How many lines to a sonnet have?

Answer 1

Sonnets always have 14 lines. The difference is in their format. The Shakespearean(or Elizabethean) Sonnet has 3 quatrains which means 3 'blocks' of 4 lines and at the end it has 2 lines (a duet). A suggested rhyme scheme could be ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. ABAB is one quatrain.

The Italian sonnet on the other hand consists of an octet followed by a sestet. An octet is a ''block'' of 8 lines and a sestet is a ''block'' of six lines.

Notice that in a sonnet these 'blocks' don't have a line being skipped between them, they are just the way in which they are grouped.

Answer 2

Traditionally a sonnet has fourteen lines, and the vast majority of sonnets you meet will have fourteen lines.

In English, most sonnets also belong to one of two great families. The Italian / Petrarchan sonnet has an eight-line stanza (the octave) followed by a six line stanza (the sestet): usually with a change in point of view (the volta) between them. The English / Shakespearean sonnet has three four-line verses, and a couplet (3x4 + 2 = 14). In the Shakespearean sonnet there is usually a weak volta between the verses and the couplet.

There are a few exotic exceptions. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote some 'curtal' sonnets: poems of fewer than fourteen lines, but with the characteristic 4/3 balance, and a noticeable volta. There are also 'stretched sonnets', where the volta and 4/3 balance is used in a poem longer than fourteen lines.

But curtal and stretched sonnets (also the even stranger caudate, hybrid, and concealed sonnets) are refreshingly rare.

Answer 3

There are 14 lines in a sonnet. Three quatrains and then a couplet, or alternatively an eight-line octet followed by a six-line sestet.

Answer 4

There are 14 lines in a Shakespearean sonnet.

Answer 5

14 lines in all sonnets, regardless of the poet.

Answer 6

there are normally 14 lines altogether, and the last two lines rhyme

Answer 7

A sonnet typically has 14 lines.

Answer 8

14

Answer 9

14