The Sonnet
The Sonnet
LITERATURE I
Year: 2017
THE SONNET Group assignment
1-Definition.
5-State the differences between the English sonnet and the original form. What
particular issue about the language seemed to have brought about these
differences?
6-List the most popular sonneteers in the English language. (both forms).
1-Definition.
The word sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto. It means a small or little
song or lyric. In poetry, a sonnet has 14 fourteen lines and is written in iambic
pentameter. Each line has 10 syllables. It has a specific rhyme scheme and a volta
or a specific turn. Generally, sonnets are divided into different groups based on the
rhyme scheme they follow. The rhymes of a sonnet are arranged according to a
certain rhyme scheme.
Meaning: Petrarchan sonnets make use of elaborate and emotive descriptions and
superlative imagery. They portrait a lover and the background of the picture is
entirely covered with flames. This suggests that the man is being portrayed as a
lover who is burning because, as Petrarchan rhetoric dictates, love is fire and
passion burns. In Petrarchan sonnets, lovers usually lament their sad fate, which is
to love without being loved in return. Some Petrarchan conventions include an
idealized mistress, who is often absent or unavailable and emotionally distant or
cruel, whereas the poet is of a lesser status. Therefore, the Petrarchan lover, is
represented as someone who burns in his own unrequited passion while the woman
who is loved is chaste, virtuous and unattainable. Other topoi or commonplaces of
Petrarchism are: unrequited love; the lover who cannot stop loving even though he is
burning in his own passion, love as pain; love as passion stronger than will; the lover
who is chained to his love; the lovers fidelity to his lady; the use of oxymoron (love is
a freezing fire); love as labyrinth and the power of love to transcend death: love is
stronger than death, love is immortal.
Sonnet 130
(a) My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
(b) Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
(a) If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
(b) If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
The Spenserian sonnet is a variation of the English sonnet with the rhyme scheme
ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, in which the quatrains are linked by a continuation of one
end-rhyme from the previous quatrain.
Meaning: The traditional subject of the sonnet has primarily been love. However,
Shakespeare mocked the standard worshipful attitude of the Petrarchan sonnet.
Development of the English sonnet led to consideration of other topics, including
mortality, mutability, politics, and writing itself.
4-How/When was the sonnet introduced in England. Who did it?
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a 16th-century English politician, ambassador, and lyric poet.
He is credited with introducing the sonnet into English literature, alongside with his
friend Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
A significant amount of Wyatts literary output consists of translations and imitations
of sonnets by the Italian poet Petrarch, and he also wrote sonnets of his own. He
took subject matter from Petrarch's sonnets, but his rhyme schemes make a
significant departure. Petrarch's sonnets consist of an "octave", rhyming abba abba,
followed, after a turn (volta) in the sense, by a "sestet" with various rhyme schemes.
Wyatt employs the Petrarchan octave, but his most common sestet scheme is cddc
ee. This marks the beginnings of an exclusively "English" contribution to sonnet
structure, that is three quatrains and a closing couplet.
Together, Wyatt and Surrey, due to their excellent translations of Petrarch's sonnets,
are known as "Fathers of the English Sonnet". While Wyatt introduced the sonnet
into English, it was Surrey who gave them the rhyming meter and the division into
quatrains that now characterises the sonnets variously named English, Elizabethan
or Shakespearean sonnets.
5-State the differences between the English sonnet and the original form. What
particular issue about the language seemed to have brought about these
differences?
Both the Petrarchan and the English sonnet differ greatly within their forms while still
considered the same type of poem. So as to explain the origin of this difference,
some history is needed. Henry Howard, a contemporary of Wyatts (whose own
translations of Petrarch are considered most faithful to the original form, though they
were less fine to the ear) modified the Petrarchan, thus establishing the structure
that became known as the Shakespearean sonnet. This structure has been noted to
lend itself much better to the comparatively rhyme-poor English language.
