The early sonnets were primarily love poems that celebrated the beauty and virtues of the beloved. Sonnet was popularized by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) in the 14th century, and thus the sonnet form is also known as the Petrarchan sonnet. What is super-important to remember in the study of literature is that poetic conventions are determined by history - meaning that you need to know the history of poetic forms if you are really going to understand what the poets are doing.

These conventions are what make a sonnet a sonnet (and don't panic, as we outline these below). This means that the word refers to a range of different poems that share certain conventions of length, structure, style, and themes.

For those of you who have never before set foot into the world of literature, let's start from the very basics.Ī sonnet is a form of poetry.