What is the term for a 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme, often about love? It is a sonnet.
The sonnet developed in 13th-century Sicily and takes its name from the Italian sonetto, meaning “little song,” from the Latin sonus, or “sound.” Early sonnets were strongly associated with romantic love, but poets eventually used the form for politics, religion, nature, philosophy, and personal reflection.
Two major traditions are the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet and the English, or Shakespearean, sonnet. A Petrarchan sonnet commonly divides into an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, often using ABBAABBA followed by a varied pattern. A Shakespearean sonnet usually contains three quatrains and a closing couplet, commonly rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
The word “sonnet” describes a poetic form, not a single required subject or meter. Many traditional sonnets use iambic pentameter, but that is not universal. An ode is a lyric poem of praise, a villanelle uses recurring lines, and a haiku follows a very different short-form tradition.