An exception is Edmund Spenser's Amoretti, where the wooing is successful, and the sequence ends with an Epithalamion, a marriage song.
A sonnet sequence may also have allegorical or argumentative structures which replace or complement chronology.
Although many sonnet sequences at least pretend to be autobiographical, the genre became a very stylised one, and most sonnet sequences are better approached as attempts to create an erotic persona in which wit and originality plays with the artificiality of the genre.
While the thematic arrangement may reflect the unfolding of real or fictional events, the sonnet cycle is very rarely narrative; the narrative elements may be inferred, but provide background structure, and are never the primary concern of the poet's art.
During the late 16th century and early 17th century a large number of sonnet sequences were written in English, the most notable of which include: Other English and Scottish sonnet collections and sequences of the period include: During the 19th and 20th centuries, the sonnet sequence returned to favour, although with a greater variety of subject matter.