Sonnet

This article is about the form of poetry. For other uses, seeSonnet (disambiguation).

The termsonnetrefers to afixed versepoetic form,traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a setrhyming scheme.It derives from the Italian wordsonetto(lit. 'little song',from the Latin wordsonus,lit. 'sound'). Originating in 13th-centurySicily,the sonnet was in time taken up in many European-language areas, mainly to expressromantic loveat first, although eventually any subject was considered acceptable. Many formal variations were also introduced, including abandonment of thequatorzainlimit – and even of rhyme altogether in modern times.

Romance languages

Sicilian

Giacomo da Lentiniis credited with the sonnet's invention at the Court ofFrederick IIin the Sicilian city ofPalermo.TheSicilian Schoolof poets who surrounded Lentini then spread the form to the mainland. Those earliest sonnets no longer survive in the originalSicilian language,however, but only after being translated intoTuscan dialect.The form consisted of a pair ofquatrainsfollowed by a pair oftercetswith the symmetrical rhyme scheme ABABABAB CDCDCD, where the sense is carried forward in a new direction after themidway break.

Peter Dronkehas commented that there was something intrinsic to its flexible form that contributed to the sonnet's survival far beyond its region of origin.William Baersuggests that the first eight lines of the earliest Sicilian sonnets are identical to the eight-line Sicilian folksong stanza known as theStrambotto.To this, da Lentini (or whoever else invented the form) added two tercets to theStrambottoin order to create the new 14-line sonnet form.

In contrast, Hassanally Ladhahas argued that the Sicilian sonnet's structure and content drew uponArabic poetryand cannot be explained as the "invention" of the Sicilian School of poets. Ladha notes that "in its Sicilian beginnings, the sonnet evinces literary and epistemological contact with theqasida",and emphasizes that the sonnet did not emerge simultaneously with its supposedly defining 14-line structure. "Tellingly, attempts to close off the sonnet from its Arabic predecessors depend upon a definition of the new lyric to which Giacomo's poetry does not conform: surviving in thirteenth-century recensions, his poems appear not in fourteen, but rather six lines, including four rows, each with twohemistichesand two 'tercets' each in a line extending over two rows. "In Ladha's view, the sonnet emerges as the continuation of a broader tradition of love poetry throughout the Mediterranean world and relates to such other forms as the Sicilianstrambotto,theProvençalcanso,theAndalusi Arabicmuwashshahandzajal,as well as theqasida.

Italian

The first five sonnets ofPetrarch'sIl Canzoniere

Guittone d'Arezzorediscovered the sonnet form and brought it toTuscany,where he adapted it toTuscan dialectwhen he founded the Siculo-Tuscan, or Guittonian school of poetry (1235–1294). He wrote almost 250 sonnets.Among the host of other Italian poets that followed, the sonnets ofDante AlighieriandGuido Cavalcantistand out, but later the most famous and widely influential wasPetrarch.

The structure of a typical Italian sonnet as it developed included two parts that together formed a compact form of "argument". First, theoctaveforms the "proposition", which describes a "problem" or "question", followed by asestet(twotercets) that proposes a "resolution". Typically, the ninth line initiates what is called the "turn", or "volta",which signals the move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that do not strictly follow the problem/resolution structure, the ninth line still often marks a" turn "by signaling a change in the tone, mood, or stance of the poem.

Later, the ABBA ABBA pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets. For the sestet, there were two different possibilities: CDE CDE and CDC CDC. In time, other variants on this rhyming scheme were introduced, such as CDC DCD or CDE DCE. Petrarch typically used an ABBA ABBA pattern for the octave, followed by either CDE CDE or CDC CDC rhymes in the sestet.

At the turn of the 14th century there arrive early examples of thesonnet sequenceunified about a single theme. This is represented byFolgore da San Geminiano's series on the months of the year,followed by his sequence on the days of the week.At a slightly earlier date, Dante had published hisLa Vita Nuova,a narrative commentary in which appear sonnets and other lyrical forms centred on the poet's love for Beatrice.Most of the sonnets there are Petrarchan (here used as a purely stylistic term since Dante predated Petrarch). Chapter VII gives the sonnet "O voi che per la via", with two sestets (AABAAB AABAAB) and two quatrains (CDDC CDDC), and Ch. VIII, "Morte villana", with two sestets (AABBBA AABBBA) and two quatrains (CDDC CDDC). Petrarch followed in his footsteps later in the next century with the 366 sonnets of theCanzionere,which chronicle his life-long love forLaura.

Widespread as sonnet writing became in Italian society, among practitioners were to be found some better known for other things: the paintersGiottoandMichelangelo,for example, and the astronomerGalileo.The academicianGiovanni Mario Crescimbenilists 661 poets just in the 16th century.So common were they that eventually, in the words of a literary historian: "No event was so trivial, none so commonplace, a tradesman could not open a larger shop, a government clerk could not obtain a few additionalscudiof salary, but all his friends and acquaintance must celebrate the event, and clothe their congratulations in a copy of verses, which almost invariably assumed this shape. "

Occitan

The sole confirmed surviving sonnet in theOccitan languageis byPaolo Lanfranchi da Pistoiaand confidently dated to 1284.This employs the rhyme scheme ABAB ABAB CDCDCD and has a political theme, as do some others of dubious authenticity or merit ascribed to "William of Almarichi" andDante de Maiano.

Catalan

One of the earliest sonnets inCatalanwas written by Pere Torroella (1436–1486).In the 16th century, the most prolific and subtle Catalan writer of sonnets was Pere Serafí,author of over 60 published between 1560 and 1565.

