SONNET SCHOOL SATURDAY MORNING Posted on FB 21 March 2020 Writing on the Sand' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1859). Essentially the sonnet is a word production in 14 lines. These 14 lines consist of 8 lines (the octave) and 6 lines (the sestet). This is the convention that is kept with the great majority of sonnets written in English and other languages. This form evolved because it was easily memorable and you could say a lot in a little. Lovers like to say it succinctly, sensually, and without labouring the announcement. Polemicists wish to parade their opponent’s opinion (the octave), only to demolish it (the sestet). Mystics would draw our attention to wondrousness, only to increase the wonder, in case we weren’t paying enough attention the first time. The role you adopt in writing your sonnet can be of some use in how it is pitched and which words are chosen. Two members of Sonnet School are lawyers, for example, who know the skill of forwarding the evidence (the ...