THE SONNET

 

THE SONNET

 

PREPARED BY S. SREEKUMAR

 

In his The Development of the Sonnet, Michael Spiller states that the sonnet is ‘probably the longest-lived of all poetic forms” and that almost all the major poets of Britain, ‘with the exception of the Augustan poets’, have taken to sonneteering at some time or other in their poetic career. John Fuller (in his monograph on the sonnet) agrees with this view. He highlights some of the reasons for the longevity of the genre: 

 

 

‘It (the sonnet) gives a simple yet flexible means to a classic artistic end: the expression of as much gravity substance and lyrical beauty as a deceptively modest form can bear. The form is a minor one, but capable of the greatest things…’

 

 

Poets had realized the flexibility, precision, and vigour of the sonnet long before the critics and had paid it rich tributes. Examples are many though we quote only a few:  

 

 

• Shakespeare had great belief in the eternal destiny of the genre and he expressed his views in Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?):

 

               So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

               So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

 

•       John Donne, another Elizabethan eight years junior to Shakespeare, had much the same faith in the sonnet when he canonized it in one of his celebrated lyrics—'The Canonization’.               

 

 

 And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

                 We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

               As well a well-wrought urn becomes

               The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,

 

 

The sonnet for Donne was a pretty room and a well-wrought urn, “compact and shapely that contains in a concentrated form almost all that is human” (Spiller).

 

 

• Almost three hundred years later, the sonnet had not lost any of its charms as the Pre- Raphaelite poet D. G. Rossetti went on to build ‘a moment’s monument’ and a ‘Memorial from the Soul’s eternity’ with it. The poem Sonnet (from which the above line originates) constitutes the prologue to a sonnet sequence, appropriately titled, The House of Life. 

 

 

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE

 

 

The word sonnet originates from the Italian word sonetto, meaning ‘a little song’ or ‘short refrain’.

 

The form was popular in the Italian court of the thirteenth century. Giacomo de Lentini is credited with its invention, though Francesco Petrarca [Petrarch, 1304-1374] was its most famous early practitioner. From the Italian court, the sonnet reached the English court of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) brought the form to England. Wyatt was a poet and politician, and ambassador in the service of King Henry. He brought the form mainly through translations of Continental poets. His poems were circulated at the court and might have been published anonymously in the anthology, The Court of Venus (1537). However, the first book to publish Wyatt’s verse was Tottel's Miscellany (1557), printed 15 years after his death.

 

 

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, took up the sonnet form introduced by Wyatt. Surrey was a younger contemporary and fellow courtier. He gave the sonnet the rhyming meter and the division into quatrains that now characterize the English / Shakespearean sonnet. Thus, the evolution of the sonnet began with Surrey.  Later, Sir Philip Sidney used Petrarch as a model, but with some variation, when he composed the sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella. The form was adopted and enthusiastically embraced by the Elizabethans, most notably by Shakespeare, who gave it the structure we commonly think of today: 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter.

 

 

Through several early acts of translation and modification, the sonnet gained elasticity and dynamism. As the form matured, there emerged unrhymed sonnets+, tailed sonnets+ (15–20 lines), and curtal+ (or curtailed) sonnets (10–13 lines). 

 

+Unrhymed sonnet—example—‘The Secret Agent’ (1928) by W.H. Auden. Tailed sonnet or Caudate Sonnet is an extended sonnet with a coda or tail added at the end. Usually, this sonnet has 15 to 20 lines. It has satiric purposes. Example: Milton’s ‘On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament, where he satirizes the Presbyterians. A curtal sonnet is an eleven-line (or, more accurately, ten-and-a-half-line) sonnet form invented by Hopkins. Hopkins’ "Pied Beauty" is the best example.   

 

 

All movements in poetry (from Donne and the Metaphysicals to the Romantics and the Victorians) had used various sonnet forms.  Even today, there is a strong sonnet tradition. The poets of the twentieth century (Geraldine Monk, Keith Jebb, Robert Sheppard, Rose Kelleher, and Seamus Heaney, etc.)  continue to innovate and contribute to the sonnet tradition.

 

 

THE SONNET—VARIANTS

 

{\displaystyle {12 \over 2}+{9 \over 2}={21 \over 2}=10{1 \over 2}}

The sonnet form has two main variants—Italian (Petrarchan) and English (Shakespearean). They are called Petrarchan and Shakespearean, after the two celebrated practitioners of the forms— Francesco Petrarca and William Shakespeare.  

 

 

The Italian sonnet or Petrarchan sonnet has other names such as Latin / Classical /Miltonic, etc. The main feature of this sonnet is its bipartite structure—octave & sestet. John Fuller believes that the Petrarchan sonnet is “the legitimate form, as it alone recognizes that peculiar imbalance of parts,” which is the “salient characteristic” of the sonnet form. 