Spanish

Main article:Spanish poetry

The poetÍñigo López de Mendoza, 1st Marquis of Santillanais credited as among the foremost to attempt "sonnets written in the Italian manner" (sonetos fechos al itálico modo) towards the middle of the 15th century. Since theCastilian languageand prosody were in a transitional state at the time, the experiment was unsuccessful.It was therefore not until after 1526 that the form was reintroduced byJuan Boscán.According to his account, he metAndrea Navagero,theVenetianAmbassador to the Spanish Court, in that year while the latter was accompanying KingCarlos Von a visit to theAlhambra.In the course of their literary discussion, Navagero then suggested that the poet might attempt the sonnet and other Italian forms in his own language.

Boscán not only took up the Venetian's advice but did so in association with the more talentedGarcilaso de la Vega,a friend to whom some of his sonnets are addressed and whose early death is mourned in another. The poems of both followed the Petrarchan model, employed the hitherto unfamiliarhendecasyllable,and when writing of love were based on theneoplatonicideal championed inThe Book of the Courtier(Il Cortegiano) that Boscán had also translated. Their reputation was consolidated by the later 1580 edition ofFernando de Herrera,who was himself accounted "the first major Spanish sonneteer after Garcilaso".During the Baroque period that followed, two notable writers of sonnets headed rival stylistic schools. TheculteranismoofLuis de Góngora,later known as 'Gongorismo' after him, was distinguished by an artificial style and the use of elaborate vocabulary, complex syntactical order and involved metaphors. The verbal usage of his opponent,Francisco de Quevedo,was equally self-conscious, deploying wordplay and metaphysicalconceits,after which the style was known asconceptismo.

Another key figure at this period wasLope de Vega,who was responsible for writing some 3,000 sonnets, a large proportion of them incorporated into his dramas. One of the best known and most imitated wasUn soneto me manda hacer Violante(Violante orders me to write a sonnet), which occupies a pivotal position in literary history. At its first appearance in his 1617 comedyLa niña de Plata(Act 3), the character there pretends to be a novice whose text is a running commentary on the poem's creation. Although the poet himself is portrayed as composing it as a light-hearted impromptu in the biographical filmLope(2010), there had in fact been precedents. In Spanish, some fifty years before,Diego Hurtado de Mendozahad written the pretended impromptu,Pedís, Reina, un soneto;and even earlier in Italian there had been the similarly themedQualunque vuol saper fare un sonetto(Whoever to make a sonnet aspires) by the Florentine poet Pieraccio Tedaldi (b. ca. 1285–1290; d. ca. 1350).Later imitations in other languages include one in Italian byGiambattista Marinoand another in French byFrançois-Séraphin Régnier-Desmarais,as well as an adaptation of the idea applied to therondeaubyVincent Voiture.The poem's fascination for U.S. writers is evidenced by no less than five translations in the second half of the 20th century alone.

The sonnet form crossed the Atlantic quite early in the Spanish colonial enterprise when Francisco de Terrazas, the son of a 16th-century conquistador, was among its Mexican pioneers. Later came two sonnet writers in holy orders, Bishop Miguel de Guevara (1585–1646) and, especially, SisterJuana Inés de la Cruz.But though sonnets continued to be written in both the old world and the new, innovation was mainly limited to the Americas, where the sonnet was used to express a different and post-colonial reality. In the 19th century, for example, there were two poets who wrote memorable sonnets dedicated to Mexican landscapes,Joaquín Acadio Pagaza y Ordóñezin the torrid zone to the south andManuel José Othónin the desolate north.In South America, too, the sonnet was used to invoke landscape, particularly in the major collections of the UruguayanJulio Herrera y Reissig,such asLos Parques Abandonados(Deserted Parks, 1902–08)andLos éxtasis de la montaña(Mountain Ecstasies, 1904–07),whose recognisably authentic pastoral scenes went on to serve as example forCésar Vallejoin his evocations of Andean Peru.

Soon afterwards, the sonnet form was deconstructed as part of the modernist questioning of the past. Thus, in theArgentinepoetAlfonsina Storni'sMascarilla y trébol(Mask and Clover, 1938), a section of unrhymed poems using many of the traditional versification structures of the form are presented under the title "antisonnets".

Portuguese

Main article:Portuguese poetry

Dom Pedro,a son ofKing John I,has been credited with translations of sonnets by Petrarch into Portuguese,but the form did not come into its own until the start of the 16th century. It was then thatSá de Mirandaintroduced the sonnet and other Italian forms, after returning from a five-year stay in Italy.However, the greatest sonneteer of this period was the slightly youngerLuís de Camões,though in his work the influence of the Spanish pioneers of the form has also been discerned.Among later writers, the comic sonnets of Thomas de Noronha were once appreciated, and the love sonnets of Barbosa Bacellar (c.1610–1663), also known for his learned glosses on the sonnets of Camões.

The introduction later of a purified sonnet style toBrazilian literaturewas due toCláudio Manuel da Costa,who also composed Petrarchan sonnets in Italian during his stay in Europe.However, it was in the wake of FrenchParnassianismthat there developed a similar movement in Brazil, which included the notable sonneteersAlberto de Oliveira,Raimundo Correiaand, especially,Olavo Bilac.Others writing sonnets in that style included the now overlooked Francisca Júlia da Silva Munster (1871–1920)and the SymbolistAfro-BrazilianpoetJoão da Cruz e Sousa.

French

Main article:French poetry

In Frenchprosody,sonnets are traditionally composed in theFrench alexandrine,which consists of lines of twelve syllables with a centralcaesura.Imitations of Petrarch were first introduced byClément Marot,andMellin de Saint-Gelaisalso took up the form near the start of the 16th century.They were later followed byPierre de Ronsard,Joachim du BellayandJean Antoine de Baïf,around whom formed a group of radical young noble poets of the court, generally known today asLa Pléiade.They employed, amongst other forms of poetry, the Petrarchansonnet cycle,developed around an amorous encounter or an idealized woman. The character of the group's literary program was given in Du Bellay's manifesto, the "Defense and Illustration of the French Language" (1549), which maintained that French (like the Tuscan of Petrarch and Dante) was a worthy language for literary expression, and which promulgated a program of linguistic and literary production and purification.

