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Write a note on Elizabethan sonnets and sonneteers - ppup part 1 english honours notes and study material pdf

[ Write a note on Elizabethan sonnets and sonneteers | ppup part 1 english honours notes and study material pdf ]


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Introduction to Write a note on Elizabethan sonnets and sonneteers


Table of contents - Questions. What is a Sonnet or Italian Sonnet?	 Questions. What is the Meter of the Italian Sonnets?	 Questions. What is the Theme or Tone of Sonnets?	 Questions. Note on the Origin of Italian or Petrarchan sonnet	 Questions. What is the Key Features of a Petrarchan sonnet?	 Questions. Note on the life and works of Major Petrarchan soneeters?	 Questions. What is an Elizabethan Sonnets?	 Question. what is the characteristics of Elizabethan sonnets?	 Questions. Note on the Historical Background of Elizabethan Sonnets.	 Questions. What is Shakespearean sonnets ?	 Questions. What is the Feature of Shakespearean sonnets?	 Questions. What is Edmund Spenser sonnets ?	 Questions. What is the Feature of Edmund Spenser sonnets?	 Questions. Note on the life and works of Major Elizabethan soneeters?	 Questions. Difference Between Italian and Elizabethan Sonnet?	 Question. Note on Silver Poet.


What is a Sonnet or Italian Sonnet? | ppup part 1 english honours notes and study material pdf


Questions. What is a Sonnet or Italian Sonnet?  Ans. - A sonnet is a kind of lyrical poem where the poet takes up a persona and expresses a certain deep emotional state of mind or imaginative quality. The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word ‘Soneto‘, which means a little sound or a little song, and another word ‘Suono‘ in Italy means sound. A sonnet is composed of one stanza of fourteen lines written in Iambic Pentameter. The first eight lines form the octave, and the next six lines form the sestet. From the eight lines octave, each four-line unit is called quatrains, and from the six-line sestet, every two internal units of three lines are called tercet.

The concept of sonnet was introduced by Italians.   The Italian sonnet consists of two parts:  The octave, which comprises of 8 lines with a rhyme scheme, abbaabba The sestet that has six lines with the rhyme scheme cdecde

What is the Meter of the Italian Sonnets?



Questions. What is the Meter of the Italian Sonnets?  Ans. Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter, which indicates an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. An Iamb is a two-syllable unit, where the first one is unstressed and the second one is stressed. Each Iambic pentameter has ten syllables.  This meter is commonly used in the English form of sonnets. Caesura is a clearly marked pause in sonnets, usually made by using punctuations or syntaxes such as comma, semi-colon, and so on. It is used in blank verse, heroic couplets, or stanza forms.

What is the Theme or Tone of Sonnets?




Questions. What is the Theme or Tone of Sonnets?  Ans. - The general tone of sonnets is much more meditative, introspective, or contemplative. These were poems that were composed to perform in music. Some scholars have also suggested that sonnets should be performed in music. These are usually love poetry. The major theme is devoted love. It started with the tradition of courtly love, a knightly and platonic passion or chivalric romance. It also encapsulated other subsidiary themes such as thoughts, political issues, social issues, meditation, feelings, and many more.

Note on the Origin of Italian or Petrarchan sonnet




Questions. Note on the Origin of Italian or Petrarchan sonnet  Ans.- A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in Sicily, Italy. Fredrick’s court was a place of cultural and literary exchange. The people of his court wrote poetry in their local languages.  The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the invention of the sonnet form. He developed the structure of the sonnets and the concept of the octave and sestet forms. He was the first to use the Italian sonnet form. Francisco Petrarch was the most influential practitioner of the Italian sonnet form. He is Also called the Father of Sonnets. Hence, it also came to be known as the Petrarchan sonnet. Troubadour poetry became popular in the French region of Provence. Troubadours went around to perform these poems of love lyrics. It was popular mostly in Southern Italy. Other Italian poets who wrote sonnets were Dante Alighieri and Guido

Cavalcanti. The tradition of sonnets started in southern Italy and then moved to northern Italy. The structure of the typical Italian sonnet form of the time included two parts: first, the octave forms the ” preposition”, which describes a problem or a question, and second, a sestet that proposes a ”resolution”. Typically, the ninth line is called Volta. The Volta signals the move from proposition to resolution.

