The Shakespearean sonnet is in iambic pentameter and follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The other major sonnet form is the Shakespearean or English sonnet it too has fourteen lines, but is structured as a series of three quatrains (of four lines each) and a concluding couplet (consisting of two consecutive rhyming lines).
While the rhyme scheme of the octave is ABBA ABBA, the rhyme scheme of the sestet is more flexible two of the most common are CDCDCD and CDECDE. The ninth line – the first line of the sestet – marks a shift in the direction of the poem and is frequently called the 'turn' or, for you Italian scholars, the volta. The octave often proposes a problem or concern that the sestet resolves or otherwise engages. The Petrarchan sonnet is structured as an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines). A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, whose ideal form is often attributed to the great Italian poet Petrarch. 'Ozymandias' takes the form of a sonnet in iambic pentameter.