In the aftermath of theWars of Religion,French Catholic jurist and poetJean de La Ceppèdepublished theTheorems,a sequence of 515 sonnets with non-traditional rhyme schemes, about the Passion and Resurrection ofJesus Christ.Drawing upon theGospels,GreekandRoman mythology,and theFathers of the Church,La Ceppède's poetry was praised bySaint Francis de Salesfor transforming "the Pagan Muses into Christian ones". La Ceppède's sonnets often attack theCalvinistdoctrine of a judgmental and unforgiving God by focusing on Christ's passionate love for the human race. Afterwards the work was long forgotten, until the 20th century witnessed a revival of interest in the poet, and his sonnets are now regarded as classic works of French poetry.

By the late 17th century, the sonnet had fallen out of fashion but was revived by theRomanticsin the 19th century.Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuvethen published his imitation ofWilliam Wordsworth's "Scorn not the sonnet" where, in addition to the poets enumerated in the English original – Shakespeare, Petrarch, Tasso, Camoens, Dante, Spenser, Milton – Sainte-Beuve announces his own intention to revive the form and adds the names of Du Bellay and Ronsard in the final tercet.The form was little used, however, until theParnassiansbrought it back into favour, and following them theSymbolist poets.Overseas in Canada, the teenagedÉmile Nelliganis particularly noted among the French language poets who wrote sonnets in that style.

During the latter half of the 19th century, there were many deviations from the traditional sonnet form.Charles Baudelairewas responsible for significant variations in rhyme-scheme and line-length in the poems included inLes Fleurs du mal.Among the variations made by others,Théodore de Banville's "Sur une dame blonde" limited itself to a four-syllable line,while inÀ une jeune morteJules de Rességuier (1788–1862) composed a sonnet monosyllabically lined.

Germanic languages

English

Tudor and Stuart period

Sir Thomas WyattandHenry Howard, Earl of Surrey,have been described as "the first English Petrarchans" from their pioneering the sonnet form in English. In addition, some 25 of Wyatt's poems are dependent on Petrarch, either as translations or imitations, while, of Surrey's five, three of them are translations and two imitations.In one instance, both poets translated the same poem,Rime140.From these examples, as elsewhere in their prosodic practice, a difference between their style can be observed. Wyatt's verse metre, though in general decasyllabic, is irregular and proceeds by way of significantly stressed phrasal units.But, in addition, Wyatt's sonnets are generally closer in construction to those of Petrarch.

Prosodically, Surrey is more adept at composing iniambic pentameterand his sonnets are written in what has come to be known anachronistically asShakespearean measure.This version of the sonnet form, characterised by three alternately rhymed quatrains terminating in a final couplet (ABAB CDCD, EFEF, GG), became the favourite duringElizabethan times,when it was widely used. It was particularly so in whole series ofamatory sequences,beginning with SirPhilip Sidney'sAstrophel and Stella(1591) and continuing over a period of two decades. About four thousand sonnets were composed during this time.However, with such a volume, much there that was conventional and repetitious came to be viewed with a sceptical eye.Sir John Daviesmocked these in a series of nine "gulling sonnets"andWilliam Shakespearewas also to dismiss some of them in hisSonnet 130,"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun".

The title page of the first edition ofShakespeare'sSonnets

Shakespeare's sequence of 154 sonnetsdeparts from the norm in addressing more than one person in its course, male as well as female. In addition, other sonnets by him were incorporated into some of his plays. Another exception at this time was the form used inEdmund Spenser'sAmoretti,which has the interlaced rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. And soon after, in the following century,John Donneadapted the emerging Baroque style to the new subject matter of his series ofHoly Sonnets.

John Milton's sonnets constitute a special case and demonstrate another stylistic transition. Two youthful examples in English and five in Italian are Petrarchan in spirit. But the seventeen sonnets of his maturity address personal and political themes. It has been observed of their intimate tone, and the way the sense overrides the volta within the poem in some cases, that Milton is here adapting the sonnet form to that of theHoratian ode.He also seems to have been the first to introduce an Italian variation of the form, thecaudate sonnet,into English in his prolongation of "On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament".

18th–19th centuries

• See alsoRomantic sonnets

The fashion for the sonnet went out with theRestoration,and hardly any were written between 1670 and the second half of the 18th century. Amongst the first to revive the form wasThomas Warton,who took Milton for his model. Around him at Oxford were grouped those associated with him in this revival, includingJohn Codrington Bampfylde,Thomas Russell,Thomas WarwickandHenry Headley,some of whom published small collections of sonnets alone.Many women, too, now took up the sonnet form, in particularCharlotte Smith,whose lachrymoseElegiac Sonnets(1784 onwards) are credited with helping create the 'school of sensibility' characteristic of the time.William Lisle Bowleswas also a close follower, but the success of both stirred up resistance in the poetic politics of the time.

William Beckfordparodied Smith's melancholy manner and archaic diction in an "Elegiac sonnet to a mopstick".In the preface to his 1796 collectionPoems on Various Subjects,Samuel Taylor Coleridgecommented of his series of "Effusions" that "I was fearful that the title" Sonnet "might have reminded my reader of the Poems of the Rev. W. L. Bowles – a comparison with whom would have sunk me below that mediocrity, on the surface of which I am at present enabled to float".There were formal objections too. Where most of the early revivalists had used Milton's sonnets as the model for theirs, Smith and Bowles had preferred the Shakespearean form. This led toMary Robinson's fighting preface to her sequenceSappho and Phaon,in which she asserted the legitimacy of the Petrarchan form as used by Milton over "the non-descript ephemera from the heated brains of self-important poetasters" that pass as sonnets in the literary reviews of her day.