What is the Key Features of a Petrarchan sonnet? | ppup part 1 english honours notes and study material pdf



Ans.- In Petrarch’s sonnets, you will find that the love of the beloved is unattainable and unrequited, leading to torment in the poet. The picture of the beloved is shown as a beauty with a virtuous heart, having goodness in Elizabethan sonnets. The metaphor of ‘Petrarchan Conceit‘ was used where striking comparisons are made between desire and pursuit of the beloved. For example, the beloved was often compared to a ‘hunt’, the beloved’s beauty was considered as a trap, and her beauty was compared to the sun. All these together constituted an elaborate wordplay. There is also a refined style deriving from the tradition of courtly poetry. ‘Blazon‘ is a kind of feature in Petrarch’s sonnets where the poet creates a catalogue of different physical features of the beloved and is praised in turn, in an exaggerated way. The poet creates an elaborate performance of extreme frustration and denial, as the beloved does not reciprocate.

For Petrarch, the resolution to this problem was after the death of the beloved, when she was accessible in the realm of spiritualism and divinity- there is a sublimation of earthly passion that is a passion that can be consummated only in heaven.  Here, sublimation is a state by which one expresses his feelings or early passion by transforming into another form. These features, which led to a strictly Petrarchan form, were also followed in the English sonnet.

Note on the life and works of Major Petrarchan soneeters?




Ans. - Some Popular Sonneteers of Italy  1. Dante Alighieri   Early Life   Dante Alighieri was born under the sign of Gemini, he was thought to be born on May 29, but this is not certain.  He was born in Florence, the son of Alighiero II, his family was one of lower nobility.  His mother died when he was a child and his father when he was eighteen.  According to him, the most profound event in his youth was when in 1274 he met Beatrice, whom scholars believe to be Beatrice Portinari, a noblewoman.  It really matters not who she was, for he saw her infrequently and never spoke to her.  Nevertheless, she became the focus of his love, and after her death,

she became his muse.  She is a focal point in his works, including La Vita Nuova(The New Life) and La Divina Commedia(The Divine Comedy).  Dante’s education remains unknown; however, his writing skill and knowledge make it evident that he was well-schooled.   HIS ADULT LIFE  In the year 1295 he held several local offices, he was then elected to be one of the six magistrates of Florence, and however, he held this position only two months.  Dante, from 1295 to 1297, was part of the Special Counsel of the People; he also took part in the campaign for the prior and was a member of the Council of the One Hundred.  The political situation in Florence at the time was very turbulent; the two

feuding factions within the Guelph party in Florence, the Cerchi and the Donati or the Whites, and The Blacks were both vying for power. The Blacks, or Donati, were of noble birth and lineage but were not exceedingly rich, and they saw the pope as an ally against imperial power.  The Whites, or Cerchi, were not of noble lineage, but had made a vast fortune trading and wished to become a part of the aristocracy, they wished to remain independent of all control, papal or imperial.  After a particularly violent skirmish the leaders of both parties were exiled in order to provide peace, however, Pope Boniface VIII helped the leaders of the Black return.  These Blacks seized power and banned Dante from the city for two years and imposed upon him heavy fines, he did not pay the fines, and they

said he would be killed should he ever return to Florence.       FINAL YEARS  Dante was invited to return to Florence in 1316, however, he was to be treated as a pardoned criminal.  Dante refused these terms and continued to live in exile.  He spent his last days in Ravenna, dying there on September 13 or 14 in 1321.  In the last years of his life, Dante wrote Quaestion de Acqua et Terra (Question of Water and of Earth) and two Latin eclogues.  His Work

