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I spent this yesterday leafing through Don Paterson’s excellent anthology of 101 Sonnets. Paterson writes wonderfully about poetry and his introduction was superb. It really got me thinking.
So, here we have, by way of Don Paterson, a curated THREAD about the sonnet form. /1
So, here we have, by way of Don Paterson, a curated THREAD about the sonnet form. /1
After offering some preliminary definitions and characteristics of the sonnet form (the usual stuff, 14 lines, iambic pentameter, octave/sestet, etc), Paterson hits us with this caveat. /2
For me, this is so crucial. The most interesting moments in a sonnet, arguably any poem, are moments of subversion, formal resistance, and slippage. Those moments where a rule is disrupted or convention upturned. The sonnet is a form of perennial innovation and invention. /3
Paterson now turns to the origins of the sonnet and particular the association it has with love. He makes the compelling point that love, from the beginning, is often a route through which to consider other ideas, as with Petrarch. /4
Then onto the Elizabethans and the sonnet as a way of navigating and working through an idea, although later he cautions against always seeing in this thesis, antithesis, synthesis as a structural motif of the sonnet /5
Now, an absolutely fascinating commentary on the visible manifestation of the sonnet — an inked square set against white paper. Do read the whole image and not just the underlined section. Amazing to think about the implications here. /6
It was with this thought that I decided to put this thread together: the poem is a machine for remembering itself. Wow. And how this relates to notions of commemoration, love, poem as monument, the solidity of the sonnet’s shape, death, memory. /7
And now a brief comment about the volta. Useful to remember that even in the so-called English sonnet with its 4/4/4/2 structure, the volta still typically comes at line 8/9.
/8
/8
A really interesting notation on the relevance of the golden ratio when thinking about the typical division between octave and sestet, perhaps partly explaining the sonnet structure and its seeming permenance within the formal imagination of poetry. /9
With this comment on the golden ration followed up by this wonderful extrapolation that perhaps the sonnet is most perfectly suited to 13 and not 14 lines. This is really, really interesting stuff. /10
Why the epigrammatic and summative couplet at the end of a lot of Elizabethan sonnets, including some of Shakespeare’s, doesn’t really work and seems to jar. /11
And finally the conclusion. A great short essay on the sonnet and a wonderful collection.
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