[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by ross hamilton hill

What is the definition of a sonnet for the purpose of this comp?

Alex I don't see how this is an open-ended question, it is a specific question, your judges should have a definition of a sonnet that they use, it is not a question of what I think, it is a question of what they think, since it is their decision. Surely if you have a sonnet competition you also have a definite idea of what a sonnet is?

This question comes up repeatedly. Here's a link to a discussion of the issue in a long-past year, when we knew the judge and could ask him directly.

I'm trying to find a discussion in a past year, by Julie Steiner I think, that presents HER basic criteria, which I recall as fourteen lines, a clear rhyme scheme, and a turn. (I hope she'll jump in if I'm not remembering correctly).

When Alex and others give the answer "a sonnet is what you say it is," their main concern, I think, is to avoid restricting people to the Elizabethan and Petrarchan forms, and to allow for alternative forms like the terza rima sonnet, or the Stefanile or the Hilbertian or the sonnenizio or the Sapphic sonnet--or forms I haven't heard of yet.

As for meter, in this contest we mostly see IP, but we've seen tet and trimeter. We may have seen hexameter; of that I'm less sure. We've seen rough accentual pent.