 

In the two-part structure of the sonnet, the first eight lines are called an octave, and the next six, a sestet. The rhyme scheme of the octave is always:  abba abba. The scheme of the sestet varies. The following are the most common types:

 

Type 1	Interlaced rhyme	cde cde
Type 2	Open rhyme:	cdc dcd
Type 3	------------------	cde dce
Type 4	------------------	cde ced
Type 5	French	ccd ede/ ccd ccd/ ccd eed

 

·      The octave presents a problem, expresses a desire or vision. It ends with a pause or caesura, usually marked by a full-stop. Thereupon the sestet begins.

·       In the sestet, there is a change/turn (Volta) in the thought process.  

·      The sestet attempts to find/suggest a solution to the problem posed by the octave.

·      If the octave had expressed a desire or vision, the sestet would express a contradiction.

·      There is either an element of surprise or a tone of conviction in the sestet.

·      Being more tightly organized and brief (with only six lines to the octave’s eight), there is tension implicit in the sestet as it forces the sonnet to a decisive conclusion.

·      This “unequal relationship between octave and sestet” is the fundamental feature of the Italian sonnet. “This relationship is of far greater significance than the fact that there are fourteen lines in the sonnet....” ( Fuller )

 

This bipartite structure of observation/ conclusion, statement / counter-statement is manifest in Holy Sonnets by Donne. These are Italian except for the concluding couplet. These sonnets are little dramas in which the poet’s will or ego first asserts itself (octave) and then seeks to bend itself to the Divine will (sestet). The dramatic contrasts are "subtly more effective by the contrasting rhymed sounds in the two divisions". (Beum and Shapiro).

 

 

For the Italian style, the best examples are Milton’s sonnets. Sonnet 7: “How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth” gives us an almost perfect model. 

 

 

           How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

           Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!

           My hasting days fly on with full career,

           But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.

           Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth

           That I to manhood am arriv'd so near;

           And inward ripeness doth much less appear,

           That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.

 

           Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

           It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n

           To that same lot, however mean or high,

           Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n:

           All is, if I have grace to use it so

           As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

 

The speaker laments that Time has taken away twenty- three years from his life. His days pass swiftly. He has not achieved anything worthwhile. He is close to manhood, though he does not look like one physically. Other people have accomplished more things in their life. But whatever he does, trivial or great, sooner or later, will be nothing more than his fate, which will be determined by Time and God. If he has the grace to follow God’s will, everything will be as God had planned it.

 

The poem can be divided into two parts and the division is structurally noticeable. The octave presents the problem: the speaker is unhappy that he has not achieved anything in his life though close to manhood. The octave stands as a unit with a distinct rhyme scheme—ABBA ABBA. This rhyming pattern “doubles back on itself”, as critics point out, repeating the same sounds again and again. It gives the poem obsessive energy and confirms the anxiety of the speaker.

 

   The turning point in the poem (Volta) comes in the ninth line with, ‘Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow’’. This line is the pivot between the octave and the sestet and marks a shift in perspective. The change in viewpoint is reflected in the change in rhyme pattern—CDE DCE.

  

   In the sestet, the speaker contradicts and corrects the assumptions of the octave. No matter how hard he works, the speaker can accomplish something grand only when God wants him to. God has a plan, and the speaker can do nothing more or nothing less. Thus a counterargument is proposed to the arguments in the octave.

 

The rhyme scheme of the sestet has some interesting features. The standard Petrarchan formula is CDE, CDE but Milton upsets the reader’s expectations by making the lines rhyme CDE DCE. This is an awkward change in an otherwise perfect poem. But the poet uses this modification to convey a subtle theological message to the reader. As the lines do not rhyme where one expects them to, so also the ways of God to Man. God’s plans are mysterious and may not materialize as and when man anticipates them. Man has to recalibrate his expectations, according to His will. 

 

The English sonnet/ Shakespearean sonnet

 

 

The conventions of the English/ Shakespearean sonnet vary widely from those of the Italian/Petrarchan. When evaluating these forms, we must remember that more than two centuries separate Petrarch and Shakespeare. Hence any attempt to compare them would be like comparing Henry Fielding with James Joyce.