Dante’s ‘Vieta Nuova‘ has thirty-one sonnets, which are arranged in the form of narratives. Dante’s Vieta Nuova developed his love for a woman named Beatrice. Beatrice is presented as an idealist and is put on a pedestal in Dante’s mind. Her qualities are celebrated in the poem, and at the end, you will find that she is shown as a saintly figure. According to Dante, Beatrice died in the year 1290. In the context of Elizabethan sonnets, Dante’s work was not very influential.  2. Francesco Petrarch  His Life Story

Petrarch, Italian in full Francesco Petrarca, (born July 20, 1304, Arezzo, Tuscany [Italy]—died July 18/19, 1374, Arquà, near Padua, Carrara), Italian scholar, poet, and humanist whose poems addressed to Laura, an idealized beloved, contributed to the Renaissance flowering of lyric poetry. Petrarch’s inquiring mind and love of Classical authors led him to travel, visiting men of learning and searching monastic libraries for Classical manuscripts. He was regarded as the greatest scholar of his age.  Early life  Petrarch’s father, a lawyer, had been obliged to leave Florence in 1302 and had moved to Arezzo, where Petrarch was born. The family eventually moved to

Avignon (1312), in the Provence region of southern France, the home of the exiled papal court, at which an Italian lawyer might hope to find employment. Petrarch’s first studies were at Carpentras, France, and at his father’s insistence he was sent to study law at Montpellier, France (1316). From there he returned to Italy with his younger brother Gherardo to continue these studies at Bologna (1320). But already he was developing what, in a later letter, he described as “an unquenchable thirst for literature.  Study and Career  He spent the summer of 1330 at Lombez, France, the bishop of which was an old friend from Bologna, Giacomo Colonna. In 1335 he received a canonry

there but continued to reside at Avignon in the service of the cardinal, with whom he stayed until 1337. Quite apart from his love for Laura, this period was an important one for Petrarch. These were years of ambition and unremitting study (notably in the field of Classical Latin).  His Work   Francisco Petrarch’s ‘Il-Canzoni ere‘(a book of songs/lyric poems). It has 366 poems, out of which 317 are sonnets. These sonnets explore Petrarch’s love for Laura. Laura did exist; Petrarch met her at a church at St. Clare in 1347. Laura died in the year 1348. Laura is presented as an idealized beloved

Francisco Petrarch’s ‘Il-Canzoni ere‘(a book of songs/lyric poems). It has 366 poems, out of which 317 are sonnets. These sonnets explore Petrarch’s love for Laura. Laura did exist; Petrarch met her at a church at St. Clare in 1347. Laura died in the year 1348. Laura is presented as an idealized beloved

What is an Elizabethan Sonnets? | ppup part 1 english honours notes and study material pdf




Questions. What is an Elizabethan Sonnets?  Ans.- The rules of the Italian sonnet was not followed by the elizabethans. The English form of the sonnet , was made up of three stanzas of four lines each rhyming alternately and a concluding couplet.  In English sonnets, mostly there are three quatrains and a concluding couplet. Italian form of sonnets have an intricate rhyme scheme of octave that is abba abba, and that of the sestet is cdc cdc, cde cde and so on. The rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg was mostly used in English Elizabethan sonnets. All Surreyan sonnets are written on this plan. His contemporaries adopted a freedom of the arrangement of the lines and the rhymes. The sonnet enjoyed a brief  intense vogue in the Elizabethan age. The six years from 1591 to 1597 saw the height of sonneteering.


Characteristics of Elizabethan sonnet | ppup part 1 english honours notes and study material pdf



Question. what is the characteristics of Elizabethan sonnets?  Ans. - characteristics of Elizabethan sonnets are listed below:  (i) They appear in sequences and not singly.  (ii) They are generally written merely because it is the fashion to write sonnets. Most of them are artificial.  (iii) The Petrarch and convention is generally followed, and often the conventional phraseology of Petrarch is used. The lady is always shown as cold and cruel, and the lover frequently on the point of death.  (iv)  There is imitation, often even translation of foreign models, more specially French and Italian.

