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Meta: intro to sonnet week
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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.
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.
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