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Thread: Sonnets and the Golden Mean

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    Sonnets and the Golden Mean

    Why do so many sonnets break in line eight, if the golden ratio is 8:5. If you were really adhering to that, wouldn’t you want the break (stanza-break or visual line-break) to occur half-way line 9, and not line 8—while still perhaps presenting a volta in line 8 or in the split (think "The World Is Too Much With Us" for example)? The 8.5:5.5 is a lot close to the golden mean, and I think some of the Romantic sonnets exhibit it, but can only think of some Keats and Wordsworth as examples write now. "The World Is Too Much" is the best example, as it breaks via dash halfway down the first line of the sestet, while still preserving the volta on either end of the line. Also, more contemporary, Denis’ Johnson’s poem “Heat” (both of these available online) breaks similarly in line 9.

    Can anyone think of other sonnets that break after the end of the octet, and still have a volta? Or that conform to the golden mean? Or just unusual sonnet structures in general, or comments on any of this? Curious to hear what people think about the golden mean and volta ideas.

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    Why would arbitrarily determining this on the basis of a mathematical constant be better than the standard convention? Given the structure of the rhyme scheme in a Petrarchan sonnet, placing the volta at the beginning of the 9th or end of 8th seems less arbitrary. Of course, the Shakespearean sonnet places the volta in the 12th line usually, which makes sense for with the rhyme structure.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leiphos View Post
    Why do so many sonnets break in line eight, if the golden ratio is 8:5. If you were really adhering to that, wouldn’t you want the break (stanza-break or visual line-break) to occur half-way line 9, and not line 8—while still perhaps presenting a volta in line 8 or in the split (think "The World Is Too Much With Us" for example)? The 8.5:5.5 is a lot close to the golden mean, and I think some of the Romantic sonnets exhibit it, but can only think of some Keats and Wordsworth as examples write now. "The World Is Too Much" is the best example, as it breaks via dash halfway down the first line of the sestet, while still preserving the volta on either end of the line. Also, more contemporary, Denis’ Johnson’s poem “Heat” (both of these available online) breaks similarly in line 9.

    Can anyone think of other sonnets that break after the end of the octet, and still have a volta? Or that conform to the golden mean? Or just unusual sonnet structures in general, or comments on any of this? Curious to hear what people think about the golden mean and volta ideas.
    I sense the volta in Wordsworth's poem ( http://public.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_...ordsworth.html ) occurring at the end of the 8th line even though it ends with a semicolon. The "It moves us not." is part of the idea in the last 6 lines where the view of the world described in the first 8 lines is rejected. Of course, one could see it the way you describe it as well.

    I don't know to what extent the Golden Ratio has anything to do with art. When things come in two different sizes they can be imagined as close to this ratio, even when they are far off. Somehow being close to this ratio is a good thing, but I don't know why that should be the case.

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    Quote Originally Posted by YesNo View Post
    I don't know to what extent the Golden Ratio has anything to do with art. When things come in two different sizes they can be imagined as close to this ratio, even when they are far off. Somehow being close to this ratio is a good thing, but I don't know why that should be the case.
    Golden ratio (both maintaining and breaking) is highly relevant in any reference to classical culture/thought. Contextually the idea of mathematics (specifically Euclidian geometry) as pathway to, or embodiment of divinity is a core tenant of western philosophical thought which dates back as far early Greece (and maybe Babylonia/Assyria).

    If you take Romanticism as a revolt against the scientific rationalisation of nature, and combine this with the themes mentioned in the previous paragraph, this gives you a great starting point for a discourse on the golden ratio within Keats and Wordsworth.

    On romanticism: For a long time and for many reasons (monastic tradition, St Thomas Aquinas is a good reference) maths, literature, music and the arts have a tightly interlaced history and it's that only recently (post industrial revolution) they have been put at odds with one another.

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    I think it's far less arbitrary to look at the influence of Milton's sonnets on the development of Romantic sonnet writing, which was a rather minor form for the movement anyway. Also, as YesNo pointed out, a case can be made that the golden ratio is not observed in most Romantic sonnets.

    The sonnet form is not a classical form, it is a medieval form that grew into prominence and became conventionalized in the early Renaissance. The position of the volta is determined by the rhyme scheme, I would argue adhering to the golden ratio would more likely ruin the aesthetics of the sonnet. It would render the English sonnet structure impossible. It is an especially secular form. Even the Holy sonnets of Donne employ secular tropes of sexuality, which is part of what makes them interesting. Milton turned the English sonnet from the contemplation of the other, to the contemplation to the self. Sometimes Milton's sonnets are deeply religious, sometimes they are simply personal. This is the model Romantic sonnets are built on, a form of personal observation. A few short lines to express an impression and revelation. Moreover, the idea of carefully crafted mathematical patterns runs contrary to the poetics Wordsworth expresses in his writings on poetry, which he thought should be straightforward, honest, and direct. Keats had a deeper interest in classical poetics, but even so this kind of sacrificing the natural aesthetics of the sonnet in favour of some awkward mathematical ratio doesn't strike me as very Keatsian.

    As to maths in sonnet forms, Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion is 52 sonnets long, and deliberately tracks the progress of a year long courtship of his wife.
    "If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
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