(v) There is often mingling of the conventional and the independent the original and imitated.  (vi) The English form of the sonnet is generally used after Sidney.  (vii) Their theme is always loved, generally for a married lady. This lady in most cases is merely the creation of the poet’s imagination.  (viii) They are characterised by excess of imagination. The poet is of imagination all compact, flies high on the wings of imagination and sees, “Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.”

(ix)  The best Elizabethan connect is extremely musical. It is characterized by perfection of form. But the rank and file of sonneteers are crude, clumsy, artificial and unnatural, and excite laughter than admiration.

Note on the Historical Background of Elizabethan Sonnets. | ppup part 1 english honours notes and study material pdf



Questions. Note on the Historical Background of Elizabethan Sonnets.  Ans. - In the 15th and the 16th centuries, the Italian sonnet sailed to Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Poland and England. The sonnet was not very late to come to England: it came there in the first half of the century.  England was then being flushed with the spirit of the humanism. The God-centred consciousness of the medieval England gave way to man-centred consciousness. The term, Elizabethan sonnet represents the chain of English sonnets that were written in the Elizabethan age by eminent sonneteers such as Sir Thomas Wyatt, Earl of Surrey, Philip Sydney, Edmund Spencer and chiefly William Shakespeare. The English sonnet Pioneers: Thomas Wyatt, And Henry Howard(Earl of Surrey) Wyatt and Howard were the first to bring sonnets to England from Italy. Wyatt worked in the royal court of King Henry VIII. Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard wrote the first known sonnets in English and Earl of Surrey, who developed its rhyme scheme.

These sonnets, mainly Petrarchan translations, and printed in “Tottel’s Miscellany” proved tremendously influential for, in translating Petrarch, they initiated a new way of thinking and writing about love in English poetry. “Tottel’s Miscellany” was written , in 1557.   Also, Queen Elizabeth epitomized the concept of the unapproachable mistress, even more acutely than the beloveds eulogized in earlier poetry. Thus, the desired lady, in being forever inaccessible, was often compared to the queen herself.  Much of the popularity of these sonnets also depended on an elaborate praising of the accession of Queen Elizabeth.  Rhyme Scheme of the English sonnet  abab, cdcd, efef, gg


Sir Philip Sidney  Sir Philip Sydney, coming from a noble background and resembling other court poets, looked upon poetry as a mere indulgence. Not willing to risk his social status by candidly adopting the profession of a poet, he chose the tool of deprecation while expressing his sentiments.   This is efficiently explored in his “Astrophel and Stella,” a monumental work consisting of 108 sonnets that, employing the usual characteristics of fruitless wooing, ultimately ends on a note of spiritual victory for both the lover and his lady love. This sonnet, widely regarded as the first of the Elizabethan sonnet

sequence, is actually a rendering of his futile love for Lady Penelope Rich.  He was the third Earl of Leicester. The next two decades saw sonnet sequences by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, and so on. These sonnets were all inspired by the Petrarchan tradition and generally describe the poet’s love for some woman, except for Shakespeare’s sequence of 154 sonnets.  Edmund Spenser  Edmund Spencer did not come from nobility and as such, where the other poets could remain humble, he had the necessity to prove his merit. Consequen

he chose to celebrate Queen Elizabeth and her reign in grander terms than his contemporaries. Spencer’s sonnets deviated from the other sonnets by including other significant features too.  He was the greatest Elizabethan sonneteer during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In 1595, Edmund Spenser’s ‘Amoretti‘, which means little loves were published. It has about 89 sonnets with a typical Petrarchan narrative (88, since one sonnet is repeated).   After sonnet 60, the beloved Elizabeth Boyle is seen to reciprocate the love and returns his affections or desires, creating a sense of resolution which finally results in Epithalamion, where Spenser celebrates the fulfilment of his love in marriage with Elizabeth Boyle.