They mostly differ from each other in terms of structure. While the Petrarchan sonnet
is divided into two parts (the octave and the sestet), the Elizabethan or English
sonnet is divided into three four-line stanzas called quatrains, along with a final two-
line couplet. In the former type of sonnet the volta is located at the ninth line, just
after the eight-line octave. As it was mentioned above, it is often signified by a
transitional word or phrase like thus or but or and yet as the sestet resolves the
ideas found in the octave. The English sonnet usually saves its turn for the transition
between the third stanza and the final couplet, which is the same place as the one
where the volta takes place. Sometimes though, the turn may not happen until the
couplet. The suddenness of the turn at the end makes this sonnet more uneven than
a Petrarchan one. Moreover, the Petrarchan sonnet also has a unique rhyme
scheme, since identical letters indicate a final rhymed syllable. Last but not least, the
specificity of the Petrarchan rhyme scheme works very well with the Italian language
as it has the ability to rhyme far more freely than is usually possible in English. In
comparison, the Shakespearean sonnet relies heavily on the final couplet which
often expounds upon, refutes, or otherwise illuminates the first 10 lines of the sonnet.
William Wordsworth ("London, 1802". It's an obvious call for help; the poet laments
the state of England, and expresses his fears about the health of the national
character. It's just a gosh darned good old-fashioned sonnet. In just fourteen lines,
Wordsworth manages to invoke his poetic forefather, sketch out his view of
England's character and inhabitants, and demonstrate to us just how skilled he is
with rhyme and meter by crafting a gorgeous Petrarchan sonnet)
Edmund Spenser (Amoretti. Spenser used a distinctive verse form, called the
Spenserian stanza. In a Spenserian sonnet, the last line of every quatrain is linked
with the first line of the next one. Many critics viewed Spenser as being a less
original and important sonneteer than contemporaries such as Shakespeare and
Sir Philip Sidney. However, Spenser also revised the tradition that he was drawing
from. Amoretti breaks with conventional love poetry. In the Petrarchan tradition,
the speaker yearns for a lover who is unavailable, as the love object is often
already married. Spensers innovation was to dedicate an entire sequence to a
woman he could honorably win. Elizabeth Boyle was an unmarried woman, and
their love affair eventually ended in marriage)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese, written 18451846. It
is a collection of 44 love sonnets, which was acclaimed and popular during the
poet's lifetime and it remains so. She was initially hesitant to publish them,
believing they were too personal. However, her husband insisted they were the
best sequence of English-language sonnets since Shakespeare's time and urged
her to publish them. To offer the couple some privacy, she decided to publish
them as if they were translations of foreign sonnets. She initially planned to title
the collection Sonnets from the Bosnian, but Robert proposed that she claim their
source was Portuguese, probably because of her admiration for Cames and
Robert's nickname for her: "my little Portuguese".)
WEBLIOGRAPHY
https://literarydevices.net/sonnet/
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/sonnet-poetic-form
http://study.com/academy/lesson/petrarchan-sonnet-rhyme-scheme-format-example-
poems.html
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/sonnet.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_(poet)#Wyatt.27s_poetry_and_influence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Howard,_Earl_of_Surrey
http://www.rc.umd.edu/sites/default/RCOldSite/www/rchs/sonnet.htm
https://www.youngwriters.co.uk/types-shakespearean-sonnet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_(poet)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_sonnets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Sidney
https://www.shmoop.com/london-1802/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoretti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnets_from_the_Portuguese
https://osuasyoulikeit.wordpress.com/contexts-for-as-you-like-it/shakespeares-
sources/petrarchan-conventions/
https://shelleylinkerenglish.wikispaces.com/Petrarchan+Convention
https://www.reference.com/art-literature/differences-between-petrarchan-
shakespearean-sonnets-1a20d8f8ec7b699#
http://education.seattlepi.com/difference-between-elizabethan-petrarchan-sonnet-
6505.html
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The literary workbook - Clara Calvo and Jean Jacques Weber.