1. The sonnet is a style of poetry that uses a formal rhyme scheme.

2. In the late 1500's it was fashionable for English gentleman authors to write sonnets (poems) made up of 14 lines.

3. The sonnet expresses different thoughts, moods, or emotions, sometimes summed up in the last lines of the poem.

4. The two main forms of the sonnet are the Petrarchan (Italian) and the Shakespearean (English).

5. The Petrarchan sonnet has an eight line stanza and a six-line stanza

6. The English sonnet differs from the Petrarchan sonnet in that it is divided into three quatrains, each rhymed differently, with an independently rhymed couplet at the end. The rhyme scheme of the English sonnet is ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.

7. Most of Shakespeare’s sonnets are addressed to, or mention the "fair boy" or the "dark-lady."

8. Shakespeare composed 154 sonnets in his lifetime.