Sonnet
Sonnet is a lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme.
The term ‘sonnet’ is derived from the Italian word Sonata. It synonymous word is ‘Sonnetto’, diminutive of ‘Suono'. Suono means sound. It is also connected with the early Italian verb Sonare meaning ‘to play upon instrument’.
There are two major patterns or rhymes in sonnets written in English language:
1. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet:-
Italian sonnet has two parts, octave and sestet. The right lines of the octave contain two quatrains, the rhyme-scheme is abba abba and the six lines of the sestet are divided into two tercets and the rhyme-scheme is cdcdcd or cdecde.
Petrarch’s sonnets were first imitated in England, both in their stanza form and their subject— the hopes and pains of an adoring male lover — by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early sixteen century. Tue Petrarchan form was later used, and for a variety of subjects, by Milton, Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti and other sonneteers, who sometimes made it technically easier in English by introducing a new pair of rhymes in the second four lines of the Octave.
Here is an example of an Italian sonnet or Petrarchan sonnet — “The Poetry of Earth” written by John Keats
The poetry of earth is never dead: a
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun; b
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run b
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; a
That is the Grasshopper’ —he takes the lead a
In summer luxury, —he has never done b
With his delights; for when tired out with fun b
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. a
The poetry of earth is ceasing never: c
On a lone winter evening, when the frost d
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills e
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever, c
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, d
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills. e
[The poem is written in Petrarchan or Italian sonnet form of the sonnet. It has fourteen lines. Like a typical Italian sonnet it is divided into two parts — an octave and a sestet. The poem has a definite rhyme scheme : abbaabba cdecde. The song of the grasshopper is embodied in the octave and that of the cricket is portrayed in the sestet.]
2. English Sonnet Or Shakespearean Sonnet:-
The Earl of Surrey and other English experimenters in the sixteenth century also developed a stanza from called the English Sonnet, or else the Shakespearean sonnet, after its greatest practitioner.
The Shakespearean Sonnet is separate from the Petrarchan sonnet in a number of ways. The octave and sestet division is replaced by a quatrain-couplet division, with three quatrains of four lines each followed by a closing two-line couplet. The rhyme-scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
There is a notable variant the Spenserian sonnet, the rhyme scheme goes like abab bcbc cdcd ee, in which Spenser linked each quatrain to the next by a continuing rhyme. It is called the linked rhyme-scheme.
The English sonnet had varying forms right from the start. Most sonnets of Wyatt are cast in a structure of three quatrains, of which the first two are Italian enclosed rhyme-scheme (abba abba), but two new rhymes are introduced in the third quatrains, and finally comes a couplet with a new fifth rhyme (ee). Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, wrote his famous sonnet The Soote season entirely in two rhymes only, the scheme begin abab abab ab ab ab. Sidney’s sonnets usually have abba abba as well as abababab octave, while the sestet may be either cd cd ee or cd dc ee.
But it will be noticed that in English forms the end-couplet is common, which occurs as rare exception in the works of Italian masters like Dante and Petrarch. The strict division of thought between octave and sestet is also often flouted in the English sonnet.
Here is an example of a Shakespearean Sonnet — Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare thee to a summer’s day ?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? a
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. b
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. b
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, c
And often is his gold complexion dimmed; d
And every fair from fair sometime declines, c
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed. d
But thy etemal summer shall not fade e
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; f
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, e
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st, f
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, g
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. g
[The structure of the sonnet is a combination of three quatrains counterpoise by a concluding couplet in Shakespeare’s characteristics manner. The rhyme-scheme abab cdcd efef gg is also his invariable form.]
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