English Literature : Genres : ( Sonnet )

Sonnet:

A lyric poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. It is of three types—Petrarchan (also known as Italian), Shakespearean (also known as English) and Spenserian. The first eight lines Of a Petrarchan sonnet are called octave and the last six lines of it are called sestet. The rhyme scheme of the octave of a Petrarchan sonnet is abba abba and that of sestet is cd cd cd or cde cde . Miltont Wordsworth, Wyatt, Rossetti and a few other English poets have used Petrarchan form in their sonnets. Here is an example:

The world is too much with us; late and soon, (a)

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—(b)

Little we see in Nature that is ours; (b)

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! (a)

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; (a)

The winds that will be howling at all hours, (b)

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; (b)

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;(a)

It is octave ( abbaabba)

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be ©

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; (d)

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, ©

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; (d)

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; ©

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. (d)

It is sestet ( cdcdcd)

                             ( Wordsworth: “ The world is too much with us”)

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A Shakespearean  sonnet is divided into three quatrains followed  by a couplet. Its rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. The concluding  couplet is often used as a comment on the preceding lines. For  example :

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

(abab)

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

(cdcd)

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

(efef)

     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(gg)

                             (Shakespeare : Sonnet No. 18)

The Spenserian sonnet is named after Edmund Spenser who developed a different rhyme scheme for his sonnets. Like Shakespearean sonnet, a Spenserian sonnet consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet. But its rhyme scheme is : abab  cdcd ee . For example :

Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace, (a )

Seeing the game from him escapt away, (b)

Sits downe to rest him in some shady place, (a)

With panting hounds beguiled of their pray: (b)

 So after long pursuit and vaine assay, (b)

 When all weary had the chace forsooke,©

The gentle deare returnd the selfe-same way,(b)

Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke, ©

There she beholding me with mylder looke. ©

Sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide (d)

Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke ©

And with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde,(d)

            Strange thing me seemd to see a beast so »rld, (e)

            So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld. ( e )

                          (Spenser : Amoretti, Sonnet No. 67)