14 The Sonnet: History and Form
“Sonnet is about movement in a form.”
The Sonnet
Beating wildly, beating constantly, beating truly, the sonnet peals and love proclaimed. In 14 lines, rapidly, soothingly, a letter is written from the heart - in a pattern of being - the sonnet.
The Sonnet: The History and the Form
Originating in Italy, the word sonnet is derived from the Italian sonetto, which means “little song.” Though in use before, it was the Italian poet Petrarch who, in the 1300s, developed the form that is today known as the Italian sonnet or after him, the Petrarchan sonnet. I have heard this story about Petrarch and his sonnet: One day, on the 6th of April in 1327 to be exact, while at church in Avignon, Petrarch looked across the sacred space and saw this woman, Laura. She was so beautiful. She was like an angel. For him, it was love at first sight. Upon further inquiry though, he discovered she was already married. Despite this fact, his heart was hers, and he wrote to her. He wrote sonnets to her. He wrote 317 of them. The style of these sonnets reflects the tension of his one-sided relationship.
The Petrarchan sonnet is composed of 14 lines broken up into two stanzas, an octave and a sestet with a signature turn, known as the volta, between the two. The poem is written in iambic pentameter. For the octave, the rhyme scheme is always abba abba. For the sestet, the scheme varies. The original patterns for this were cde cde or cdc cdc. In time, other variants appeared such as cdc dcd. What I love the most about the Petrarchan sonnet, is the volta. As I mentioned, this style reflects the tension felt by the man who developed it, and it is the volta that depicts that tension. Writing to a woman who is married to another man, Petrarch grapples with his feelings. In the octave, a question may be posed, a desire expressed, or doubt and conflict articulated. The sestet works in response to those lines and often in contrast. Sometimes, a simple change in thought or subject matter occurs.
Two hundred years after first appeared in Italy, it appeared in England with the writer Thomas Wyatt. It was later fully redeveloped by William Shakespeare who popularized the form in the English language so much so that we call this form of the sonnet the English sonnet, or, after him, the Shakespearean sonnet.
The Shakespearean sonnet is composed of 14 lines broken up into four stanzas, 3 quatrains and a couplet. While the volta is not employed in every Shakespearien sonnet, sometimes it does occur sometimes between the second and 3rd stanzas or between the quatrains and the couplet. However, the volta is not as significant to this style as it is in the Petrarchan. This style is also written in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is almost always abab cdcd efef gg. The couplet is the signature of this form.
In the 1800’s, Elizabeth Barret Browning revived the Petrarchan style. Between the years 1845 and 1846, Browning wrote forty-five love sonnets to the love of her life, Robert Barret Browning and published them in 1850 as a collection. Due to the personal nature of the poems, she published them as if they were translations and named the collection, Sonnets from the Portuguese. To check a few of these out, click here.
Resources
Bloom, Harold. The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost. First, Harper Collins, 2004.
Boland, Eavan, and Mark Strand. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. Reprint, W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Morris, Roderick Conway., International Herald Tribune. “Petrarch, the first humanist.” The New York Times. May 29, 2004, Assessed 9 September 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/29/style/petrarch-the-first-humanist.html
Poetic Meter and Poetic Form by Fussell (1-Jan-1979) Paperback. Revised, McGraw-Hill Higher Education; Revised edition edition (1 Jan. 1979), 1979.
Questions
What do you know about sonnets?
Have you ever read or listened to a sonnet?
Do you have a favorite sonnet?
Have you ever written a sonnet?
If you were to write a sonnet, what or who would be your subject?