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Shortened 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 reduced form of the sonnet, with fewer than 14 lines while retaining sonnet-like features

Detailed Definition
A shortened sonnet is a sonnet variant that departs from the traditional 14-line structure by reducing the number of lines—often to 12 or 13—while attempting to preserve key elements such as volta, rhyme scheme, or thematic resolution; this form allows poets to engage with sonnet conventions while introducing formal innovation or compression.
Example
Example in poetry:
A 12-line sonnet instead of 14: Edna St. Vincent Millay’s "What lips my lips have kissed" uses 14 lines, but modern poets like R. S. Thomas wrote 12-line variants; A curtal sonnet (Hopkins) compresses the form to 10.5 lines; W. H. Auden sometimes used 13-line sonnets; Contemporary poets may omit the final couplet for open-ended effect
Additional Notes
A shortened sonnet is a fourteen-line poem that follows the sonnet form (e.g., rhyme scheme, thematic structure) but uses lines shorter than the typical Iambic Pentameter (e.g., Iambic Tetrameter); a well-known example is George Meredith's 16-line sonnet sequence "Modern Love," though that is extended, not shortened. A truly shortened one is very rare and experimental.
Also Known As
Abbreviated sonnet shortened quatorzain reduced fourteen-liner 10½-line sonnet Abridged sonnet Compressed sonnet curtailed sonnet Curtal sonnet Hopkins sonnet Truncated sonnet Compressed fourteen-liner
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