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English Romantic sonnets


The sonnet was a popular form of poetry during the Romantic period: William Wordsworth wrote 523 sonnets, John Keats 67, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 48, and Percy Bysshe Shelley 18.

The sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure, the invention of which is credited to the thirteenth century Italian poet Giacomo Da Lentini, and was subsequently made famous by Petrarch. Thomas Wyatt, in the early 16th century, introduced the sonnet into England. However, it was the Earl of Surrey who developed the rhyme scheme – abab cdcd efef gg – which now characterizes the English or Shakespearean sonnet.

Romantic literature in English includes both Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets.

The sonnet has been a popular literary form since its creation, made famous by Dante, Petrarch, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Donne, and John Milton, but during the late 17th century and early 18th century the sonnet fell out of favor. Many sonnets were still being produced but were not as popular. Revival began with poets like Thomas Edwards and Charlotte Turner Smith before later including the other Romantics such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley.


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