, Donne, and other 17th-century poets expanded the sonnet beyond love poetry into religious, political, and philosophical subjects.

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2. 04

   Edmund Spenser developed a distinctive interlocking rhyme scheme for the sonnet, used in his 1595 sequence Amoretti, linking the three quatrains together.

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3. 03

   Petrarch's 14th-century sequence of 366 poems addressed to Laura became the defining model for the sonnet tradition across Renaissance Europe.

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4. 02

   William Shakespeare popularized the English sonnet form, writing 154 sonnets that established a three-quatrain-plus-couplet structure distinct from the Italian Petrarchan model.

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5. 01

   The sonnet originated in 13th-century Italy, with the form attributed to Giacomo da Lentini at the court of Frederick II.

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