Aspects of a Sonnet Essay -- Sonnets Literature Essays

Aspects of a SonnetExplore aspects of the sonnet tradition through reference to a rangeof material you have studied?A sonnet is a 14-line poem with each line having 10 syllables. Itoriginated in the 13th century and was introduced into England in the16th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt.The Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet characteristically consists of aneight-line octave, rhyming abbaabba, that states a problem, asks aquestion, or expresses an emotional tension, followed by a six-linesestet, of varying rhyme connives, that resolves the problem, answersthe question, or resolves the tension. The rhyme scheme for the sestetis cdecde.For instance, Wilfred Owen uses the freshman eight-lines to pull in howdeaths at war are laid to rest and the sestet to describe how the samething is done back home (Anthem for Doomed Youth).The rhyme scheme for the sestet is cdecde.This is how the famous poet Francesco Petrarca, thus why it is namedthe Petrarchan Sonnet chose to write his sonnets.However Will iam Shakespeare, a famous English poet, used anothersonnet-rhyming scheme his is as followsThe first twelve lines are made up of three quatrains (blocks of fourlines linked by rhyme).The last two lines form a rhyming couplet, e.g. a rhyming pairabab, cdcd, efef, ggWilliam Shakespeare is frequently considered the greatest writer of Englishliterature that ever lived. By 1594 he was a rising playwright inLondon and an promoter in a leading theatre company, who performed at theGlobe Theatre from 1599. His 154 sonnets were originally published in1609 but it is argued that they were mostly scripted in the 1590s,often expressed strong feeling within an exquisitely controlled form.His son... ...question.What candles may be held to speed them all?(Anthem for Doomed Youth, line 9)To conclude, the six poets I have written about all had theirdifferent views upon their own chosen subjects. And how sonnet havebeen passed down through the generations and what a sonnet has becometoday in the ne o world. Shakespeare wrote about how love wastimeless whereas Keats had found love too late. Browning wrote of howdedicated she was to her husband whereas Rossetti wrote of how shewanted to be remembered when she was gone. Wordsworth saw things thatother people could not see and thus achieved his romantic poetictitle. And finally Owen portrayed his anguish and hatred of war in hissonnets with an equisetic use of language and vocabulary. All thepoets who wrote sonnets, young and obsolete have entranced millions ofreaders throughout the world.