Meta: intro to sonnet week

[lnhammer]

I'm lnhammer, and I'll be hosting a week on sonnets.

You can find as almost many definitions of a sonnet as you can prosodists: fourteen lines, rhyming, yadda yadda. "Rhyming," yes, but exactly how is not important. In fact, historically a particular rhyme scheme has never been a defining characteristic of sonnets -- the now-standard abbaabba octave of the various Italian schemata wasn't introduced until a generation after the form was invented in the early 13th century (using abababab).

The closest thing to a definitive marker is 14 lines containing an asymmetric two-part structure with a "turn" of thought, volta in Italian, slightly more than halfway through, most orthodoxly giving it a 8+6 structure (as emphasized by Italian rhyme schemes) but sometimes moved a line or two in either direction. But even that definition can be carped at, given that Elizabethan rhyme schemes with their final couplet often suggest using a 12+2 argument.

But enough of that. This week I'd like to explore some other aspects of sonnets -- starting with my next post later today.

Until then, though, a question: how do YOU define a sonnet?

---L.

Comments

[primeideal]

I take a rather rigid approach I'm afraid--fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, some rhyme scheme or another. There are exceptions that prove the rule, but I find most of those difficult to appreciate. ;)

[lnhammer]

I confess that doesn't look very rigid to me, but possibly I've been hanging in the wrong poetic circles.

---L.

[primeideal]

No, you're hanging in the right ones. I'm hanging in the wrong ones. ;)

[bookblather]

My first introduction to sonnets was Shakespeare, so in my mind, those are sonnets. I know there are others-- Petrarchian/Italian comes to mind the most, and Spencerian-- but I always look at the Shakespearian sonnet as a "proper sonnet."

[lnhammer]

Out of curiosity, how do sonnets from other languages (such as Italian) feel to you?

---L.

[bookblather]

Ah, hmm. Like poetry, always-- I love translated Petrarch, for example-- but there's a tiny voice going "not a sonnet, doesn't rhyme right" so I think of them more generally as poetry, I guess? I dunno, my mind works in tortured and convoluted ways.

[lnhammer]

*nod*

And, just wait a moment till I get my next post up ...

---L.

[gramina]

14 lines, some kind of rhyme scheme, pentameter that's mostly iambic. (Loose is fine.) I like it better if there's either a twist or a resolution at some relatively definable point, preferably at least a little more than halfway through.

But I'm not a purist, I think.

[gramina]

Incidentally, one piece that's not a sonnet, but is built on a sonnet structure, is this one: http://gramina.dreamwidth.org/18527.html

The first ten lines are pretty acceptably sonnet-like; the remaining four lose one foot in each line -- line 11 is four feet, line 12 is three feet, line 13 is two feet, and line 14 is one foot -- deliberately, as part of the point of the poem. I *think* it works; I don't know.

Are there other poems that take a form like a sonnet and then twisted it to make a particular thematic point?

[lnhammer]

I think it works, too. I also personally agree with calling it a sonnet structure rather than a sonnet, but that's a dangerous path. I'll be poking at experiments like that later in the week.

---L.

[gramina]

Thanks! And yeah, I definitely would *not* call it a sonnet! It's an Alzheimer's-y twisting of something that started out looking sort of sonnet-like, but I think it's not any formal "form" at all.

[ariestess]

I love the feel of sonnets, but HATE trying to create them. Then again, strict metric feet and rhyme schemes tend to give me hives, so... *g*

[lnhammer]

It takes all types. :)

Have you found any non-formal structures that reproduce, at least in your own mind, the feel of sonnets?

---L.

[ariestess]

I like the idea of working with specific syllabic counts. In fact, I just did a poem of 25 stanzas of 6 lines each with 59 total syllables [9 in the first line and 10 each for the rest]. That kind of thing thrills me. I may have to use something similar for the sonnet form...

[lnhammer]

You may want to check out John Hollander's Powers of Thirteen, a cycle of 169 poems that are 13 lines of 13 syllables. Samples can be found online.

---L.

[ariestess]

Oh, that sounds fascinating! Thanks for the rec. I may have to play with an idea like that, as I love the #13.

[gramina]

:) Whereas for me, left to my own devices I tend toward sonnets pretty preferentially, and mostly stick to some kind of defined structure; I've done some unstructured stuff, but not a lot.

Somehow, having to compress what I want to communicate into that tight structure seems to help me stay focused, keep me using the simple and direct word instead of the complicated/distancing one, sort of "keep me honest" in the poem. Which surprises me -- I would have expected it to work the other way, and end up with things that felt forced. _shrug_ You just never know. I'm odd!

[lnhammer]

Makes sense to me -- it's main reason I use forms, that it forces me to pay attention to what I'm saying as well as how I'm saying it. Not settle for the first wording that came to mind but hone it as sharply as possible.

---L.

[ariestess]

LOL! I have no issue with syllabic limits, just for some reason the metrics/feet and rhyme schemes practically make me break out into hives...

[serene]

I'm surprised you don't mention iambic pentameter; a poem doesn't feel like a sonnet [edit: to me] without it.

I like writing sonnets, though I don't do it all that often, because it's a difficult word puzzle (which is also why I like it), so it's rare I hit on one that I think is any good.

[lnhammer]

Heh, on pentameter. But rather than argue here, I'll point to today's post.

---L.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

14 lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme.

Hmm as well

[lnhammer]

Brief and to the point. I'd quibble with only two parts of it: I don't think pentameter is strictly needed, though it is the default in English, and I'd like to exclude poems that are seven couplets -- there needs to be some sort of interlocking. I cannot put my finger on exactly why I want to make that last caveat -- will need to think on this anon. As for the former, see today's post.

---L.

Re: Hmm as well

[ysabetwordsmith]

Well, that's a different form: heroic couplets are written in iambic pentameter.

Re: Hmm as well

[lnhammer]

Exactly. I was just pointing out that your definition didn't preclude someone writing seven heroic couplets and calling it a sonnet.

---L.

[alexseanchai]

Fourteen lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme, ideally ababcdcdefefgg. But I wrote one that goes effe instead, to make a point.

If the 'turn of thought' is crucial to a sonnet, I might never have written an actual sonnet in my life.

[lnhammer]

Why specifically Elizabethan instead of some variation of the Italian abbaabbacdecde? Just curious.

---L.

[alexseanchai]

I don't know. Maybe because I met Shakespeare before anybody non-English-speaking?