Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Guidance in Writing Poetry

On Writing Sonnets [1]

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines arranged either in an octet and sestet with a particular arrangement of the rhyme-structure — two-rhymed octet (of eight lines) abba abba and the sestet (of six lines) three rhymed, the arrangement according to choice, except that a closing couplet is avoided — or else in three quatrains with alternate rhymes and a closing couplet. The building of the thought in the sonnet must be very carefully worked out. A thought is built up or prepared in the octet and its culmination or outcome expressed in the sestet — . Or else it is worked up in the three quatrains and the climax or culminating point reached in the closing couplet. The first is the Miltonic, the second the Shakespearean form of the sonnet. Other forms can be made but these are the two classic sonnet structures in English literature.

Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats are the greatest sonnet writers in English. You can find the best sonnets in the Golden Treasury. There are others also who have written sonnets of the highest quality e.g. Sidney, Shelley — you will find there these also.

17 April 1936