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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > Daniel Blackston, Help! I'm drowning! | Forum Quick Jump
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
      
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 7/20/2007 12:23 PM (GMT -5) |   | Yipes!!! I'm finally asked for my opinion on something -- poetry no less! -- and I'm afraid I have no definitive answer to offer here.
In fact, if someone were to ask me (other than Bitter Hermit) for advice regarding sonnets, I would likely send them to Bitter Hermit for his take on the matter. He has much knowledge and formal scholarship on this matter.
Personally, I think we'd need to narrow down the question a bit; I mean a Petrarchan sonnet doens't have many similarities with a Shakespearean sonnet, just forex. And likewise, the handling of a Shakespearean sonnet by Shakespeare and, say, E.E. Cummings are extraordinarily diverse. Most people probably do not even realize that many of Cummings' famous poems are in sonnet form.
Then there's Donne. Or Wylie. Or May Swenson, all of whom wrote excellent sonnets IMHO, but all of whom also have individual takes on the form. The basic elements of an English sonnet are 14 lines, iambic pentameter, a/b/a/b rhyme scheme with a closing couplet, approached (often) in quatrains, with a volta in the closing verse and couplet and a few variants (dactylls, spondees, etc) of the pentameter line used sparingly for expressive impact. You do too much (or not enough) variation in meter and your sonnet will become parody! Whether you want it to or not!
Without a doubt, Shakespeare is the most agile sonneteer I know of -- his cycle of sonnets is unsurpassed in English literature and I do think that nearly every poet who has tried to follow in Shakespeare's footsteps directly has failed -- or just barely fallen short.
There are subteties in the sonnet form that I never hear anyone speaking about. 1) In a Shakespearean sonnet the lines tend to alternate: purgation/illumination which, in turn, works with the "in" and "out" breath of the reader, which is extremely powerful and cool and hard to "copy." 2) Another big deal in sonnets is the "Volta" the turn which occurs between the closing stanza and the closing couplet.
I seldom see poets competently handle the volta. For that matter most good sonnets *accelerate* as well. Shakespeare was a genius at this!!! The imagery of a sonnet is as important as the rhyme scheme and meter (as in haiku) and this has a lot to do with why so many sonnets fall flat, I think.
Here's an example from Shakespeare:
SONNET 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
OK, the brilliant thing happening here beyond the diction and prosody is the acceleration of the imagery: first leafless trees ("bare ruined choirs"), then the setting sun, and finally the dying embers of a fire, all of which evoke the "mortal angst" of the sonnet's theme. The brilliance is in the progression of images which become more urgent and visceral as the poem progresses: the glowing fire embers lastly are so immediate and urgent and universally understood. The progression of images, no less than the innovativeness of lanuage, is what makes this poem superb.
The "volta" in this sonnet is a "delayed" volta in that it really doesn't take place until the closing couplet. Still, it is the "movement" of the poem which saves it from dullness and flatness and forgetability.
So, there's some thoughts on sonnets, which are as comprehensive as they are eloquent!  The subject is quite vast!
If you are looking to define sonnets or poetry itself, I'm happy to join in the discussion but I am pretty sure any rules we research or offer of our own intellectual and creative resources will ultimately yield to numerous exceptions!
"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 7/22/2007 7:43 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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von Darkmoor
Small Press Publisher (and Dancer still)
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 3120
| Posted 7/22/2007 7:46 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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