The example which later impressed Wordsworth the most was that of Milton's sonnets, which he described in 1803 as having "an energetic and varied flow of sound, crowding into narrow room more of the combined effect of rhyme and blank verse, than can be done by any other kind of verse I know of".Thus aware that its compression was applicable to a great variety of themes, Wordsworth eventually wrote some 523 sonnets which were to exert a powerful stylistic influence throughout the first half of the 19th century.Part of his appeal to others was the way in which he used the sonnet as a focus for new subject matter, frequently in sequences. From his series on the River Duddonsprang reflections on any number of regional natural features; his travel tour effusions, though not always confined to sonnet form,found many imitators. What eventually became three series ofEcclesiastical Sonnetsstarted a vogue for sonnets on religious and devotional themes.Milton's predilection for political themes, continuing through Wordsworth's "Sonnets dedicated to liberty and order", now became an example for contemporaries too. Barely had the process begun, however, before a sceptical alarmist inThe New Monthly Magazinefor 1821 was diagnosing "sonnettomania" as a new sickness akin to "the bite of a rabid animal".

Another arm of the propaganda on behalf of the sonnet inRomantic timeswas the reflexive strategy of recommending it in sonnet form as a demonstration of its possibility of variation. In Wordsworth's "Nuns fret not at their narrow room" (1807),the volta comes after the seventh line, dividing the poem into two equal parts. Keats makes use of frequent enjambment in "If by dull rhymes our English must be chained" (1816)and divides its sense units into four tercets and a couplet. What Keats is recommending there is the more intricate rhyming system A B C |A B D |C A B |C D E| D E that he demonstrates in its course as a means of giving the form greater breathing room. Wordsworth later accomplishes this in "Scorn not the Sonnet" (1827),which is without midway division, and where enjambment is so managed that the sense overrides from line to line in an ode-like movement. With the similar aim of freeing the form from its fetters,Matthew Arnoldturns his "Austerity of poetry" (1867)into a narrative carried forward over an enjambed eighth line to a conclusion that is limited to the final three lines.

D. G. Rossetti's illuminated description of the sonnet, 1880

By the time the second half of the 19th century was reached, sonnets become chiefly interesting for their publication in long sequences. It was during this period that attempts to renew the form were continually being made.Elizabeth Barrett Browning's autobiographicalSonnets from the Portuguese(1845–50),for example, is described as the first depiction of a successful courtship since Elizabethan times.It comprises 44 sonnets of dramatised first person narrative, the enjambed lines in which frequently avoid resting at the volta. Through this means the work is distinguished by "the flexibility and control with which the verse bends to the argument and to the rhythms of thought and speech".

That sequence was followed in 1862 byGeorge Meredith'sModern Love,based in part on the breakdown of his first marriage. It employs a 16-line form, described as (and working like) a sonnet, linking together the work's fifty narrative episodes. Essentially the stanza is made up of four quatrains ofenclosed rhyme,rhythmically driven forward over these divisions so as to allow a greater syntactical complexity "more readily associated with the realist novel than with lyric poetry".As other work by both the writers above demonstrates, they were capable of more straightforward fictions. In adapting the sonnet to the narrative mode, the main interest for them is in overcoming the technical challenge that they set themselves and proving the new possibilities of the form in which they are working.

Where the first quatrain inSonnets from the Portuguesebegan with a reminiscence of lines from a pastoral ofTheocritus,Edward Cracroft Lefroy (1855–1891) responded by reaching beyond the narrative mode towards the dramatic in the thirty adaptations from the Greek of hisEchoes from Theocritus(1885, reprint 1922).Beyond this, though the idea of arranging such material in a sequence was original to Lefroy,Thomas Warwickhad anticipated the approach a century before in his sonnet "FromBacchylides",equally based on a fragment of an ancient Greek author. On the other hand,Eugene Lee-Hamilton's exploration of the sonnet's dramatic possibilities was through creating historical monologues in his hundredImaginary Sonnets(1888),based on episodes chosen from the seven centuries between 1120 – 1820. Neither sequence was anywhere the equal of those of Barrett Browning or Meredith,but they illustrate a contemporary urge to make new a form that was fast running out of steam.

20th century

As part of his attempted renewal of poetic prosody,Gerard Manley Hopkinshad applied his experimentalsprung rhythmto the composition of the sonnet, amplifying the number of unstressed syllables within a five- (or occasionally six-) stressed line – as in the rhetorical "The Windhover",for example. He also introduced variations in the proportions of the sonnet, from the 101⁄2lines of thecurtal sonnet"Pied Beauty"to the amplified 24-linecaudate sonnet"That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire". Though they were written in the later Victorian era, the poems remained virtually unknown until they were published in 1918.

The undergraduateW. H. Audenis sometimes credited with dispensing with rhyme altogether in "The Secret Agent",but went on to write many conventional sonnets, including two long sequences during the time of international crisis:"In Time of War"(1939) and"The Quest"(1940). Sequences by some others have been more experimental and looser in form, of which a radical example was "Altarwise by owl-light" (1935), ten irregular and barely rhyming quatorzains byDylan Thomasin his most opaque manner.

In 1978 two later innovatory sequences were published at a period when it was considered that "the sonnet seems to want to lie fallow, exhausted", in the words of one commentator.Peter Dale's book-lengthOne Anothercontains a dialogue of some sixty sonnets in which the variety of rhyming methods are as diverse as the emotions expressed between the speakers there.At the same time,Geoffrey Hill's "An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England" appeared inTenebrae(1978), where the challenging thirteen poems of the sequence employ half-rhyme and generally ignore the volta.Seamus Heaneyalso wrote two sequences during this period: the personal "Glanmore Sonnets" inField Work(1975);and the more freely constructed elegiac sonnets of "Clearances" inThe Haw Lantern(1987).

