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Elizabethan sonnets represent the finest poetic expression nourished in the refined courtly manners and new cultural sensibility of the Renaissance. According to noted critic, Cazamian, "it was Renaissance Humanism that provoked the renewal of poetry". The direct inspiration came from Italian Francesca Petrarch who wrote sonnets for his ideal women, Laura.
The word "sonnet" derives from the Italian, "sonetto" ("a little sound"). It was a short poem of fourteen lines recited to "a musical accompaniment denoting a single idea or emotion". It is structurally divided into two unequal parts the first eight lines form the octave (or Peidi) with the rhyme scheme abba abba while the last six lines constitute the sestet (or volta) with the rhyme scheme cde cde. Its roots can be traced to thirteenth century when it was first developed by Fra Guittone d'Arezzo. However, it was carried to perfection by Petrarch, Cavalcanti and Dante. Its rich sensual language, melody and range in expressing personal feelings influenced English poets like Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney. Edmund Spencer, William Shakespeare and others who imprinted their own signature on the genre. In fact, Samuel Daniel collectively calls them "a nest of singing birds articulating the treasure of our English tongue."
In 1557, a London publisher, Richard Tottel collected a number of poems in a volume entitled Tottel's Miscellany of Songs and Sonnets which contained 271 poems, mostly sonnets. Out of these poems, 96 were attributed to Wyatt, 40 to Henry. Howard, 40 to Nicholas Grimaldi and the rest to lesser known or unspecified authors. The collection in a way marked the influx of the genre in English literature.
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a great classical scholar who claimed Juvenal to be his master, translated Plutarch and Petrarch and was instrumental in introducing Dante's verse stanza, Terza rima into English literature. Out of 120 surviving poems of Wyatt, seventy are said to be direct translation of Italian originals but that hardly belittles his importance. His poetic language truly expresses Petrarchan conventions. However, his experiments with form and meter, his Italian importation and his adaptation from the native poetry show us the difficulties and the problems of a writer struggling to find his roots. In the words of the noted critic John Pitcher, "Wyatt is none the less a troubled writer and this may be because he had no clear idea as to where his poetry came from."
Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey considered himself to be a disciple of Wyatt but showed a studied indifference to the use of rhyme in sharp contrast to his master. Surrey's primary source was Virgil and his "strange meter which is now known as blank verse. Surrey's blank verse is modelled using Virgil's hexameter and modulated to an unrhymed and inflected versification. From the classical master he learned the economy of words discipline and control which turned his poems into fine artistic products. He introduced a pattern of three quatrains with a final clinching couplet (abab/cdcd/efef/gg) instead of the usual Italian pattern. Thus the sonnet form was less elaborate and more English in flavour which was later adapted by Shakespeare. Edmund Spencer wrote an intricate sonnet sequence entitled Amoretti which celebrates his courtship with Elizabeth Boyle. It fuses an undertone of melancholy with a sensitive delight in beauty and splendour of things. Spencer innovatively introduced a different pattern that links three quatrains with a couplet (abab/bcbc/cdcd/ee). At the end, occurs the epithalamion or the bridal song that reverberates with a refrain echoing throughout the poems.
Sir Philip Sidney composed his sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella in 1591. Here all the conventional poetic tropes of negotiation, persuasion, self-projection and self fashioning exist along with constant verbal play that imitates courtly manners. Tie 108 sonnets and 11 songs describe the development of unrequited love of a star lover (Greek word: Astrophil) for a distant star (Latin word: Stella).
Samuel Daniel along with Michael Drayton took the English sonnets to a new high. Daniel's sonnet sequence Delia and Drayton's Idea anticipates Shakespearean pre-occupation with the fragility and fickleness of love and the time's impending shadow.
Shakespearean sonnets have been subject to intense debate and research which have constantly puzzled the minds of the scholars because of the intense auto- biographical speculation regarding their composition. According to Wordsworth, the sonnets are "the key with which Shakespeare unlocked his heart." Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets which were published by Thomas Thorpe in 1669. The sonnets have been analysed in terms of their formal organisation. They are generally recognised as falling into three distinct groups: the first 126 are addressed to a "a fair youth"; the next 26 are referred to a mysterious association with the "Dark Lady" while the last 2 give a new twist to the erotic theme by their reference to Cupid. Within this division, there are sub-groups for example sonnet no. 1-17 encouraged the youth to marry while sonnet 17-86 subtly refers to the threat posed by a rival poet. However the vitality of the sonnet sequences comes not from real life but from the multiple significance inherent in the male and female figures who symbolise all that is desirable and unobtainable in human life. Shakespeare discarded the courtly conventions of love and resorted to philosophical commentary on love haunted by time and immortality. "Since Brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,/ But sad mortality o'er sways their power..."
Elizabethan sonnets can be seen as the true poetic expression of Renaissance Humanism that repudiated the strict medieval life-view and symbolise the final break with the Middle Ages. It is also the first poetic genre in English which felicitated the expression of personal intimate emotions in impassionate language. However the experimentation of the form from Wyatt to Shakespeare ensured the evolution of the personal element to the universal meditation of larger issues concerning human existence.