 

The sonnet form that reached England through Wyatt and later adapted by Surrey gathered many votaries during the Elizabethan period. Surrey modified the octave-sestet pattern with three quatrains followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme also was changed to make it less demanding— abab cdcd efef gg.  About the change in the pattern and the rhyme scheme, Walter L. Bullock comments in The Genesis of the English Sonnet Form: “Indeed, English being so much poorer in rhymes than Italian, this form was almost inevitable; its adoption, once sonnets were written in English, was merely a matter of time’’. (PMLA)

 

However, the English sonnet created a different set of problems for the poets. The concluding couplet has to sum up competently the main theme spread out in twelve lines.  Moreover, to be impressive, the couplet must possess the compressed force of an epigram. Shakespeare successfully tackled these problems as we can see from the example given below:

 

Sonnet 130, “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”

   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.

 

The poem may not appear to be broken up into three quatrains and a couplet, but in terms of structure and sense units—4/4/4/2—it can be easily divided along those lines. Each of the three quatrains ends with a full-stop. The rhyme scheme also differs from quatrain to quatrain— ABAB, CDCD, EFEF. The final couplet, with a separate rhyme—GG, provides an epigrammatic close to the sonnet. The couplet is not a bland sum-up/repetition of what the poem says but adds another dimension to the poem.

 

The first quatrain describes, in frank and honest terms, the appearance of the mistress. The lines subvert and reverse the Petrarchan conventions of idealized women. Shakespeare mocks the Petrarchan tropes that compare women to angels by enumerating their beauty in sweet metaphors—eyes like the Sun, lips like corals, and so on.

 

The second quatrain is more fanciful and moves to roses and perfumes. There are no roses in her cheeks or perfumes in her breath. Worse still, her breath reeks.  [‘Reek’ in Shakespeare meant sweaty, heated, perspiring, etc.) Nothing can be more unromantic as Shakespeare ingeniously turns the unrealistic expectations of Petrarchan love sonnets on their head.

 

 

The third quatrain focuses on the voice and movement of the mistress. Here, the poet shows a positive attitude about the virtues of his mistress. He says that even if her voice is not music, he loves to listen to it. He knows that she is not a goddess as she treads on the ground when she walks. In this stanza, the poet has abandoned all Petrarchan pretensions by placing his mistress firmly on the ground. In the third quatrain, the undesirable comparisons of the earlier quatrains give way to neutral descriptions.

 

The final couplet begins by indicating a sharp turn or Volta in the poem. Though it comes very late, unlike in the Petrarchan model, we reconsider his earlier opinions about his mistress. He says in the couplet that despite all her faults, he is under her spell. The couplet rhymes—the lines end with rare and compare. The rhymes used in the couplet create the impression that it stands apart from the rest of the poem.

 

We wonder what the poet was doing in the three quatrains—was he judging his mistress harshly or mocking at the unrealistic expectations of the Petrarchan sonneteers of the period? In retrospect, Shakespeare’s mockery of the Petrarchan style seems ‘fully justified as the form was almost irredeemably overworked in the Renaissance’.

 

The Spenserian sonnet

 

Edmund Spenser developed his variant of the English sonnet, called the Spenserian sonnet. This variant follows the English quatrain and couplet pattern but resembles the Italian as it uses a linked rhyme scheme: abab bcbc cdcd ee. This scheme found no followers as the four b- and c- rhymes create difficulties. 

 

Sonnets were prevalent in every century except the eighteenth when the theory and brilliant practice of the heroic couplet crowded them out (Beum and Shapiro). Though the Italian and English forms were the major types, there were also some freak varieties, as Fuller calls them. We have already mentioned these freaks like unrhymed sonnets, tailed sonnets (15–20 lines), and curtal (or curtailed) sonnets (10–13 lines). These pay tribute only to the dominant echoes of the form, says Fuller. Fuller adds that we can come across strokes of brilliant license and drudgery of persistent misunderstanding in the history of the sonnet.  

 

Sonnet sequences

 

The sonnet sequences were common in the Elizabethan age—Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Daniel, Drayton, and many others wrote long sonnet sequences. Donne’s Holy Sonnets are excellent devotional poems. Some of Milton’s sonnets are among the great short poems in English. Milton wrote deeply personal sonnets, many of them occasional. Milton’s intensity and grandeur inspired Wordsworth to resurrect the form that lay buried during the Augustan period. For Wordsworth, the genre provided a medium for meditation. They brought back memories of the golden age of the Renaissance, much amenable to Romantic tastes. During the Victorian Age, the Pre-Raphaelites and Elizabeth Barrett Browning brought out sonnet sequences. Hopkins, Robert Bridges, Elizabeth Daryush and Robert Frost are the popular twentieth-century sonneteers. 

 

This material prepared by Dr S. Sreekumar is for undergraduate students of Indian Universities.

These lectures on poetry contain seven topics:

i.                Metrics,

ii.              Persona and tone,

iii.             Rhythm,

iv.             Sonnet,

v.              Stanza,

vi.            How to read poetry, and

vii.           Appreciation of poetry.