From lecture four, we have come to know that the sonnet, the ode, and the elegy are lyric poems because they express the personal feelings of the poet musically and they do not tell any story. This fifth lecture is going to explain the sonnet in detail. Through this lecture, the readers will come to know what the sonnet is, what its structure is, and how different forms of the sonnet have evolved with the passage of time.
The term sonnet is originated from the Italian word "sonetto" which means "little song". The sonnet is a 14-line poem. Though the origin of the sonnet is obscure, it is thought that Italy is the place where the sonnet originates from. Giacomo da Lentini was the person who wrote the sonnet and established its law in the late 13th century. It was his sonnet that influenced famous renaissance poet and philosopher Petrarch and Dante's writing of sonnets.
The Italian sonnet is also known as the Petrarchan sonnet though Petrarch did not invent the sonnet. By the way, the Petrarchan sonnet has a certain structure. It is a 14-line poem divided into two parts--an octave and a sestet. The octave has a fixed rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA. On the other hand, the sestet follows either the commonly used CDCCDC rhyme scheme or the CDECDE scheme. The sonnets Petrarch wrote to Laura are the finest love songs we have ever seen. These sonnets became models for many poets of later generations.
However, we can notice slight changes when the sonnet reached England. Sir Tomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, who was the Earl of Surrey, were the two renaissance poets and imitators of Petrarch converted from two parts sonnet to three quatrains and a couplet. It means the sonnet consists of three stanzas and a couplet. Each stanza consists of four lines. So, two parts of the sonnet have been changed into three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme also became changed. Each quatrain has an independent rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. This rhyme was established by Surrey and this was the form that was most used in England. This was just a formal change that took place in the sonnet when it came to England. However, they continued imitating Petrarch. The sonnet still remained a way of expressing romantic love. Moreover, another common thing was that the lover speaks out to address the beloved.
Sydney was the first one who again wrote a sequence under the title Astrophel and Stella printed in 1591. Astrophel is the lover and Stela is beloved. Here, addressing Stella, Astrophel speaks out the sonnet and Sydney makes a sequence of hundred poems. Later, Shakespeare wrote a sequence of hundred and fifty-four sonnets. Shakespeare addresses Laura in his sonnets. Laura was the girl he was in love with. However, Shakespeare's first hundred and twenty-six sonnets address Shakespeare's friend. The rest of the sonnets address the dark lady Laura. So, a sonnet must have an object of the speaker.
Then comes other English writers. Spenser, who introduced a bit challenging rhyme scheme, is one of them. His rhyme scheme is: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. It means that rhyming words of one quatrain have to inform rhymes in following quatrains.
The rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet is adorable. The rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet is: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Most of the contemporaries of Shakespeare followed Shakespeare's rhyme scheme.
So, in England, the sonnet has four parts: three quatrains and a couplet. However, what is noticeable in the sonnet in England is the rhyme scheme. Here, we see the variation in the rhyme scheme. Each major poet followed has his own rhyme scheme.
In the early 17th century, John Donne brought a new trend. Here, we see the new arrangement of lines. In Done's sonnets Lines are arranged in two quatrains and a sestet. Moreover, the theme of Donne's sonnets is religious. He wrote a series of nineteen poems on religious themes. Even the title sound religious: Holy Sonnets.
Milton brought a variety of themes in his sonnet writing though he followed the Petrarchan line arrangement: ABBAABBA and CDECDE. Apart from love and nature, Milton brought religious, political, intellectual issues as subject matters. The introduction of enjambment is another dimension that Milton brought in his writing. Milton did not write any sequence and his poems were not about love. Furthermore, Miltonic sonnets seem to be more serious in tone than the love sonnets Petrarch or other English poets wrote. However, we can find a similarity with English or Petrarchan sonnet--focusing on the meaning of a single event.
After Milton, the sonnet began to perish for a hundred years. We can hardly find any significant publication except At Ostend, Ode on the Death of Richard West, and To the River London by William Bowel, Thomas Warton, and Thomas Grey respectively. However, sonnets began to flourish in the hands of some romantic poets such as William Wordsworth, Shalley, Keats, and Byron. Their writings of sonnet were adorable. Wordsworth is considered to be the best one among romantic poets. His Composed Upon Westminister Bridge, September 3, 1802, On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic are some of his best writings. Bright Star! Would I were steadfast as thou art and On First Looking to Chapman's Homer are Keats' two brilliant sonnets. Shelley's Ozymandian and England in 1819 are the two well-known sonnets taught everywhere. In fact, the sonnet was a popular form of writing in the Romantic period. William Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, and Shelley wrote 523, 67, 48, and 18 sonnets respectively. The romantics had shown a variety in theme writing, ranging from politics to religion to nature to friendship to life and death. Though love was not one of the dominant themes, they also brought the theme of love in some poems In general romantic poets followed the form of Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnet. However, they showed liberty in the usage of form. Shelley's Ozymandian is one of the examples. The pattern that Ozymandian followed is ab ab ac dc ed ef ef.
Love sequence again became a dominant theme in the hands of many Victorian writers. More than a hundred poets wrote sonnets in this age, and more than three thousand sonnets were written in the age. The famous sonnet writings of this age were Elizabeth Barret Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, Robert Bridges' The Growth of Love, Christiana Rossetti's Monna Innominata, etc. Besides, great victorian writers Robert Browning, Mathew Arnold, and Thomas Hardy also wrote several sonnets. The sonnet sequence, especially the sequence of love, became reestablished in the hands of many Victorian writers. However, the Victorian poets brought modification in the sonnet vogue. Here, we see the acceptance of the 16 line sonnet. Moreover, if you go to read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem, you'll see the modification of the tradition of the sonnet. In her poem, you will come across the introduction of female desire in a structure that is conventionally expressed from a perspective of a male.
The modern sonnet introduced the most unconventional type of sonnet. Here, you will see that the modern sonnets do not follow any strict rules like the Petrarchan or English sonnets. In modern sonnets, we can see that number of the lines may go beyond the traditional 14 lines. Adam Kirsch's Professional Middle-Class Couple, 1927 is an example of the stretched sonnet. Besides, the modern sonnets also bring variety to the theme. Moreover, modern sonnets are not liable to any fixed number of lines, syllables, and rhyme scheme. They took the liberty to express their thoughts in almost any way they could imagine.
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