Sonnets
A sonnet shows two related, contrasting
things or ideas (e.g. life vs. death; youth
vs. old age) to communicate something
about them (offer a message)
3 Major Types of Sonnets:
• Italian (Petrarchan)
• Spenserian (invented by Edmund Spenser)
• English (Shakespearian; after William
Shakespeare)
Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet
"London, 1802“ by William Wordsworth
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet
-divided into two sections with two different rhyming
patterns:
-the first 8 lines is called an octave and rhymes:
abba abba
-the remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and rhymes
as one of the following:
cdcdcd
cdecde
cdcedc
cddcdc
cdeced
The Petrarchan Sonnet never ends in a rhyming
couplet!
Message of Petrarchan Sonnet
-this sonnet is divided into two distinct rhyming
patterns (8 lines then 6 lines)
-the “twist” or change in subject matter
(volta)appears in line 9, when the rhyming pattern
changes
-e.g. in “London 1802” by Wordworth, the octave
speaks of the corruption present in England, while
the sestet remembers the honorable qualities of
Milton that are now lost but needed in England
Spenserian Sonnet
"Sonnet LIV” by Edmund Spenser
Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectator idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising diversely my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in mirth like to a Comedy;
Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I wail and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone.
Spenserian Sonnet
-invented by Edmund Spenser in the TheFaerie Queene
with the rhyming pattern:
ababbcbccdcdee
-the first three quatrains overlap in rhyme and develop a
main idea, while the rhyming couplet at the end gives a
different message (final comment)
-line 9 often begins with “But” or “Yet” where the
Petrarchan and Shakespearian sonnets would normally
have the “twist” or “volta”, but there is no change in idea
here (Spenser has more of a 12 than 2 line pattern)
-Spencer’s Volta appears at line 13 then