Sonnet Forms

There are 3 basic sonnet forms - all have 14 lines and are usually in iambic pentameters.

1. Petrarchan or Italian sonnet
• an octave (8 lines) rhyming abba abba + a sestet (6 lines) rhyming cde cde or cdcdcd or any combination EXCEPT a rhyming couplet
• introduced by Wyatt and Surrey
2. Shakespearean sonnet
• 3 quatrains (4 lines) and a couplet
• abab cdcd efef gg
• named as such because Shakespeare was its greatest practitioner
3. Spenserian sonnet
• 3 quatrains and a couplet
• abab bcbc cdcd ee
• Example: Spenser's Amaretti

Tip on how to tell the sonnets apart (from the Princeton Review book): 

                 Petrarchan has 0 couplets

                 Shakespearean has 1 couplet

                 Spenserian has 1 final couplet and 2 in the body 

A curtal sonnet is a sonnet cut short. Gerard Manley Hopkins used the term to describe a curtailed form of sonnet of his invention, whereby the number of lines was reduced from 14 to 10, divided into 2 stanzas: one of 6 lines and the other of 4 with a half-line tail-piece. For example, his "Pied Beauty."