Litelinks: January 2008

Links:

Wikipedia - of course wiki :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet

Guide to a Sonnet

http://www.utm.edu/departments/english/everett/sonnet.htm

Note on Sonnet - Good

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sonnet.html

Archive of sonnets

http://www.sonnets.org/

How to Write a sonnet

http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/sonnet.shtml

History of Sonnet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A912241 -

The following is actually an amalgamation of info from the Net but the link I had used to access most of the following info seems to be untraceable now.
(Please Note: I have been too lazy to rectify most formatting errors like italicising texts' names).

The Makings of Literature in English:The Sonnet Tradition

The making of a literature in English is the story of an English Bible, of humanist works which attempted to improve society through perfection of the individual, and of a poetic tradition which began most clearly with the sonnet.

What is a Sonnet?

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. It follows one of several set rhyme schemes. The two basic types are:

the Italian or Petrarchan: generally an octave + a sestet (abbaabba + cdecde, cdcdcd or cdedce). The octave presents a narrative, rasises a question or states a proposition to which the sestet then responds.
the English or Shakespearean: uses four divisions: three quatrains + rhymed couplet for a conclusion. The quatrains can have different rhyme schemes, but the typical pattern is abab cdcd efef gg.

But there is a third type:
the Spenserian: quite rare, this style complicates the Shakespearean form by linking rhymes in the quatrains: abab bcbc cdcd ee.

The sonnet developed in twelfth or thirteenth century Italy, but its reached its height in the fourteenth under

Francesco Petrarch, who gave it the distinctive name. Conventionally, such sonnets as Petrarch's dealt with the theme of idealized love. From Petrarch, poets would receive a wealth of conventions or "conceits."

What are Petrarchan Conceits?

A "conceit" is a fanciful notion, generally expressed through an elaborate analogy or metaphor. The sonnet tradition carried its own peculiar conceits which have made their way into our social consciousness.
From Petrarch, the sonneteers of the Renaissance took not only a conventional form but also conventional sentiments. The relation between the poet and his beloved is presented in terms of an idealized courtly love: the persona is a "humble servant" tossed by a tempest on the sea of despair, the beloved can wound with a glance, and her beauty is described in stereotypical fashion. Her cheeks are like roses, her eyes sparkle, and her lips are ruby red.
Shakespeare pokes great fun at such conventions with his "Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun."

In the court of Henry VIII, a group of poets arose who would make significant contributions to the development of a literature in English. Chief among these "courtly makers" were Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. With their translations of Petrarch's work, Wyatt and Surrey are responsible for introducing the sonnet form into English.

In addition to translating Petrarch, both Wyatt and Surrey created their own sonnets in English, thus establishing a poetic form and a poetic tradition for those writers who followed them.

Although its rules of order and arrangement might seem limiting, the sonnet was actually a challenging "proving ground" for poets: they tested their poetic mettle on it before branching off into other forms. It required the sort of discipline that prepared them for more creative, original works. In polishing their own writing and technique, they also polished English as a fit language for poetic endeavors.

Following the tradition of Petrach some poets even created a sonnet sequence, a collection of poems linked to one another and dealing with a single subject. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, Lady Mary Wroth's From Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Shakespeare's sonnets, and Spenser's Amoretti are examples of sonnet sequences.

Sir Thomas Wyatt(1503-42)
The older of the two "courtly makers" of Henry's court, Wyatt can be identified as the father of modern English poetry: it is with his translations from Petrarch that the tradition in English begins.
Wyatt and others who followed him "exercised" the vernacular in two ways:

They translated from classical models like Petrarch, and
They experimented with a great variety of lyric measures in an effort to restore flexibility lost after Chaucer.

These early poets were basically craftsmen rather than artists in the standard sense:

Rather than originate fresh themes, they repeatedly treated a conventional subject matter in an effort to create a fluid style,
They borrowed, imitated and translated from Italian and French poets, as well as one another, and
They circulated their poetry in manuscript form and relied on each other rather than the larger public for encouragement and criticism.

Wyatt's poetic contributions are a bit uneven:

He often seems unsure of where the stress or accent should fall in a line,
He often cannot sustain an idea through the entire design of the poem, which is critical in the sonnet, and
His spellings are inconsistent (a trait of the times!), which makes the line's stress often unclear.

What to expect from Wyatt's sonnets:

He uses typical Petrarchan conventions (the lover as a ship tossed on the seas of love; the lover alternately freezing and burning hot, among them);
His language and syntax are more difficult, making his sonnets a bit tougher to "crack;"
He generally translates from Italian models, which means his themes or issues don't usually originate with him;
He generally follows the rhyme scheme abba cddc effe gg
He often presents the two sides of love--physical and spiritual--but no union between them, which makes his work slightly different from the Petarchan mold.

On the whole, Wyatt's lighter verses are more successful than his sonnets.

