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Doubtful sonnet

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A sonnet that explores uncertainty, skepticism, or unresolved questions, often withholding resolution to sustain intellectual or emotional tension.

Detailed Definition
A doubtful sonnet is a poem that adopts the formal structure of a sonnet—fourteen lines, specific rhyme scheme—but subverts its traditional expectations through thematic skepticism, unresolved volta, or ironic tone; it questions the sonnet’s historical associations with love, certainty, or resolution, as in the anti-sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay or W.H. Auden.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138 (“When my love swears”) is a doubtful sonnet questioning truth; Sir Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” expresses political and amorous doubt; Contemporary poet Terrance Hayes rewrites sonnets as doubtful interrogations of race; Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 14 questions love’s stability; Doubtful sonnets appear in Claudia Rankine’s hybrid lyric essays.
Additional Notes
Doubtful sonnet: A poem that closely resembles a sonnet (14 lines, iambic pentameter) but deviates in a key structural element, such as its rhyme scheme or volta placement, making its classification uncertain.
Also Known As
Uncertain sonnet Hesitant sonnet Dubious sonnet Ambiguous sonnet form Aporia sonnet
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