Sonetto Classico
The sonnet is one of the most well-known forms of poetry in history. Many of us were introduced to sonnets when first reading William Shakespeare, but Marilyn Hacket, the author of this chapter titled “The Sonnet”, mentions many other poets who have helped to keep this classical form of poetry alive. There are two main types of sonnets: Italian and English. The Italian version of the sonnet was invented by Jacopo da Lentini in the early thirteenth century. Its original name, sonetto, means “little sound or song”, since it was originally meant to be sung. The Italian sonnet was created “by combining two Sicilian quatrains — rhyming abababab — with a sestet rhymed cdecde.” (Hacker, pg 298) Both the Italian and English sonnet contains 14 lines and uses the iambic pentameter, but the English sonnet has a defining characteristic, which is the closing couplet. An English sonnet is made of four quatrains and a couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnets have been very popular during the course of history, and that probably has something to do with the content of these poems. The sonnet is said to be “associated with idealized human love” (Hacker pg 300), and the topics of love and lust are ones that always capture peoples attention, no matter what era. Sonnets can also be written in a sequence to create a narrative, which allows an entire love story to be told. One type of sonnet sequence is called a “a crown of sonnets”. This is when “each sonnet after the first one opens with the last line of the preceding poem: the last sonnet in the sequence ends with the opening line of the first.”(Hacker pg 300) This type of repetition reminded me of the pantoum. Anyways, not only did the sonnet convey messages of love, authors used this form to talk about many other contextually important topics such as religion, potitical protest, race, and sexuality.
In W. H. Auden’s sonnet titled “The Useful”, he takes advantage of the form by using many different examples to emphasize one main point. In other forms of poetry, lines or words must be repeated, which can sometimes limit the author’s ability to expand on different meanings. But instead of using repetition to emphasize the true meaning of the poem, he uses different examples such as “Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich; The over-popular went mad alone, And kisses brutalized the over-male”(Auden pg 306) to convey the message that being arrogant and having too much of something will lead to a person’s downfall.
Hacker, Marilyn. “The Sonnet.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Eds. Annie Finch & Katherine Varnes. Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 2002.
