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Self-correcting 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 develops and then overturns or refines its own argument within its fourteen lines, embodying intellectual self-correction.

Detailed Definition
A sonnet that internally revises, corrects, or modifies its own arguments, using the traditional argumentative structure of the form to show thinking in progress. The self-correction demonstrates how meaning emerges through testing and revising ideas rather than arriving fully formed. This variant employs the sonnet's capacity for turning and counter-argument to explore revision as process, making the poem about the development of its own thought.
Example
Example in poetry:
Self-correcting sonnet appears in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138: “Therefore I lie with her and she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be”; In Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art,” where “Write it!” corrects earlier denial; In W.H. Auden’s “Sonnet,” revising love’s definition; In Terrance Hayes’ “American Sonnet,” where lines revise racial assumptions; In A.E. Stallings’ “Sestina: Like,” self-aware corrections within form.
Additional Notes
Sonnet that revises its own arguments internally. Creates appearance of thinking through problem within formal structure. Common in argumentative sonnets where speaker debates with self.
Also Known As
Corrective sonnet Amended fourteen-liner Self-revising poem Checking sonnet Epanorthotic sonnet
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