Sonnet

The sonnet is a fixed verse form of fourteen lines, usually iambic pentameter, with a canonical composition and rhyme scheme. The Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet consists of two quatrains and two tercets, the English (Shakespearean) of three quatrains and a concluding couplet. The sonnet form demands terseness and at the same time a dialectical unfolding of thought: thesis and development in the quatrains, a turn (volta) and conclusion in the tercets or final couplet. Despite its rigid constraints, the sonnet remains one of the most productive forms of world lyric. In Ukrainian poetry brilliant sonnets were created by Ivan Franko, and especially by the Neoclassicists — Mykola Zerov, Maksym Rylsky and Mykhailo Drai-Khmara.