Sonnets…
were first written in Italian and were traditionally love poems. Though the sonnet is a form that can be experimented with, it has remained true to its original length of fourteen lines and its Anglicized meter of iambic pentameter. Petrarch developed the sonnet to one of its highest levels during early Renaisannce Italy, but it wasn't translated into English until the sixteenth century. From there, Shakespeare made the sonnet famous in England and others followed his lead.
The sonnet can be thematically divided into two sections: the first presents the theme, raises an issue or doubt, and the second part answers the question, resolves the problem, or drives home the poem's point. This change in the poem is called the turn and helps move forward the emotional action of the poem quickly, as fourteen lines can become too short too fast.
Most sonnets are one of two kinds:
- Italian (Petrarchan)- this sonnet is split into two parts, an octave and a sestet. The octave is composed of two envelope quatrains rhyming "abba abba" (Italian octave). The sestet's rhyme pattern varies, though it is most often either "cde cde" (Italian sestet) or "cdc dcd" (Sicilian sestet). The turn occurs at the end of the octave and is developed and closed in the sestet. Over the years, the Italian sonnet has been the most favored type of sonnet.
Donald Justice- "Sonnet: The Poet at Seven"
And on the porch, across the upturned chair,
The boy would spread a dingy counterpane
Against the length and majesty of the rain,
And on all fours crawl under it like a bear
To lick his wounds in secret, in his lair;
And afterwards, in the windy yard again,
One hand cocked back, release his paper plane
Frail as a mayfly to the faithless air.
And summer evenings he would whirl around
Faster and faster till the drunken ground
Rose up to meet him; sometimes he would squat
Among the bent weeds of the vacant lot,
Waiting for dusk and someone dear to come
And whip him down the street, but gently home.
Notice the turn at line 9, "And summer evenings . . ." and how it develops and closes the poem by the last line. Justice changed the form a bit, rhyming the sestet "ccd dee," or viewed as couplets "cc dd ee."
- English (Shakespearian)- this contains 3 Sicilian quatrains and one heroic couplet at the end, with an "abab cdcd efef gg" rhyme scheme. The turn comes at or near line 13, making the ending couplet quick and dramatic. Not many modern writers have taken to writing the Shakesperean sonnet. e. e. cummings, not known to the general public for sonnet writing, supplies us with a Shakespearean sonnet example:
)when what hugs stopping earth than silent is
more silent than more than much more is or
total sun oceaning than any this
tear jumping from each most least eye of star
and without was if minus and shall be
immeasurable happenless unnow
shuts more than open could that every tree
or than all his life more death begins to grow
end's ending then these dolls of joy and grief
these recent memories of future dream
these perhaps who have lost their shadows if
which did not do the losing spectres mine
until out of merely not nothing comes
only one snowflake(and we speak our names
Here are two other almost common sonnet types:
- Spenserian- this sonnet is very similar to the Shakespearian sonnet in form, though its rhyme scheme is slightly different. It is written with 3 Sicilian quatrains and an ending heroic couplet. It rhymes "abab bcbc cdcd ee", such that the rhyme scheme interlocks each of the quatrains, much like the terza rima is made of interlocking triplets.
- Envelope sonnet- this is made with two envelope quatrains and a sestet: "abba cddc efgefg (efefef)". It is almost exactly like the Italian sonnet except the quatrains use different rhymes (notice both quatrains in the Italian rhyme "abba").
Examples:
Italian Sonnet
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent by Milton
When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b)
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a)
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d)
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c)
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)
Shakespearean Sonnet:
Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, illustrates the form:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a)
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)
O no, it is an ever fixed mark (c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c)
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)
If this be error and upon me proved, (g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)
Spenserian Sonnet
Happy ye leaves! when those lily hands
Happy ye leaves! when those lily hands, (a)
Which hold my life in their dead doing might, (b)
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands, (a)
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight. (b)
And happy lines on which, with starry light, (b)
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,(c)
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite, (b)
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book. (c)
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook (c)
Of Helicon, whence she derived is, (d)
When ye behold that angel's blessed look, (c)
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss. (d)
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone, (e)
Whom if ye please, I care for other none. (e)
Contemporary Sonnets:
Sonnet XVII: Love
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
-- Pablo Neruda
Sonnet Substantially Like the Words of F Rodriguez One Position Ahead of Me on the Unemployment Line
by Jack Agüeros
It happens to me all the time--business
Goes up and down but I'm the yo-yo spun
Into the high speed trick called sleeping
Such as I am fast standing in this line now.
Maybe I am also a top; they too sleep
While standing, tightly twirling in place.
I wish I could step out and listen for
The sort of music that I must make.
But this is where the state celebrates its sport.
From cushioned chairs the agents turn your ample
Time against you through a box of lines.
Your string is both your leash and lash.
The faster you spin, the stiller you look.
There's something to learn in that, but what?
Pediophilia: Love of dolls
By Jessica Piazza
My aunt's room in her parents' house became
a home for dolls the week she died. The first
a neighbor's fearsome, glass-gazed gift that dulled
my grandma's utter grief; the next a paint
and porcelain she numbly bought one night
from QVC. It looked like her. And now
she sees her children's children grow, and knows
it's good. But they can't guess each tiny dress
arranged by day comes into disarray
by night. They bring her dolls; naïve, as she
weeps in the overflowing sea of limbs
that managed, year by year, to commandeer
the bed, the floor, and more…an orphanage
of girls. Hundreds of eyes that cannot shut.