最近发布的一个统计分析结果表明，当前英语诗歌创作多以三种诗体形式，包括十四行诗（Sonnet)，日本的俳句(Haiku）和自由体（Free Verse)。其中，俳句和自由体已广为人知，而对较为传统的十四行诗歌的诗体略显生疏。为此，介绍一下Sonnet 的源起、传承及诗体主要形式。

一、源起和传承

     十四行诗是在13世纪中期到14世纪中期，西西里诗歌学派代表诗人之一贾科莫·德·Lentini(Giacomode Lentini)在组歌诗体的基础上创立而成。 除了创造出“十四行”诗体，贾科莫最终还创造了意大利语中的很多新的词汇。因此，十四行诗体首先在意大利流行，并在14世纪意大利文艺复兴结束之后经SirThomas Wyatt传至英国。Sir Thomas Wyatt和Geoffrey Chaucer使得十四行诗体和英国当时乡村盛行的抒情诗和叙事诗结合，成为英语文化中最普遍的诗体。

    十四行诗体在16世纪末期和17世纪早期的英格兰得到了诗人的热衷，包括Wyatt、SirPhilip Sydney、Edmund Spenser、  William Shakespeare等人都非常热衷十四行诗的写作。其中Spenser和 Shakespeare 继承了SirThomas Wyatt传入的Petrarchan 十四行诗，并进一步创立了各自的十四行诗体, 最终形成了三种主要的十四行诗版式，即Petrarchan十四行诗、Spenserian十四行诗和Shakespearean十四行诗。即使如此，使十四行诗体真正进文学殿堂，成为更为流行的英语诗歌诗体形式应该归功于莎士比亚。莎士比亚在其创作的戏剧和诗歌作品中大量使用十四行诗体。尽管莎士比亚可能并不一定属于最擅长、最有创意的“十四行诗”作家，但却是他使这种诗体变得家喻户晓。迄今存留的莎士比亚十四行诗大约有154首。

二、十四行诗的诗体类型及要素

And now (for I must rid my name of ruth)

With them that feed on love in every sooth.

 此六行为一个模块，韵律：cdcdcd）后六行韵式“回旋”

6、terza rima(三拍子)格式

  这种十四行诗歌诗体格式以雪莱的西风颂为代表，分别由四个三拍子节和一个对偶副歌组成。

如：

Ode to the West Wind
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,（a)
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead(b)
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,(a)

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,(b)
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,(c)
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed (b)

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,(c)
Each like a corpse within its grave, until(d)
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow (c)

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(d)
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)（e)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:(d)

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;(e)
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! (e)

II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

以上是对当今依然风行的十四行诗主要诗体形式的简介，有兴趣的朋友可以通过所给出的例诗加以体会、熟悉。