In North America

USA

The earliest American sonnet isDavid Humphreys's1776 sonnet "Addressed to my Friends at Yale College, on my Leaving them to join the Army".The sonnet form was used widely thereafter, including byWilliam Lloyd GarrisonandWilliam Cullen Bryant.Later,Henry Wadsworth Longfellowand others followed suit.His were characterised by a "purple richness of diction" and by their use of material images to illustrate niceties of thought and emotion.He also translated several sonnets, including seven byMichelangelo.Later on, amongEmma Lazarus' many sonnets, perhaps the best-known is "The New Colossus"of 1883,which celebrates theStatue of Libertyand its role in welcoming immigrants to the New World.

In the 19th century, sonnets written by American poets began to be anthologised as such. They were included in a separate section in Leigh Hunt and S. Adams'The Book of the Sonnet(London and Boston, 1867), which included an essay by Adams on "American Sonnets and Sonneteers" and a section devoted only to sonnets by American women.Later cameWilliam Sharp's anthology ofAmerican Sonnets(1889)and Charles H. Crandall'sRepresentative sonnets by American poets, with an essay on the sonnet, its nature and history(Houghton Mifflin & Co.,1890). The essay also surveyed the whole history of the sonnet, including English examples and European examples in translation, in order to contextualise the American achievement.

Recent scholarship has recovered manyAfrican Americansonnets that were not anthologised in standard American poetry volumes. Important nineteenth and early twentieth century writers have includedPaul Laurence Dunbar,Countee Cullen,Sterling A. Brown,and Jamaican-bornClaude McKay.Some of their sonnets were personal responses to experience of displacement and racial prejudice. Cullen’s "At the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem" (1927), for example, suggests a parallel between the history of his race and that of the Jewishdiaspora.And McKay's sonnets of 1921 respond defiantly to the deadlyRed Summerriots two years before.There were also several African American women poets who won prizes for volumes that included sonnets, includingMargaret Walker(Yale Poetry Series)Gwendolyn Brooks(Pulitzer Prize),Rita Dove(Pulitzer Prize), andNatasha Trethewey(Pulitzer Prize).But there were other writers - likeLangston HughesandAmiri Baraka,for example - who, despite publishing some themselves, questioned the appropriateness of sonnets for Black poets. In the opinion of Hughes, the emergence of truly individual writing based on folk genres and experience was hindered by the imposition of genteel "white" verse forms irrelevant to them.

One aspect of the American sonnet during the 20th century was the publication of sequences which had to wait decades for critical recognition. One instance isThis Man's Army: A War in Fifty-Odd Sonnets(1928) byJohn Allan Wyeth.A series of irregular sonnets that recorded impressions of his military service with theAmerican Expeditionary Forceduring theFirst World War,it was scarcely noticed when it first appeared. Yet on its republication in 2008,Dana Gioiaasserted in his introduction that Wyeth is the only American poet of the Great War who can stand comparison to Britishwar poets,a claim later corroborated byJon Stallworthyin his review of the work.

Shortly after the publication of Wyeth's,H. P. Lovecraftwrote his very different sonnet sequence, sections of which first appeared in genre magazines. It was not until 1943 that it saw complete publication asFungi from Yuggoth.These 36 poems were written in a hybrid form based on thePetrarchan sonnetthat invariably ends with a rhyming couplet reminiscent of theShakespearean sonnet.Most of these poems are discontinuous, though unified by theme, being vignettes descriptive of the kinds of dreamed and otherworldly scenarios found in Lovecraft's fiction.Their unmannered style was once compared toEdward Arlington Robinson's,but since then a case has been made for the work as minor poetry of contemporary importance in its own right.

Mary Ellen Solt'sconcrete"Moonshot sonnet" (1964)

In the case ofJohn Berryman,he initially wrote a series of some hundred modernistic love sonnets during the 1940s. These, however, remained uncollected until 1967, when they appeared asBerryman’s Sonnets,fleshed out with a few additions to give them the form of a sequence. In her 2014 survey of the book forPoetry,April Bernardsuggests that he was there making of 'Berryman' a similar semi-fictional character to the 'Henry' inThe Dream Songs(1964). She also identifies an ancient ancestry for the disordered syntax of the work through the English poets Thomas Wyatt and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

But at this time too began to appear sequences ofquatorzainswith only a tenuous relationship to the sonnet form.Ted Berrigan'sThe Sonnets(1964) discard metre and rhyme but retain the dynamics of a 14-line structure with a change of direction at the volta. Berrigan claimed to have been inspired by "Shakespeare’s sonnets because they were quick, musical, witty and short".Others have described Berrigan's work as apostmoderncollage using "repetition, rearrangement, and the use of 'found' phrases and text", that functions as a "radical deconstruction of the sonnet".From 1969Robert Lowelltoo began publishing a less radical deconstruction of the form in his series of five collections ofblank versesonnets, including hisPulitzer PrizevolumeThe Dolphin(1973). These he described as having "the eloquence at best of iambic pentameter, and often the structure and climaxes of sonnets".

The contemporary reaction against the strict form is described in the introduction toWilliam Baer's anthologySonnets: 150 Contemporary Sonnets(2005). But for all that a number of writers were declaring then that the sonnet was dead, others – includingRichard Wilbur,Howard NemerovandAnthony Hecht– continued to write sonnets and eventually became associated with the magazinesThe Formalistand thenMeasure.These journals, champions of theNew Formalismbetween the years 1994 and 2017, sponsored the annualHoward Nemerov Sonnet Award.

Canada

In Canada during the last decades of the 19th century, theConfederation Poetsand especiallyArchibald Lampmanwere known for their sonnets, which were mainly on pastoral themes.