The beloved is not fully idealized, and she is somewhere a flesh and blood person. We are moving from a lack of resolution towards the celebration.  The Spenserian sonnet was a unique Elizabethan sonnet form, a bit different from the typical Petrarchan notion of lost love and lost happiness. Spenser’s sonnets have the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, where quatrains are interlinked with each other. In the case of Spenser, the resolution occurs in terms of a love relationship and marriage which can both be earthly and spiritual.  The Spenserian characteristics are:  The beloved is worldlier and less deified

Inclusion of the Platonic notion of love Less focus on success and failure in love Greater stress on sensual desire Thus in his “Amoretti” sonnets, the mistress is much more responsive and attainable than those of the earlier ones. Comprising of 88 sonnets, The “Amoretti” in fact, voices his feelings towards his love in real life, Elizabeth Boyle.  Structure of Spenserian sonnets  They consist of four quatrains and a couplet  Rhyme Scheme

abab bcbc cdcd ee  William Shakespeare  Out of the 154 sonnets that Shakespeare wrote, 126 are addressed to an unidentified young man, 26 deals with his sexual feelings for a scheming woman, known as the “dark lady,” and two are addressed to Cupid, the God of love.   The dark lady is an ambiguous and enigmatic kind of figure. Sometimes, the woman is presented as dangerous or ordinary, having dark features, not a woman of noble origins.

The most striking feature of these sonnets is the deliberate inversion of the conventional gender role that had been in vogue with the other sonneteers.   The result is a complicated depiction of love as apparent in the earlier sonnets. For example, sonnets 1 to 17, where the poet’s  earnest hope to preserve the immortality of his friend makes him urge the young man to marry and have kids so that his traits pass on to them. Another deviation from the previous sonnets is that the lady, whom Shakespeare talks about, is frail, plain and cruel in comparison to the beloveds of the prior sonneteers.  Moreover, the sonnets have a dark mood,

with love being described as a sickness rather than an inspiring sentiment.  Shakespeare published his sonnets in quarto edition. A quarto is a kind of publication where a full sheet of paper is folded twice. It is mostly used for the publication of only poems. It was smaller in size than folio (a kind of publication where the full sheet of paper was folded once).  The dedication of the text tells us that the only begetter of the ensuing sonnets is Mr W.H, and the publication is signed by T.T, Thomas Thorpe, and not by Shakespeare. According to the critics, Mr W.H. may probably be William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, or Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.

The Themes  Love The steady flow of time Transience of beauty Mortality  The excellence lies in the four themes- the theme of time, beauty, the theme of sexuality, and poetic creation and art. In the sonnet sequence, the main theme is time and attaining immortality through procreation.  The first 17th sonnets are the procreation sonnets, where the speaker is procreating the fair youth and preserving himself and his beauty with posterity

preserving himself and his beauty with posterity through his offspring.  Structure of Shakespearean sonnets  Consists of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet as an ending The subject is discussed in the quatrains, and it is summed up in the couplet After each quatrain, comes a pause to keep intact the ongoing argument Epiphany is disclosed in the ending couplet  Rhyme Scheme

Most of the couplets are in iambic pentameter The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg Some of the most famous Shakespearean sonnets are Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day), Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds).

What is Shakespearean sonnets ?



Questions. What is Shakespearean sonnets ?  Ans.- A Shakespearean sonnet is a variation on the Italian sonnet tradition. The form evolved in England during and around the time of the Elizabethan era. These sonnets are sometimes referred to as Elizabethan sonnets or English sonnets.  Shakespearean sonnets feature the following elements:  They are fourteen lines long.  The fourteen lines are divided into four subgroups.  The first three subgroups have four lines each, which makes them “quatrains,” with the second and fourth lines of each group containing rhyming words.  The sonnet then concludes with a two-line subgroup, and these two lines rhyme with each other.

There are typically ten syllables per line, which are phrased in iambic pentameter.

Questions. What is the Feature of Shakespearean sonnets?  Ans.- Shakespearean sonnets feature the following elements:  They are fourteen lines long.  The fourteen lines are divided into four subgroups.  The first three subgroups have four lines each, which makes them “quatrains,” with the second and fourth lines of each group containing rhyming words.  The sonnet then concludes with a two-line subgroup, and these two lines rhyme with each other.  There are typically ten syllables per line, which are phrased in iambic pentameter.

