Red-Headed

ORIGINS

This is an emended version that I posted in the lesson plans section of this site.


The sonnet has always been difficult for many people to describe. If you ask what a sonnet is, most people would probably reply “a fourteen line poem”. Many poets would call a fourteen line poem a quatorzain just to distinguish it from a sonnet proper, whatever that actually is. Some may even add that it was a ‘fourteen line poem’ in iambic pentameter. In fact the sonnet is incredibly varied; some do not even actually rhyme! Not all of them are fourteen lines either & the metre is usually the prevalent one in the language the poem is written in. In French the Alexandrine dominates & in Italian the hendecasyllable is preferred. The sonnet can be classified into various types, such as Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Miltonic or even Pushkinian but it often seems to defy definition.

As a form the sonnet is about seven hundred & fifty years old. They have been written in English from around the turn of the sixteenth century. Most European languages have produced sonnets. There is a strong possibility that it has its ultimate origin in a Sicilian song form. Piero delle Vigne & Giacomo de Lentini in the early thirteenth century produced the initial forms of the sonnet as we would recognise them today. Guittone d’Arezzo (1230-94) first used the classical ‘Italian’ sonnet (a strict ABBAABBACDCDCD rhyme scheme). Dante (1265-1321) & Petrarch (1304-74) perfected it in their respective sonnet cycles ‘Vita Nuova’ & ‘Canzoniere’. Petrarch was the first to really extol the virtues of the sonnet. His ‘Rime to Laura’ (possibly a pun on the word laurel, as in ‘laureate’) established the essential romantic form & stylistic model of the sonnet we think of today.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet & diplomat, bought the sonnet to the English court & then Henry Howard, the soldier, poet, & Earl of Surrey became the innovator of the form of three quatrains followed by an heroic couplet. This was primarily to solve the problem of rhyming in a language which does not have a natural abundance of them. Its effect on the Elizabethans cannot be underestimated. The sonnet seemed to have the uncanny ability to crystallise thought succinctly & with some potency (not unlike the haiku in Japan). All this in an era when the English idiom was in the most rapidly developing phase it has ever been. New concepts & words were being introduced into the language at an alarming rate. The sonnet quickly developed into more than just a poem & had whole layers & conceits within its pithy form. It reached its apotheosis with Shakespeare’s cycle of a hundred & fifty-three.

In the seventeenth century George Herbert (1593-1633) & John Donne (1572-1631) wrote glorious religious sonnets Prayer & Redemption being two of the finer examples of the former. Donne, who is often seen as the father of the metaphysical poets, wrote some of the most witty & beautiful in the English language in his Songs & Sonets. He also bought a new realism & urgency with an apposite almost psychological penetration which would have a powerful accumulative effect on later poets. John Milton (1608-74) best known for his long narrative poemParadise Lost, the longest in the English canon, pushed the envelope with the form & often expressed deeply held personal feelings, notwithstanding the addressing of certain political subjects close to his heart.

By the time of Doctor Johnson, the celebrated lexicographer & his even more famous dictionary, (1755) the sonnet had become unfashionable. Johnson claimed in his now legendary lexicon that it (the sonnet) was not very suitable for the English language & nobody had done much with it since Milton.

In the late eighteenth century the sonnet made a comeback. Spearheaded by William Lisle Bowles & by the nineteenth century the Romantics had raised the form to new heights. Wordsworth & Keats particularly had a lot to do with this. The Victorians sentimentalised the form somewhat, although Gerard Manley Hopkins had his own particular spin on the type, the sonnet survived to become one of the most popular forms of poetry enjoyed today.

One of the most misunderstood terms regarding the sonnet is the ‘volta’. This a term borrowed from the Italian volte face meaning about turn. The turn is merely a subtle & often poignant change in the subject matter, in the Italian usually after the eighth line & in the English normally after the second stanza. This is often perceived as a psychological device to relieve tension by exacting a change. The Golden Mean was the ratio 8:5 & many people have pointed out that the sonnet seems to exhibit similar characteristics to that ratio that fascinated the ancient world so much.

The main difference between the two predominant forms of sonnet is that the Italian or Petrarchan consists of an octet followed by a sestet where the English or Shakespearian form has three quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet.


THE ITALIAN OR PETRARCHAN


DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men thee doe go,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell’st thou then ?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

John Donne(from the) Holy Sonnets ‘x’


Apart from the antiquated spelling, the use of Middle English personal & impersonal pronouns (thee & thou) & the old present indicative (think’st) this is definitely an Italian sonnet. The turn is obvious on the eighth line & the resolution of the subject poignant.

The Divine poems & Holy Sonnets are amongst the best work that Donne ever produced. The Holy Sonnets were composed after the death of his wife in 1617. He had been recently ordained into the church & the tone of his poetry became very mystical & soul searching. Many of his early poems could be quite bawdy with much innuendo. He is seen as one of the originators of the Metaphysical movement with its clever conceits. Donne emotively generated his arguments bringing a new realism & urgency to lyric poetry. This was combined with great penetration & psychological analysis. Eventually he became the Dean of St Paul’s He died in London on March 31st 1631.


THE ENGLISH OR SHAKESPEAREAN


Because English, as a language, is notoriously difficult to rhyme in (is there a rhyme with orange?) it was inevitable that a sonnet form would develop that was more suitable to the Germanic language group. Italic languages with their plethora of vowel endings & suffixes are more conducive to rhyming. The form that developed had three quatrains & ended with a rhyming (or heroic) couplet. This all seems fine on the face of it, but the type has problems of its own. With a rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, it seemed to make it easier for the placement of the volta after the second quatrain. One of the predicaments of this is that you may not be able to say everything you wish before getting to the last couplet. This can give the impression of trying to cram an idea in at the last minute. At the very least it can make the sonnet look a little hurried. Even some of Shakespeare’s sonnets do not always seem to work when they get to that crucial ending couplet.

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

This one by the Bard himself however ends with a perfect masculine rhyme. This is such a well known poem I will not say too much about it, suffice to say it is an almost perfect example of the form. Later I will look at the Caudate sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins & the Spenserian form.


Bibliography

A life of Matthew Arnold: Nicholas Murray, Sceptre,1987.
Essays Literary & Critical by Matthew Arnold, J.M. Dent. 1922.
Matthew Arnold's Poetical Works: Macmillan & Co 1890, 1st ed.
PIETÀ: R.S. Thomas, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1966, 1st ed.
The Works of John Milton: Wordsworth Poetry Library.
The Oxford Companion to English Literature: Ed; M. Drabble, OUP.
101 Sonnets Ed; Don Paterson: Faber & Faber
A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms: Ed; R. Fowler.
Oxford English: OUP
From Donne to Marvell: Ed; B.Ford, Pelican books.
The Pelican Guide to English Literature: Ed; B. Ford Pelican books.
Sphere History of Literature in the English Language: Ed; B. Bergonzi.
How to be Well-Versed in Poetry: Ed; E.O. Parrot, Penguin books.
The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Gardener & MacKenzie, 4th ed, OUP.