Canadian poetSeymour Maynehas published a few collections of word sonnets, and is one of the chief innovators of a form using a single word per line to capture its honed perception.

In German

Paulus Melissuswas the first to introduce the sonnet intoGerman poetry.But the man who did most to raise the sonnet to German consciousness wasMartin Opitz,who in two works,Buch von der deutschen Poeterey(1624) andAcht Bücher Deutscher Poematum(1625), established the sonnet as a separate genre and its rules of composition. It was to be written in iambic alexandrines, with alternating masculine and feminine enclosed rhymes in the octave and a more flexible sestet with three rhymes. Reinforcing them were translated examples from Petrarch, Ronsard andDaniel Heinsius.Thereafter in the 18th century,Johann Wolfgang von Goethewrote several love sonnets, using a rhyme scheme derived from Italian poetry. After his death, Goethe's followers created the freer 'German sonnet', which is rhymed ABBA BCCB CDD CDD.

The sonnet tradition was then continued byAugust Wilhelm von Schlegel,Paul von Heyseand others, reaching fruition inRainer Maria Rilke'sSonnets to Orpheus,which has been described as "one of the great modern poems, not to mention a monumental addition to the literature of the sonnet sequence".A cycle of 55 sonnets, it was written in two parts in 1922 while Rilke was in the midst of completing hisDuino Elegies.The full title in German isDie Sonette an Orpheus: Geschrieben als ein Grab-Mal für Wera Ouckama Knoop(translated asSonnets to Orpheus: Written as a Monument for Wera Ouckama Knoop), commemorating the recent death of a young dancer from leukaemia. TheGrab-Mal(literally "grave-marker" ) of the title brings to mind the series ofTombeauxwritten byStéphane Mallarmé,translated (among others) by Rilke in 1919, also coinciding with the sonnets of Michelangelo which Rilke had been translating in 1921. Rilke's own sonnets are fluidly structured as a transposition of the dead girl's dancing and encompass themes of life and death and art's relation to them. As well as having varied rhyme schemes, line lengths also vary and are irregularly metred, even within the same sonnet at times.

Responses to turbulent times form a distinct category among German sonnets. They includeFriedrich Rückert's 72 "Sonnets in Armour" (Geharnischte Sonneten,1814), stirring upresistance to Napoleonic domination;and sonnets byEmanuel Geibelwritten during theGerman revolutions of 1848–1849and theFirst Schleswig War.In the wake of theFirst World War,Anton Schnack,described by one anthologist as "the only German language poet whose work can be compared with that ofWilfred Owen",published the sonnet sequence,Tier rang gewaltig mit Tier( "Beast Strove Mightily with Beast", 1920). The 60 poems there have the typical German sonnet form, but are written in the long-lined free rhythms developed byErnst Stadler.Patrick Bridgwater, writing in 1985, called the work "without question the best single collection produced by a Germanwar poetin 1914–18, "but adds that it" is to this day virtually unknown even in Germany. "

In Dutch

In the NetherlandsPieter Corneliszoon Hooftintroduced sonnets in the Baroque style, of whichMijn lief, mijn lief, mijn lief: soo sprack mijn lief mij toepresents a notable example of sound and word play.Another of his sonnets, dedicated toHugo Grotius,was later translated byEdmund Gosse.In later centuries the sonnet form was dropped and then returned to by successive waves of innovators in an attempt to breathe new life into Dutch poetry when, in their eyes, it had lost its way. For the generation of the 1880s it wasJacques Perk's sonnet sequenceMathildewhich served as a rallying cry. And for a while in the early years of the new century,Martinus Nijhoffwrote notable sonnets before turning to more modernistic models.

Following theSecond World War,avant-garde poets declared war on all formalism, reacting particularly against the extreme subjectivity and self-aggrandisement of representatives of the 1880s style likeWillem Kloos,who had once begun a sonnet "In my deepest being I'm a god". In reaction,Lucebertsatirised such writing in the "sonnet" with which his first collection opened:

I/ me/ I/ me// me/ I/ me/ I// I/ I/ my// my/ my/ I

But by the end of the 20th century, formalist poets such asGerrit KomrijandJan Kalwere writing sonnets again as part of their own reaction to the experimentalism of earlier decades.

Jewish languages

For three millennia there has been a literature in thevarious languages developed by the scattered communities of Jewish origin.So far as the sonnet is concerned, two languages were involved, mostly written in the European areas where that form was taken up and taken elsewhere in the world by emigrants.

Hebrew

The Hebrew name for a sonnet isshir zahav,deriving from a numerological play on words. Literally 'golden song', the consonants ofzahavalso stand for numbers adding up to fourteen, so that the term can also mean 'song of fourteen lines'.

The first sonnets inMedieval Hebrew poetrywere probably composed in Rome byImmanuel the Romanaround the year 1300, less than a century after the advent of the Italian sonnet.38 sonnets are included in hismaqamacollectionMahberot Immanuelthat combine elements of both the quantitative metre traditional to Hebrew and Arabic verse and Italian syllabic metre. Predominantly dealing with love, they were rhymed ABBA ABBA CDE CDE.

Immanuel's work provided a ready model for the second wave of Italo-Hebrew sonnet writers. The first printed edition ofMahberot Immanuelappeared inBresciain 1492, followed by a second edition published in Constantinople in 1535. The new crop therefore coincided with the adoption of the sonnet in other European literatures at the start of the 16th century and persisted into the Baroque period of the following century, with more than eighty poets taking up the form. Though there was now a shift of focus to religious themes, love poetry was not excluded, particularly in the sonnets of David Okineira ofSalonika.The Baroque practice of incorporating sonnets along with other verse into plays, as had Shakespeare in England and Lope da Vega in Spain, was also to be found inMoses ben Mordecai Zacuto'sYesod Olam(Foundation of the World, 1642) and inAsirei ha-Tiqva(Prisoners of Hope, 1673), an allegorical play byJoseph de la Vega.A further revival of the Hebrew sonnet followed in the 18th century, associated with Samson Cohen Modon (1679–1727),Moshe Chaim Luzzattoand his cousin, Ephraim Luzzatto (1729–1792), who are regarded as founders of modern Hebrew literature.

