glossary 2

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Glossary 1

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John Milton (1608-1674)

Milton's sonnets--which he produced over the course of his poetic life--reflect both contemporary public and private events.

By his time, the great surge of Elizabethan sonneteering had past, and he was left with a form that was still useful but was in need of a change in direction, focus and variety. Instead of returning to his own English literary forebears, Milton took to the original: he adopted the Petrarchan rhyme scheme and, in doing so, reenergized the English sonnet.

Although he is writing sonnets past their glorious age, Milton took his work with the tradition to new heights:

• He most often conceived the sonnet as a continuous verse paragraph, with
• the dividing thought cutting across the rhyme divisions, and
• the division into octave and sestet.
• He eschewed love as his primary theme--rejected traditional Petrarchan themes--and instead turned to such diverse topics as
• personal themes: his late maturation; his blindness; the death of his wife;
• public or "occasional" themes: the English Civil War, with its deep divisions; religious persecution; political protests;
• heroic themes: in praise of famous men [a development unique to Milton]

For originality, thematic variety, and craftsmanshsip, Milton's sonnets are unique in the language and are believed by some readers to be perhaps the most important development in the genre since Wyatt and Surrey.

So How Does This Sonnet Story End?

Essentially, sonnets do not disappear; in fact, they are still being written today. But they experienced their greatest vogue during the Renaissance, and thereafter they declined in popularity.

Although Milton dramatically revived (resuscitated?) the form, other poets were not inspired by his example. After him, very few sonnets were written during 1660-1740.

Eighteenth century and subsequent generations of writers tended to reject the sonnet form, but it still cropped up periodically. For example, Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, both 19th century writers, adapted the form to their own uses.

John Donne (1573-1631)

Although later sonneteers like Shakespeare and Ben Jonson play with the Petrarchan tradition, the first really significant change in the genre occurred at the end of the 16th century, when religion gradually displaced love as the primary subject of the sonnet, setting in motion a thematic shift that would lead to even greater innovation in later years.

Donne was the first to express and fully develop the potential of the form the expression of religious faith. In his Holy Sonnets (written mainly 1608-10), he explores his obsessions with death and salvation.

Donne changed the face of the sonnet in several ways:

• His sonnets focus on religious topics.
• He experiments with form and structure: many of his poems do not follow the traditional octave-sestet division.
• His sonnets are remarkable for how they dignify the genre: they show how a form often used to showcase a poet's wit and technique, or to express oft-repeated sentiments of love, could be adapted to provide a forum for intense religious sentiments.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Shakespeare began his career as a poet, and his plays show the artistry developed in such forms as the sonnet. Written over a number of years, his sonnets were not published until 1609, considerably after the "vogue" for sonnets had passed.

With his sonnets, Shakespeare breaks from tradition in several ways:

• They do not revolve around a single female figure--as do Petrarch's, Sidney's and Spenser's--but they instead are written to three separate figures, male and female:
• a blond young aristocrat,
• a mysterious dark lady, and
• a rival poet.
• The tripartite focus gives Shakespeare's sonnets greater range.
• One of his major themes is the passage of time and its effect on people.
• While he adopts traditional Petarchan conceits (Sonnet XVIII), he also turns such conceits on their heads (Sonnet CXXX).
• The sonnets use compact language, a range of tone, and profound word play.
• The sonnets have a particularly moral bent or vision.
• He balanced his sonnets on a final couplet of rhyming lines.

Sir Edmund Spenser (1552-99)

Spenserian Sonnet

Sonnet with the interlocking rhyme scheme used by Edmund Spenser as follows: abab,bcbc,cdcd,ee. For an example, see "Happy ye leaves, whenas those lily hands".

Spenserian Sonnet Form

describes the Spenserian Sonnet, a sonnet variation developed in the sixteenth century by English poet Edmund Spenser. While few poets have used this form, it serves as a bridge between the Italian sonnet and the form used by Shakespeare.

In a Spenserian sonnet, the rhyme scheme used is ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, and there does not appear to be a requirement that the initial octet sets up a problem which the closing sestet answers. Instead, the form is treated as three quatrains (linked by the connected rhyme scheme described above) followed by a couplet. Again, iambic pentameter is used.

Spenser's sonnet sequence, the Amoretti, fittingly was published along with his Epithalamion, a poem written in honor of his wedding to Elizabeth Boyle. Whether his sonnets were written for her is an unanswerable question--as they focus on the ebbing and flowing of a romance: first the lover gains his love, then he loses her.

Here's what you should know about Spenser's sonnets:

• He used the sonnet sequence to tell the story of the ups and downs of a romance.
• He often used Petrarchan conceits but also utilitzed elements from his personal life; thus, the sonnets are not merely Petrarchan exercises but a means of personal revelation.
• His usual rhyme scheme was abab bcbc cdcd ee (the Spenserian form).
• He deliberately used archaic spellings, yet the meaning is crystal clear in most cases: the syntax and expressions are unusually modern at times.
• He also extends his themes beyond contemplation of the beloved to matters of religion and the immortality of writing/poetry.
• His sonnets blend the spiritual and the physical.
• He is fond of using a catalogue of the beloved's virtues (See Sonnets XV and LXIV).

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86)

Sir Philip Sidney was considered both by his day and history as an ideal and courteous knight--along with Thomas More, he was the quintessential Renaissance man. A nobleman, he was an active participant in the most engaging and significant literary discussions of the time.

As with Wyatt and Surrey, none of Sidney's work was published during his lifetime, although it circulated widely in manuscript. His sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella, which appeared in 1591, can be considered responsible for the large number of sonnet sequence which followed it. Sidney's sequence of 108 sonnets also includes 11 songs.

Who was Sidney's Stella? Penelope Devereux, who was betrothed to Sidney in her youth, is the original for Stella in Sidney's sonnet sequence. When the engagement was broken, she married Lord Rich and Sidney married Frances Walsingham. However, the clearly autobiographical sonnet sequence records his hopeless love for Devereux.

What should we take from Sidney's sonnets?

• They move more toward modern English and are therefore a bit easier for the modern reader to grasp;
• They combine Petarchan conceits with original expression and feeling, which means that they are gradually moving away from mere translation to true creative expression;
• The sequence leads toward the building of a complete narrative or free-standing story;
• He used very clear rhyme schemes, among them abab abab cdcd ee.
• His themes were not confined to the love contemplating his beloved; instead, they encompassed such diverse themes as the notion of originality in English (Sonnet 1) and the act of writing itself.