The first English sonneteer,

Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) learned of the form during travels in Spain and Italy. He is more widely known for his other lyrics but wrote 32 sonnets in the form that has come to be known as the Petrarchan sonnet. There has been debate as to whether Wyatt's iambic pentameter was ingeniously varied or simply clumsy. It is helpful to keep in mind when reading Wyatt that he was exploring new literary territory and that the accenting of syllables in English has changed since his time.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey(1517?-1530)

Like Wyatt, Surrey travelled to Italy, and his imagination was captured by Petrarch's sonnets.

In terms of his contribution to the development of a literature in English, Surrey has less strength but more polish than Wyatt. He is more successful in fitting the accent to the normal accent of the word in spoken language, but he lacks the originality of Wyatt's creative touches.

Of the two, Surrey is more of a craftsman; Wyatt, more of an artist.

What to know about Surrey's work:

Much of his verse handles the traditional Petrarchan theme of love, with typical Petrarchan conceits.
He uses a natural imagery that is livelier and more "English" than that found in Petrarchan models;
His language is often more "modern" than Wyatt's; thus, his meanings are often clearer;
His rhymes are often "smoother" and easier than Wyatt's;
His favorite rhyme scheme is 3 quatrains + a couplet: abab cdcd efef gg (with some variations); and
He is fond of using the conceit of antithesis, as in his sonnet

"Alas, So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace."

Surrey is best known for his sonnets, smoother and more elegant than those of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Surrey's sonnets for the first time used the rhyme scheme Shakespeare later used.

Surrey probably got the idea of blank verse from another Italian verse form, versi sciolti, which is also unrhymed.

What is Antithesis?

Antithesis is a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, ideas, clauses, sentences. An example is "Man proposes, God disposes."

Like Wyatt, Surrey also produced other types of poetry, and it is in these other forms--especially the autobiographical works--that his true artistry is found.
Surrey is perhaps best known for introducing blank verse into English with his translation of Virgil's The Aeneid.

What is Blank Verse?
Blank verse is unrhymed but otherwise regular verse, generally iambic pentameter. Blank verse is considered to be the best form for dramatic verse.

Blank verse

Blank verse, the basic pattern of language in Shakespeare's plays, is (in its regular form) a verse line of ten syllables with five stresses and no rhyme (hence "blank"). It was first used in England by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey* in his translation of the Æneid (c.1554).
Most early drama was written in rhyming verse, often in "fourteeners"--lines of fourteen syllables, also known as "poulters' measure" because it sounds like hens clucking.
But Norton and Sackville chose blank verse for their tragedy, Gorboduc, praised by Sir Philip Sidney for its rhetoric, and by the time Marlowe brought real brilliance to the language of the stage, blank verse had become the metre of choice.

Shakespeare's blank verse
In general, Shakespeare's blank verse, and the verse of his peers, evolved over the years from regular ten-syllable, regular, end-stopped lines: to become increasingly flexible, often including one or two extra syllables, and varying the regular iambic rhythm. Hamlet's most famous soliloquy begins relatively regularly, but the following lines each have an extra syllable:

Although the poetry of Wyatt and Surrey was not published during their lifetimes, after their deaths their work was collected in 1557 by the printer Richard Tottel.

The First Anthologies?Tottel's Miscellany & Other Collections of Renaissance Verse

Tottel published Wyatt's and Surrey's work, along with the poetry of others, in his massively popular Songes and Sonnettes, written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other (more commonly known as Tottel's Miscellany).
Tottel's collection ushered in many other such anthologies during Elizabeth's reign. They had wonderfully suggestive titles, among them The Paradise of Dainty Devices, A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, A Handful of Pleasant Delights.

Sir Philip Sidney(1554-86)

Sir Philip Sidney was considered both by his day and history as an ideal and courteous knight--along with Thomas More, he was the quintessential Renaissance man. A nobleman, he was an active participant in the most engaging and significant literary discussions of the time.

As with Wyatt and Surrey, none of Sidney's work was published during his lifetime, although it circulated widely in manuscript. His sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella, which appeared in 1591, can be considered responsible for the large number of sonnet sequence which followed it. Sidney's sequence of 108 sonnets also includes 11 songs.

Who was Sidney's Stella?
Penelope Devereux, who was betrothed to Sidney in her youth, is the original for Stella in Sidney's sonnet sequence. When the engagement was broken, she married Lord Rich and Sidney married Frances Walsingham. However, the clearly autobiographical sonnet sequence records his hopeless love for Devereux.

What should we take from Sidney's sonnets?

They move more toward modern English and are therefore a bit easier for the modern reader to grasp;
They combine Petarchan conceits with original expression and feeling, which means that they are gradually moving away from mere translation to true creative expression;
The sequence leads toward the building of a complete narrative or free-standing story;
He used very clear rhyme schemes, among them abab abab cdcd ee.
His themes were not confined to the love contemplating his beloved; instead, they encompassed such diverse themes as the notion of originality in English (Sonnet 1) and the act of writing itself.

Sir Edmund Spenser(1552-99)

Spenserian Sonnet

Sonnet with the interlocking rhyme scheme used by Edmund Spenser as follows: abab,bcbc,cdcd,ee. For an example, see "Happy ye leaves, whenas those lily hands".

