From there, Shakespeare made the sonnet famous in England and others followed his lead.
Petrarch developed the sonnet to one of its highest levels during early Renaisannce Italy, but it wasn't translated into English until the sixteenth century. Though the sonnet is a form that can be experimented with, it has remained true to its original length of fourteen lines and its Anglicized meter of iambic pentameter. Sonnets were first written in Italian and were traditionally love poems.
