POETRY: THE SONNET
Sonnet is a lyric in fourteen lines in iambic pentameter governed by certain rules in general and in the arrangement of the rhymes. The name is derived from the Italian word 'sonnetto' meaning 'little song'. A sonnet has only one leading thought or emotion, for example, Milton's 'On His Blindness' or Keats's 'On first Looking into Chapman's Homer'.
Sonnets were first written in Italy during the latter half of the thirteenth century. This form of sonnet is associated with the name of Petrarch, though the form was used by Dante even before Petrarch. A Petrarchan sonnet is composed of two parts - the octave comprising the first eight lines and the sestet comprising the last six lines. The octave has two rhymes 'a' and 'b' arranged in the ab ab, ab ab scheme. The sestet has three rhymes arranged in various forms as cde, cde or cde, dcd or cde,dce.
The octave may be divided into two stanzas of four lines in each called quatrains and the sestet into two stanzas of three lines each called tercets. At the end of the eighth line, there is a pause called volta. Milton wrote some of his sonnets in this manner.
The sonnet was introduced in England by Wyatt and Surrey in the 16th century. They discarded the Italian form and adopted a new rhyme scheme. Surrey wrote his sonnets in three quatrains in alternate rhymes followed by a concluding couplet - a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g. This form was later used by Shakespeare with marvelous success in his series of sonnets dedicated to Mr. W.H. So it came to be known as the Shakespearean Sonnet. Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Keats followed the Shakespearean pattern while Spenser adopted a slightly altered form of the Shakespearean sonnet. He used an intermixture of rhyme to connect each of the quatrains making it a b a b, b c b c, c d c d, e e . And this is known as the Spenserian Sonnet.
The common theme of a sonnet is love as in the sonnets of Shakespeare, Philip Sidney and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. However several poets have used other themes also in their sonnets. For instance Milton's sonnet 'On His Blindness'.
Contemporary poets have continued to expand on the sonnet form, choosing to write in tetrameter, blank verse and with different rhyme schemes such as a a b b, c c d d, e e f f, g g. Such sonnets are known as the Modern Sonnet.
#EXAMPLE OF PETRARCHAN SONNET :
Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent by John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
#EXAMPLE OF SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET :
Sonnet 80 by Shakespeare
O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth willfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wracked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride.
Then, if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this: my love was my decay.
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth willfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
Or, being wracked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride.
Then, if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this: my love was my decay.
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth willfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
Or, being wracked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride.
Then, if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this: my love was my deca
#EXAMPLE OF SPENSERIAN SONNET :
Amoretti LXXV : Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spenser
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wracked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride.
Then, if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this: my love was my decay.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
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