Spenserian Sonnet Form describes the Spenserian Sonnet, a sonnet variation developed in the sixteenth century by English poet Edmund Spenser. While few poets have used this form, it serves as a bridge between the Italian sonnet and the form used by Shakespeare.

In a Spenserian sonnet, the rhyme scheme used is ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, and there does not appear to be a requirement that the initial octet sets up a problem which the closing sestet answers. Instead, the form is treated as three quatrains (linked by the connected rhyme scheme described above) followed by a couplet. Again, iambic pentameter is used.

Spenser's sonnet sequence, the Amoretti, fittingly was published along with his Epithalamion, a poem written in honor of his wedding to Elizabeth Boyle. Whether his sonnets were written for her is an unanswerable question--as they focus on the ebbing and flowing of a romance: first the lover gains his love, then he loses her.

Here's what you should know about Spenser's sonnets:

He used the sonnet sequence to tell the story of the ups and downs of a romance.
He often used Petrarchan conceits but also utilitzed elements from his personal life; thus, the sonnets are not merely Petrarchan exercises but a means of personal revelation.
His usual rhyme scheme was abab bcbc cdcd ee (the Spenserian form).
He deliberately used archaic spellings, yet the meaning is crystal clear in most cases: the syntax and expressions are unusually modern at times.
He also extends his themes beyond contemplation of the beloved to matters of religion and the immortality of writing/poetry.
His sonnets blend the spiritual and the physical.
He is fond of using a catalogue of the beloved's virtues (See Sonnets XV and LXIV).

William Shakespeare(1564-1616)
Shakespeare began his career as a poet, and his plays show the artistry developed in such forms as the sonnet. Written over a number of years, his sonnets were not published until 1609, considerably after the "vogue" for sonnets had passed.

With his sonnets, Shakespeare breaks from tradition in several ways:

They do not revolve around a single female figure--as do Petrarch's, Sidney's and Spenser's--but they instead are written to three separate figures, male and female: a blond young aristocrat, a mysterious dark lady, and a rival poet.
The tripartite focus gives Shakespeare's sonnets greater range.
One of his major themes is the passage of time and its effect on people.
While he adopts traditional Petarchan conceits (Sonnet XVIII), he also turns such conceits on their heads (Sonnet CXXX).
The sonnets use compact language, a range of tone, and profound word play.
The sonnets have a particularly moral bent or vision.
He balanced his sonnets on a final couplet of rhyming lines.

John Donne(1573-1631)

Although later sonneteers like Shakespeare and Ben Jonson play with the Petrarchan tradition, the first really significant change in the genre occurred at the end of the 16th century, when religion gradually displaced love as the primary subject of the sonnet, setting in motion a thematic shift that would lead to even greater innovation in later years.
Donne was the first to express and fully develop the potential of the form the expression of religious faith. In his Holy Sonnets (written mainly 1608-10), he explores his obsessions with death and salvation.

Donne changed the face of the sonnet in several ways:

His sonnets focus on religious topics.
He experiments with form and structure: many of his poems do not follow the traditional octave-sestet division.
His sonnets are remarkable for how they dignify the genre: they show how a form often used to showcase a poet's wit and technique, or to express oft-repeated sentiments of love, could be adapted to provide a forum for intense religious sentiments.

John Milton(1608-1674)
Milton's sonnets--which he produced over the course of his poetic life--reflect both contemporary public and private events.
By his time, the great surge of Elizabethan sonneteering had past, and he was left with a form that was still useful but was in need of a change in direction, focus and variety. Instead of returning to his own English literary forebears, Milton took to the original: he adopted the Petrarchan rhyme scheme and, in doing so, reenergized the English sonnet.

Although he is writing sonnets past their glorious age, Milton took his work with the tradition to new heights:

He most often conceived the sonnet as a continuous verse paragraph, with
the dividing thought cutting across the rhyme divisions, and
the division into octave and sestet.
He eschewed love as his primary theme--rejected traditional Petrarchan themes--and instead turned to such diverse topics as
personal themes: his late maturation; his blindness; the death of his wife;
public or "occasional" themes: the English Civil War, with its deep divisions; religious persecution; political protests;
heroic themes: in praise of famous men [a development unique to Milton]

For originality, thematic variety, and craftsmanshsip, Milton's sonnets are unique in the language and are believed by some readers to be perhaps the most important development in the genre since Wyatt and Surrey.

So How Does This Sonnet Story End?

Essentially, sonnets do not disappear; in fact, they are still being written today. But they experienced their greatest vogue during the Renaissance, and thereafter they declined in popularity.
Although Milton dramatically revived (resuscitated?) the form, other poets were not inspired by his example. After him, very few sonnets were written during 1660-1740.
Eighteenth century and subsequent generations of writers tended to reject the sonnet form, but it still cropped up periodically. For example, Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, both 19th century writers, adapted the form to their own uses.

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