The word "sonnet" derives from the Italian, "sonetto" ("a little sound"). It was a short poem of fourteen lines recited to "a musical accompaniment denoting a single idea or emotion". It is structurally divided into two unequal parts the first eight lines form the octave (or Peidi) with the rhyme scheme abba abba while the last six lines constitute the sestet (or volta) with the rhyme scheme cde cde. Its roots can be traced to thirteenth century when it was first developed by Fra Guittone d'Arezzo. However, it was carried to perfection by Petrarch, Cavalcanti and Dante. Its rich sensual language, melody and range in expressing personal feelings influenced English poets like Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney. Edmund Spencer, William Shakespeare and others who imprinted their own signature on the genre. In fact, Samuel Daniel collectively calls them "a nest of singing birds articulating the treasure of our English tongue."
In 1557, a London publisher, Richard Tottel collected a number of poems in a volume entitled Tottel's Miscellany of Songs and Sonnets which contained 271 poems, mostly sonnets. Out of these poems, 96 were attributed to Wyatt, 40 to Henry. Howard, 40 to Nicholas Grimaldi and the rest to lesser known or unspecified authors. The collection in a way marked the influx of the genre in English literature.
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a great classical scholar who claimed Juvenal to be his master, translated Plutarch and Petrarch and was instrumental in introducing Dante's verse stanza, Terza rima into English literature. Out of 120 surviving poems of Wyatt, seventy are said to be direct translation of Italian originals but that hardly belittles his importance. His poetic language truly expresses Petrarchan conventions. However, his experiments with form and meter, his Italian importation and his adaptation from the native poetry show us the difficulties and the problems of a writer struggling to find his roots. In the words of the noted critic John Pitcher, "Wyatt is none the less a troubled writer and this may be because he had no clear idea as to where his poetry came from."
Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey considered himself to be a disciple of Wyatt but showed a studied indifference to the use of rhyme in sharp contrast to his master. Surrey's primary source was Virgil and his "strange meter which is now known as blank verse. Surrey's blank verse is modelled using Virgil's hexameter and modulated to an unrhymed and inflected versification. From the classical master he learned the economy of words discipline and control which turned his poems into fine artistic products. He introduced a pattern of three quatrains with a final clinching couplet (abab/cdcd/efef/gg) instead of the usual Italian pattern. Thus the sonnet form was less elaborate and more English in flavour which was later adapted by Shakespeare. Edmund Spencer wrote an intricate sonnet sequence entitled Amoretti which celebrates his courtship with Elizabeth Boyle. It fuses an undertone of melancholy with a sensitive delight in beauty and splendour of things. Spencer innovatively introduced a different pattern that links three quatrains with a couplet (abab/bcbc/cdcd/ee). At the end, occurs the epithalamion or the bridal song that reverberates with a refrain echoing throughout the poems.
Sir Philip Sidney composed his sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella in 1591. Here all the conventional poetic tropes of negotiation, persuasion, self-projection and self fashioning exist along with constant verbal play that imitates courtly manners. Tie 108 sonnets and 11 songs describe the development of unrequited love of a star lover (Greek word: Astrophil) for a distant star (Latin word: Stella).
Samuel Daniel along with Michael Drayton took the English sonnets to a new high. Daniel's sonnet sequence Delia and Drayton's Idea anticipates Shakespearean pre-occupation with the fragility and fickleness of love and the time's impending shadow.
Shakespearean sonnets have been subject to intense debate and research which have constantly puzzled the minds of the scholars because of the intense auto- biographical speculation regarding their composition. According to Wordsworth, the sonnets are "the key with which Shakespeare unlocked his heart." Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets which were published by Thomas Thorpe in 1669. The sonnets have been analysed in terms of their formal organisation. They are generally recognised as falling into three distinct groups: the first 126 are addressed to a "a fair youth"; the next 26 are referred to a mysterious association with the "Dark Lady" while the last 2 give a new twist to the erotic theme by their reference to Cupid. Within this division, there are sub-groups for example sonnet no. 1-17 encouraged the youth to marry while sonnet 17-86 subtly refers to the threat posed by a rival poet. However the vitality of the sonnet sequences comes not from real life but from the multiple significance inherent in the male and female figures who symbolise all that is desirable and unobtainable in human life. Shakespeare discarded the courtly conventions of love and resorted to philosophical commentary on love haunted by time and immortality. "Since Brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,/ But sad mortality o'er sways their power..."
Elizabethan sonnets can be seen as the true poetic expression of Renaissance Humanism that repudiated the strict medieval life-view and symbolise the final break with the Middle Ages. It is also the first poetic genre in English which felicitated the expression of personal intimate emotions in impassionate language. However the experimentation of the form from Wyatt to Shakespeare ensured the evolution of the personal element to the universal meditation of larger issues concerning human existence.