Questions. What is Edmund Spenser sonnets ?  Ans.- The Spenserian sonnet was invented by the famous sixteenth-century poet Edmund Spenser and uses a rhyme scheme of ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.  Structure of the Spenserian Sonnet  Although Spenser is best-known for The Faerie Queene, he also wrote numerous sonnets, pioneering a new form that is now synonymous with his name. The sonnets are fourteen lines long, as are all traditional sonnets and are contained within a single block of text.  The poems contain three quatrains, as do Shakespearean sonnets, and one final couplet.  They follow a rhyme scheme of ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. This pattern is comparable to a Shakespearean sonnet and a Petrarchan sonnet although there is a distinct

a Petrarchan sonnet although there is a distinct difference in the repetition of the “C” rhyme. The couplets that make up this entire form are its most prominent feature.  Spenser chose to structure the sonnet in this way so that there was less of an emphasis on the problem/solution, question/argument format. Spenser’s sonnets do not necessarily pose and then answer a question, as can be seen in the second example below.

Questions. What is the Feature of Edmund Spenser sonnets?  Ans.-  Features of the Spenserian Sonnet are:  A quatorzain made up of 3 Sicilian quatrains (4 lines alternating rhyme) and ending in a rhyming couplet.  metric, primarily iambic pentameter.  rhymed, rhyme scheme ababbcbccdcdee.


Note on the life and works of Major Elizabethan soneeters?


Questions. Note on the life and works of Major Elizabethan soneeters?  Ans.  -   1. Thomas Wyatt, And Henry Howard(Earl of Surrey)  Wyatt and Howard were the first to bring sonnets to England from Italy. Wyatt worked in the royal court of King Henry VIII. Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard wrote the first known sonnets in English and Earl of Surrey, who developed its rhyme scheme.   These sonnets, mainly Petrarchan translations, and printed in “Tottel’s Miscellany” proved tremendously influential for, in translating Petrarch, they initiated a new way of thinking and writing about love in English poetry. “Tottel’s Miscellany” was written , in 1557.    Also, Queen Elizabeth epitomized the concept of the unapproachable mistress, even more acutely than the beloveds eulogized in earlier poetry. Thus, the desired lady, in being forever inaccessible, was often
compared to the queen herself.  Much of the popularity of these sonnets also depended on an elaborate praising of the accession of Queen Elizabeth.  Rhyme Scheme of the English sonnet  abab, cdcd, efef, gg  Example of  Thomas Wyatt Sonnets   (i)"Caesar, when that the traitor of Egypt" (i)"The long love that in my heart doth harbor"

compared to the queen herself.  Much of the popularity of these sonnets also depended on an elaborate praising of the accession of Queen Elizabeth.  Rhyme Scheme of the English sonnet  abab, cdcd, efef, gg  Example of  Thomas Wyatt Sonnets   (i)"Caesar, when that the traitor of Egypt" (i)"The long love that in my heart doth harbor"  Example Henry Howard sonnets

(i) 'The Golden Gift that Nature did thee Give' (ii) 'From Tuscan Came my Lady's Worthy Race'  Sir Philip Sidney  Sir Philip Sydney, coming from a noble background and resembling other court poets, looked upon poetry as a mere indulgence. Not willing to risk his social status by candidly adopting the profession of a poet, he chose the tool of deprecation while expressing his sentiments.   This is efficiently explored in his “Astrophel and Stella,” a monumental

that, employing the usual characteristics of fruitless wooing, ultimately ends on a note of spiritual victory for both the lover and his lady love. This sonnet, widely regarded as the first of the Elizabethan sonnet sequence, is actually a rendering of his futile love for Lady Penelope Rich.  He was the third Earl of Leicester. The next two decades saw sonnet sequences by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, and so on. These sonnets were all inspired by the Petrarchan tradition and generally describe the poet’s love for some woman, except for Shakespeare’s sequence of 154 sonnets.  Example of Sir Philip Sydney Sonnets

(i)"Loving in truth..." (ii)"Not at the first sight..."   2. Edmund Spenser  Edmund Spencer did not come from nobility and as such, where the other poets could remain humble, he had the necessity to prove his merit. Consequently, he chose to celebrate Queen Elizabeth and her reign in grander terms than his contemporaries. Spencer’s sonnets deviated from the other sonnets by including other significant features too.

