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. ;)