A sonnet is a type of poem that has been a part of the literary repertoire since the thirteenth century. It is a fourteen-line poem with a fixed rhyme scheme. Traditionally, the fourteen lines of a sonnet consist of an octave (or two quatrains making up a stanza of 8 lines) and a sestet (a stanza of 6 lines) . The sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line has ten syllables, with the stress falling on every other syllable. The sonnet is associated with particular "rules" and is often used to explore romantic love.

There are two main types of sonnets: the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean. The Petrarchan sonnet is named after the Italian poet Petrarch and is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six lines). The rhyme scheme for the Petrarchan sonnet is abba, abba, cdecde, or cdcdcd. The Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, is named after Shakespeare and is divided into three quatrains (four-line stanzas) and a final couplet (two-line stanza). The rhyme scheme for the Shakespearean sonnet is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

Sonnets have been used to examine religious, personal, and political problems. They allow poets to dabble in romance with the most classic form of love poetry. To this day, sonnets are a popular form in literature.