He was the greatest Elizabethan sonneteer during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In 1595, Edmund Spenser’s ‘Amoretti‘, which means little loves were published. It has about 89 sonnets with a typical Petrarchan narrative (88, since one sonnet is repeated).   After sonnet 60, the beloved Elizabeth Boyle is seen to reciprocate the love and returns his affections or desires, creating a sense of resolution which finally results in Epithalamion, where Spenser celebrates the fulfilment of his love in marriage with Elizabeth Boyle. The beloved is not fully idealized, and she is somewhere a flesh and blood person. We are moving from a lack of resolution towards the celebration.

he Spenserian sonnet was a unique Elizabethan sonnet form, a bit different from the typical Petrarchan notion of lost love and lost happiness. Spenser’s sonnets have the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, where quatrains are interlinked with each other. In the case of Spenser, the resolution occurs in terms of a love relationship and marriage which can both be earthly and spiritual.  The Spenserian characteristics are:  The beloved is worldlier and less deified Inclusion of the Platonic notion of love Less focus on success and failure in love Greater stress on sensual desire

Thus in his “Amoretti” sonnets, the mistress is much more responsive and attainable than those of the earlier ones. Comprising of 88 sonnets, The “Amoretti” in fact, voices his feelings towards his love in real life, Elizabeth Boyle.  Structure of Spenserian sonnets  They consist of four quatrains and a couplet  Rhyme Scheme  abab bcbc cdcd ee

Example of Spenserian sonnets  (i)Sonnet LXV (ii)Amoretti  4. William Shakespeare  Out of the 154 sonnets that Shakespeare wrote, 126 are addressed to an unidentified young man, 26 deals with his sexual feelings for a scheming woman, known as the “dark lady,” and two are addressed to Cupid, the God of love.   The dark lady is an ambiguous and enigmatic kind of figure. Sometimes, the woman is presented as

dangerous or ordinary, having dark features, not a woman of noble origins.  The most striking feature of these sonnets is the deliberate inversion of the conventional gender role that had been in vogue with the other sonneteers.   The result is a complicated depiction of love as apparent in the earlier sonnets. For example, sonnets 1 to 17, where the poet’s  earnest hope to preserve the immortality of his friend makes him urge the young man to marry and have kids so that his traits pass on to them.  Another deviation from the previous sonnets is that the lady, whom Shakespeare talks about, is frail, plain

and cruel in comparison to the beloveds of the prior sonneteers.  Moreover, the sonnets have a dark mood, with love being described as a sickness rather than an inspiring sentiment.  Shakespeare published his sonnets in quarto edition. A quarto is a kind of publication where a full sheet of paper is folded twice. It is mostly used for the publication of only poems. It was smaller in size than folio (a kind of publication where the full sheet of paper was folded once).   The dedication of the text tells us that the only begetter of the ensuing sonnets is Mr W.H, and the publication is signed by T.T, Thomas Thorpe, and not by Shakespeare. According to the critics, Mr W.H. may

probably be William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, or Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.  The Themes  Love The steady flow of time Transience of beauty Mortality  The excellence lies in the four themes- the theme of time, beauty, the theme of sexuality, and poetic creation and art.

In the sonnet sequence, the main theme is time and attaining immortality through procreation.   The first 17th sonnets are the procreation sonnets, where the speaker is procreating the fair youth and preserving himself and his beauty with posterity through his offspring.  Structure of Shakespearean sonnets  Consists of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet as an ending The subject is discussed in the quatrains, and it is summed up in the couplet

After each quatrain, comes a pause to keep intact the ongoing argument Epiphany is disclosed in the ending couplet  Rhyme Scheme  Most of the couplets are in iambic pentameter The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg Some of the most famous Shakespearean sonnets are Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day), Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds).  Example of Shakespearean sonnets

(i)Sonnet 18 (ii)Sonnet 73  5. John Milton  John Milton was an English writer born on December 9, 1608. As a child and young adult, Milton was an avid reader and traveled often, which played a great role in shaping his beliefs and political ideologies.   He is known for capitalizing on the political conflict of his time and creating brilliant works of social commentary as a response. One such work is Paradise Lost (1667), his most well-known epic poem.