That the form persisted into the 20th century was celebrated byShaul Tchernichovskyin hisMaḥberet ha-Sonetot(Berlin 1923), in which appeared a sonnet of his own celebrating its continuity since the time of Immanuel of Rome: "Thou art dear to me, how dear to me,Sonetot, O shir zahav".The same author was responsible for introducing thecrown of sonnetsinto Hebrew poetry.

Yiddish

Yiddish,the name given to a continuum of Judaeo-German dialects spoken particularly across Eastern Europe, has had a literature since the Middle Ages. The sonnet, however, arriving late in the surrounding Slavic areas, was at first viewed as an alien genre among Jewish writers in Yiddish. Its adoption came only slowly with greater access to secular educational and with emigration.

The first poets to use the form are credited as Dovid Kenigsberg (1891-1942) andFradl Shtok.The former publishedSoneten(Lemberg1913) and later his hundred sonnets (Hundert Soneten,Vienna, 1921).Shtok emigrated to the US while young and began publishing poetry soon after her arrival in New York in 1910.In reality, earlier sonnets dating from the 1890s were written in the US by Morris Vintshevski (1856-1932); and inVilniusthose written byLeib Naidus,starting from 1910, demonstrated the westward-spreading influence of Symbolist-inspired modernism.Those poets in Europe who authored entire collections of sonnets include Gershon-Peysekh Vayland (1869–1942), published inWarsawin 1938 and 1939;Yankev Gotlib (1911–1945), published inKaunasin 1938;and the PolishAbraham Nahum Stencl,whoseLondoner Sonetnwere published after his arrival in London in 1937.

Later examples of those writing substantial numbers of sonnets in the US number the scholarN. B. Minkoff,who included asonnet cycleinLieder(1924), his first publication after immigrating,and Aron Glantz-Leyeles (1899–1968), who published a whole collection of poems in mediaeval forms in 1926. This included "Autumn", a densely rhymedgarland of fifteen sonnets.In 1932 Yoysef-Leyzer Kalushiner (1893–1968) published a whole book of sonnets in New York.He was followed by the little known M. Freed, who had already published a sonnet collection,The Narcissi( "נארציסן", Czernowitz, 1937), inBukovinabefore making his way to the US, where he publishedAn evening by the Prut(מ. פרידוויינינגער, New York, 1942).Later collections of sonnets includeSonetn fun toye-voye(Sonnets of chaos, New York, 1957) by Yirmye Hesheles, (1910–2010)andMani Leib'sSonetn(1961), considered the crowning achievement of his work and "one of the last great works of Yiddish poetry".To these post-war collections may be addedMeksike, finf un draysik sonetn(Mexico, 35 sonnets, 1949), which was published inMexico Cityafter Austridan Oystriak (1911-92) had fled there from Europe in 1940.

Yiddish sonnets published in Israel, where the preferred language was Hebrew, were comparatively rare. Samuel Jacob Taubes (1898-1975) had already published religious sonnets in Europe before emigrating to Israel after a wandering literary career.Shlomo Roitman (1913-85) began writing in Russia and published sonnet collections after his arrival in Israel.

Slavic languages

Czech

Karel Hynek Mácha

The sonnet was introduced into Czech literature at the beginning of the 19th century. The first great Czech sonneteer wasJán Kollár,who wrote a cycle of sonnets namedSlávy Dcera(The daughter of Sláva/The daughter of fame). While Kollár was Slovak, he was a supporter of Pan-Slavism and wrote in Czech, as he disagreed that Slovak should be a separate language. Kollár's magnum opus was planned as a Slavic epic poem as great as Dante'sDivine Comedy.It consists ofThe Preludewritten in quantitativehexameters,and sonnets. The number of poems increased in subsequent editions and came up to 645.The greatest Czech romantic poet,Karel Hynek Máchaalso wrote many sonnets. In the second half of the 19th centuryJaroslav VrchlickýpublishedSonety samotáře(Sonnets of a Solitudinarian). Another poet, who wrote many sonnets wasJosef Svatopluk Machar.He publishedČtyři knihy sonetů(The Four Books of Sonnets). In the 20th centuryVítězslav Nezvalwrote the cycle100 sonetů zachránkyni věčného studenta Roberta Davida(One Hundred Sonnets for the Woman who Rescued Perpetual Student Robert David). After the Second World War the sonnet was the favourite form ofOldřich Vyhlídal.Czech poets use different metres for sonnets, Kollár and Mácha used decasyllables, Vrchlický iambic pentameter,Antonín Sovafree verse, andJiří OrtentheCzech alexandrine.Ondřej Hanus, himself the author of distinguished sonnets, wrote a monograph about Czech sonnets in the first half of the twentieth century.

Polish

The sonnet was introduced intoPolish literaturein the 16th century byJan Kochanowski,Mikołaj Sęp-SzarzyńskiandSebastian Grabowiecki.

In 1826, Poland'snational poet,Adam Mickiewicz,wrote asonnet sequenceknown as theCrimean Sonnets,after the Tsar sentenced him toexilein theCrimean Peninsula.Mickiewicz's sonnet sequence focuses heavily on the culture andIslamicreligion of theCrimean Tatars.The sequence was translated into English byEdna Worthley Underwood.

