What is a sonnet?
A sonnet is a one-stanza poem of fourteen lines, written in iambic pentameter. One way
to describe a verse line is to talk about how many stressed and unstressed syllables are in
the line. A simple grouping of syllables, some stressed, some unstressed, is called a foot.
The iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable. Pentameter means there are five feet in the line. "Iambic Pentameter," then,
means a line of ten syllables, which alternates unstressed and stressed syllables according
to the iambic rhythm.
The rhyme scheme of a sonnet refers to the pattern formed by the rhyming words at the
end of each line. Each end-rhyme is assigned a letter, and the fourteen letters assigned to
the sonnet describe the rhyme scheme. Different kinds of sonnets have different rhyme
schemes.
The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, named after the fourteenth century Italian poet
Petrarch, has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE. [You might imagine the endrhymes represented by the letters to be something like cat log hog bat, rat bog tog fat,
long neck noose, song heck loose]. The first eight lines, which all end in either rhyme A
[at] or B [og], form the octave. The last six lines, which end in C [ong], D [eck], or E
[oose], form the sestet. Variant rhyme schemes for the sestet also include CDCDCD and
CDEDCE. There is usually a pause or break in thought between the octave and sestet
called the volta, or turn. Traditionally, one main thought or problem is set out in the
octave and brought to a resolution in the sestet.
The Shakespearean or English sonnet was actually developed in the sixteenth century by
the Earl of Surrey, but is named after Shakespeare because of his great sonnet sequence
(a series of sonnets all exploring the same theme) printed in 1609 . The Shakespearean
sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, forming three quatrains (four
lines in a group) and a closing couplet (two rhymed lines). The problem is usually
developed in the first three quatrains, each quatrain with a new idea growing out of the
previous one. Sometimes the first two quatrains are devoted to the same thought,
resembling the octave of the Petrarchan sonnet, and followed by a similar volta. Most
strikingly unlike the Petrarchan version, the Shakespearean sonnet is brought to a punchy
resolution in the epigrammatic final couplet.
--Credit to a web source for the above definition
There are other variations of sonnets (some may take the terza rima form, for instance),
but for now, these two will be the foundation of our study of fixed form poetry and the
relationship between structure and meaning.
The Petrarchan sonnet is the foundation of the fixed form poem that has become so
popular among English teachers today. Here’s a little backstory on why Francesco
Petrarca came to perfect the form:
Laura, illustrated by her virtues and well-celebrated in my verse, appeared to me for the first time during my youth in
1327, on April 6, in the Church of Saint Claire in Avignon, in the first hour of the day; and in the same city, in the same
month, on the same sixth day at the same first hour in the year of 1348, withdrew from life, while I was at Verona,
unconscious of my loss.... Her chaste and lovely body was interred on the evening of the same day in the church of the
Minorites: her soul, as I believe, returned to heaven, whence it came.
Laura was the love of Petrarch's life. For her he perfected the sonnet and wrote the Canzoniere.
Who Laura was and even if she really existed is a bit of a mystery. It has often been believed that
the name "Laura" was a play on the name "laurel" the leaves which Petrarch was honoured with
for being the poet laureate.
However, there is a lot of evidence to show that Laura really did exist and that she was Laure de
Noves. Born 6 years after Petrarch in 1310 in Avignon she was the daughter of Audibert de
Noves (a Knight) and wife to Hugues II de Sade (and possibly the ancestor of the infamous
Marquis de Sade). She married at the age of 15 (January 16th, 1325) and Petrarch saw her for the
first time two years later on April 6th (Good Friday) in 1327 at Easter mass in the church of
Sainte-Claire d'Avignon.
Falling in love at first sight, Petrarch would be haunted by her
beauty for the rest of his life. Already being married she would
turn down all advances he made toward her.
She died at the age of 38 in the year 1348, on April 6th, Good
Friday, exactly 21 years to the very hour that Petrarch first saw
her (as Petrarch noted in his copy of a work by Virgil). There
is no record to the cause of her death, but it was either due to
the Black plague or possibly a pulmonary tuberculosis resulting from eleven childbirths.
Several years after her death, Maurice Sceve, a humanist, visiting Avignon had her tomb opened
and discovered inside a lead box. Inside was a medal representing a woman ripping at her heart,
and under that, a sonnet by Petrarch.
The question if Laure de Noves was Petrarch's Laura, or even if there was a Laura is a question
which may never be answered. Although he wrote the Canzoniere, a series of poems mostly about
Laura and his love for her, she is absent from even being mentioned in his letters except for a few
very rare cases where he talks about a past love he once had (letter to Posterity) and once where
he responds to an accusation that she is not real (Familiares II, IX)
If she was real, it is unknown if they ever spoke, or if she ever knew of his feelings for her.
Petrarch’s sonnets can be divided into two periods: the love sonnets
of the time in which Laura lived, and the sonnets he write mourning
her death.
Petrarchan:
In what bright realm, what sphere of radiant thought
Did Nature find the model whence she drew
That delicate dazzling image where we view
Here on this earth what she in heaven wrought
What fountain-haunting nymph, what dryad, sought
In groves, such golden tresses ever threw
Upon the gust? What heart such virtues knew?—
Though her chief virtue with my death is frought.
He looks in vain for heavenly beauty, he
Who never looked upon her perfect eyes,
The vivid blue orbs turning brilliantly –
He does not know how Love yields and denies;
He only knows, who knows how sweetly she
Can talk and laugh, the sweetness of her sighs.
A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
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Shakespearean:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
and often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Which??
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
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For That He Looked Not upon Her
By George Gascoigne
You must not wonder, though you think it strange,
To see me hold my louring head so low,
And that mine eyes take no delight to range
About the gleams which on your face do grow.
The mouse which once hath broken out of trap
Is seldom ’ticèd with the trustless bait,
But lies aloof for fear of more mishap,
And feedeth still in doubt of deep deceit.
The scorchèd fly, which once hath ’scaped the flame,
Will hardly come to play again with fire,
Whereby I learn that grievous is the game
Which follows fancy dazzled by desire:
So that I wink or else hold down my head,
Because your blazing eyes my bale have bred.
Thou Blind Man’s Mark
By Sir Philip Sydney
Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare,
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought ;
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care ;
Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought ;
Desire, desire ! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware ;
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought,
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare.
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought ;
In vain thou madest me to vain things aspire ;
In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire ;
For virtue hath this better lesson taught,—
Within myself to seek my only hire,
Desiring nought but how to kill desire.