Sonnet Sonnet A sonnet is a poem in a specific form which originated in Italy; Giacomo da Lentini is credited with its invention. The term "sonnet" is derived from the Italian word "sonetto" (from Old Provençal "sonet" a little poem, from "son" song, from Latin "sonus" a sound). By the thirteenth century it signified a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history. Writers of sonnets are sometimes called "sonneteers", although the term can be used derisively. The sonnet was created by Giacomo da Lentini, head
Sonnet 151 steer his actions. It uses the body as a metaphor for the penis, "rising" and "falling" with an erection when aroused, and so reduces the speaker to nothing more than his phallus; by giving in to his desires he enslaves himself to the "Dark Lady". Sonnet 151, with a "bawdy chronicle of erection and detumescence," contrasts with Sonnet 55's "grandiloquent expression," but their theme is the same: "what changes, what remains." Sonnet 55 "celebrates ... love and poetry that endure[s]" where Sonnet 151 "contemplates the inevitability of change..." Sonnet 151 has been compared to a verse by 17th-century author Joseph