Russian

In the 18th century, after the westernizing reforms ofPeter the Great,Russian poets (among othersAlexander SumarokovandMikhail Kheraskov) began to experiment with sonnets, but the form was soon overtaken in popularity by the more flexibleOnegin stanza.This was used byAlexander Pushkinfor hisnovel in verseEugene Oneginand has also been described as the 'Onegin sonnet', since it consists of fourteen lines. It is, however, aberrant in rhyme scheme and the number of stresses per line and is better described as having only a family resemblance to the sonnet.The form was adapted by other poets later, including byMikhail Lermontovin his narrative of "The Tambov Treasurer's Wife".

Slovenian

In Slovenia the sonnet became a national verse form, usingiambic pentameterwithfeminine rhymes,based both on the Italian endecasillabo and German iambic pentameter. The greatest Slovenian poet,France Prešeren,wrote several sonnet sequences from 1831 onwards and is particularly known for hiscrown of sonnets,Sonetni venec(A Wreath of Sonnets).Many later poets followed him in using the sonnet form. After theSecond World War,Slovenian poets wrote both traditional rhymed sonnets andpostmodernones, unrhymed and in free verse. Among such writers areMilan JesihandAleš Debeljak.

Celtic languages

In Irish

• SeeIrish poetry

Although sonnets had long been written in English by poets of Irish heritage such asSir Aubrey de Vere,Oscar Wilde,William Butler Yeats,Tom Kettle,andPatrick Kavanagh,the sonnet form failed to enterIrish poetryin theIrish language.This changed, however, during theGaelic revivalwhen Dublin-bornLiam Gógan(1891–1979) was dismissed from his post in theNational Museum of Irelandand imprisoned atFrongoch internment campfollowing theEaster Rising.There he became the first poet to write sonnets in the Irish language.

In 2009, poetMuiris Sionóidpublished a complete translation ofWilliam Shakespeare's154 sonnetsinto Irish under the titleRotha Mór an Ghrá( "The Great Wheel of Love" ).In an article about his translations, Sionóid wrote that Irish poetic forms are completely different from those of other languages and that both the sonnet form and theiambic pentameterline had long been considered "entirely unsuitable" for composing poetry in Irish. In his translations, Soinóid chose to closely reproduce Shakespeare's rhyme scheme and rhythms while rendering into Irish.

In Welsh

• SeeWelsh poetry

According toJan Morris,"When Welsh poets speak ofFree Verse,they mean forms like the sonnet or the ode, which obey the same rules asEnglishpoesy.Strict Metresverse still honours thecomplex ruleslaid down for correct poetic composition 600 years ago. "Nevertheless, several of the greatest recentWelsh languagepoets have also written sonnets, includingWelsh nationalistandTraditionalist CatholicpoetSaunders LewisandFar-leftpoetThomas Evan Nicholas.

Indian languages

In the Indian subcontinent, sonnets have been written in theAssamese,Bengali,Dogri,English,Gujarati,Hindi,Kannada,Kashmiri,Malayalam,Manipuri,Marathi,Nepali,Oriya,SindhiandUrdulanguages.

In Urdu

Urdupoets, also influenced by English and other European poets, took to introducing the sonnet intoUrdu poetryrather late.Azmatullah Khan (1887–1923) is believed to have introduced this format toUrdu literaturein the very early part of the 20th century. The other renowned Urdu poets who wrote sonnets were Akhtar Junagarhi,Akhtar Sheerani,Noon Meem Rashid,Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi,Salaam MachhalishahariandWazir Agha.

See also

Sonnet forms

• Caudate sonnet
• Crown of sonnets
• Curtal sonnet
• Petrarchan sonnet

Further reading

• I. Bell, et al.A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets.Blackwell Publishing,2006.ISBN1-4051-2155-6.
• Burt, Stephen (now Stephanie) and Mikics, David.The Art of the Sonnet,The Belknap Press,2010.ISBN978-0-674-04814-0.
• T. W. H. Crosland.The English Sonnet.Hesperides Press, 2006.ISBN1-4067-9691-3.
• Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson,A Century of Sonnets: The Romantic Era Revival, 1750-1850.Oxford University Press, 1999.ISBN0-19-511561-9.
• J. Fuller.The Oxford Book of Sonnets.Oxford University Press,2002.ISBN0-19-280389-1.
• J. Fuller.The Sonnet.(The Critical Idiom: #26). Methuen & Co., 1972.ISBN0-416-65690-0.
• U. Hennigfeld.Der ruinierte Körper: Petrarkistische Sonette in transkultureller Perspektive.Königshausen & Neumann, 2008.ISBN978-3-8260-3768-9.
• J. Hollander.Sonnets: From Dante to the Present.Everyman's Library, 2001.ISBN0-375-41177-1.
• P. Levin.The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English.Penguin, 2001.ISBN0-14-058929-5.
• T. Müller.The African American Sonnet: A Literary History.University Press of Mississippi, 2018.ISBN978-1496817839
• J. Phelan.The Nineteenth Century Sonnet.Palgrave Macmillan,2005.ISBN1-4039-3804-0.
• S. Regan.The Sonnet.Oxford University Press, 2006.ISBN0-19-289307-6.
• H. Robbins.Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition.University of Georgia Press, 2020.ISBN9780820357645.
• John Rutherford,The Spanish Golden Age Sonnet.University of Wales Press, 2016.ISBN9781783168989,ISBN1783168986.
• William Sharp,Sonnets of this Century,London 1887.
• M. R. G. Spiller.The Development of the Sonnet: An Introduction.Routledge, 1992.ISBN0-415-08741-4.
• M. R. G. Spiller.The Sonnet Sequence: A Study of Its Strategies.Twayne Pub., 1997.ISBN0-8057-0970-3.

External links

• Sixty-Six: The Journal of Sonnet Studies
• BBC discussion on "The Sonnet".Radio 4 programmeIn our time.(Audio, 45 minutes)
• List of SonnetsatPoets.org
• "Sonnet" defined in "Glossary of Poetic Terms"from the Poetry Foundation