What Is a Miltonic Sonnet?  John Milton created the Miltonic sonnet as a variant to the then highly popular Petrarchan sonnet. The Miltonic sonnet keeps the Petrarchan length and rhyming scheme, but does away with the stanza break between the octave and the sestet. Otherwise, the Miltonic sonnet is a normal sonnet with its own form and where the topic and theme of the poem are down to the poet.  The Sonnets of John Milton is a collection of Milton’s work that scholars deemed culturally-defining. The book begins with a preface explaining the artistic makeup of a sonnet and what makes it so pleasing to the human ear.

The preface is followed by a slew of original documents and hand-written drafts from Milton himself, so many of the pieces are difficult to read or illegible. However, many scholars believed that Milton’s work is so significant that even the bits and pieces of his unpublished works should be released to the public.  John Milton was an iconic poet in his day and his poems are still revered to this day. Milton’s passion for literature is palpable in every sonnet and poem he writes. He was praised by writers such as William Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy, and continues to be a source of inspiration of aspiring writers today.  Example of Miltonic Sonnets   (i)On His Blindness (ii) Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint

Difference Between Italian and Elizabethan Sonnet?



Questions. Difference Between Italian and Elizabethan Sonnet?  Ans.- In Elizabethan Age, the sonnets had advanced into a form with new metric and rhyme scheme that was departing from Petrarchan sonnets. Yet, Elizabethan sonnets still carried the tradition of Petrarchan conceit.   Petrarchan conceit was a figure used in love poems consisting detailed yet exaggerated comparisons to the lover’s mistress that often emphasized the use of blazon.   The application of blazon would emphasize more on the metaphorical perfection of the mistresses due to the natural objects were created by God, hence when the mistresses were better than nature, then there would be nothing better than the mistresses.   Sonnet 130 written by William Shakespeare developed into an anti-Petrarchan position by denying the image of Petrarchan poet’s mistresses who always were ideal and idolized.

Any lover’s mistress in Petrachan poet’s sonnet would expect to have eyes that vying the sun, lips that are redder than coral, breasts as white as snow, and hair that shines.   Nevertheless, the speaker created his mistress to a contradictory image of an ideal lover. The speaker insisted that his “mistress’ eyes” were “noting like the sun. Coral” was “far more red than her lips’ red” and “if snow be white,” then “her breasts” were “dun.  He also commented that “if hairs be wires, black wires” grew “on her head. ” Furthermore, her skin was dark and not smooth; her breath was unpleasant too. These descriptions summed up to an objectionable image of her, which suggested that the

speaker was trying to portray his beloved to a person who was uglier than the rest of the mistresses.  In addition, he described that his “mistress, when she” walked, she treaded “on the ground” which indicated his mistress was a real woman but not like the ideal goddess-like or fictional lovers that other poets created.  Petrarchan sonnets consisted of an octave and a sestet with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdecde where at the end of the octave, there would usually be a turn in the sonnet. On the other hand, Elizabethan sonnets consisted of three quatrains with a couplet with a rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefefgg. The couplet often served as a turn in the sonnet.

In sonnet 130, its couplet served as a classical twist. The couplet was contrasting to the quatrains where he implied that his mistress was not truly ugly because she was compared with the other mistresses who were artificially created by their lovers.


Note on Silver Poet


Question. Note on Silver Poet.  Ans. - Gerald Bullet refers to Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh and John Davies, as the Silver poets of the 16th century, for their poetry is characterised by silver-tongued eloquence. All of them are writers of shorter poems – lyrics, sonnets, ballads, carols, elegies, epitaphs etc. and some of their poems are golden.



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