The Sonnet

Origins of the sonnet

Italy, Jacopo da Lentini. Sicilian school, 13th century term derived from the Italian sonetto, little song Dante (1265–1321) Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250–1300) Petrarch (1304-1374)

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

his sonnets are contained in a collection called Canzoniere (Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta) 366 poems in the Italian vernacular language 14 lines, an octave and a sestet written over a long period of time (1330-1365) arranged as an intimate diary two parts: In vita di Madonna Laura, In morte di Madonna Laura Laura: the woman loved by the poet

 unlike the idealised women of the “Dolce Stil Novo” she doesn’t lead to God, but makes the poet deviate  the reason for the poet’s inner conflict, between the sensual temptation of love and his aspiration to asceticism  love for this woman  a complex feeling, giving the poet both joy and pain, destined never to be fully realized

Petrarch ’s quest for love leads to hopelessness and irreconcilable anguish, as he expresses in the series of oxymorons in Rima 134 "Pace non trovo, et non ò da fa guerra”

The sonnet in England

 Petrarch’s poem is exactly where the English sonnet starts from about 200 years later, with Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and his translations of Italian poems  the phase in the history of the language called “Modern English” had just begun  poets needed to create a proper poetic language  they did so by exercising on the Italian model

Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser

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I find no peace

 Wyatt employs the Petrarchan octave, but his most common sestet scheme is cddc ee. This marks the beginnings of an exclusively "English" contribution to sonnet structure, that is three quatrains and a closing couplet  vogue of the “sonnet sequence”  Spenser’s Amoretti, tracing the poet’s courtship to the woman who would become his wife

Structure

Petrarchan sonnet 14 lines an octave (2 quatrains) a sestet (2 tercets) rhyme scheme: abba abba cde cde / cdc cdc Shakespearean sonnet 14 lines three quatrains a final couplet rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Edmund Spenser, Amoretti

 88 sonnets  tracing the poet’s courtship to the woman who would become his wife 

One day I wrote her name upon the strand…

 in the Elizabethan form  on the power of poetry to make things immortal

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

 sonnet sequence: 154  brings the Elizabethan form to perfection (three quatrains and a final couplet)  first part dedicated to a “fair youth” (the Earl of Southampton), second part dedicated to a “dark lady”  deals with the typical themes of Renaissance poetry with unique complexity and energy

Themes

 time, love, beauty, poetry, death, friendship  the relationships between them: in particular, love and beauty escape the devastating effects of time thanks to the power of poetry  parody of typically Petrarchan elements, like the blazon 

Sonnet XVIII Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

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Sonnet CXVI Let me not to the marriage of true minds

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Sonnet CXXX My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun