An obscured tradition: the sonnet and its fourteen-line predecessors

The sonnet in English is usually located as a sixteenth-century innovation, firmly linked to Italian influences, and frequently associated with a distinctively modern consciousness. Yet the speed and comfort with which the form settled into English reflects the fact that the sonnet per se was preceded by a longstanding tradition of 14-line poems in English written in forms derived from French. Indeed, in terms of formal features, the earliest sonnets in English frequently fray into earlier forms, sharing more with the roundel than with later sonnets. This article considers a number of features of style and content that various writers on the sonnet have argued to be characteristic, sometimes definitive, of the sonnet. These features include repetition, formal unity/division of octave and sestet, use of the volta, asymmetry, argument and development, and a preoccupation with contradictions and the self. The article shows that, while it is true that these features are characteristic of many sonnets, they are not peculiarly characteristic of sonnets, and they can all be found in earlier 14-line poems. Furthermore, a number of the earliest sonnets in English do not themselves possess these ‘sonnet-like’ characteristics. The otherness and the modernity of the sonnet have thus been overstated.

An die Neuvermählten : Sonnet (Gedicht)

Lipmann Mose Büschenthal

Mus Hs 1913a - Prends cette rose aimable comme toi : sonnet de Ronsard

[Julius Stockhausen]

The circle of the year, a sonnet-sequence with proem and envoi,

Forms pt. [1] of a volume with cover-title "The circle of the year, etc." "Occasional verses" and "Touch-and-go," published the same year, form pts. [2] and [3]

The sonnet; its origin, structure, and place in poetry. With original translations from the sonnets of Dante, Petrarch, etc., and remarks on the art of translating,

Mode of access: Internet.

Reflexions sur la poësie en general, sur l'eglogue, sur la fable, sur l'elégie, sur la satire, sur l'ode & sur les autres petits poëmes, comme sonnet, rondeau, madrigal, &c. : suivies de trois lettres sur la décadence du goût en France /

Errata on verso of cancel leaf Y7.

Sonnet /

In Englishman's magazine, no.5, Aug., 1831, p. 591.

The sonnet in England, & other essays,

Mode of access: Internet.

Elizabethan sonnet-cycles /

v. 1. Phillis, by T. Lodge. Licia, by G. Fletcher.--v. 2. Delia, by S. Daniel. Diana, by H. Constable.--v. 3. Idea, by M. Drayton. Fidessa, by B. Griffin.--v. 4. Caelia, by F. Greville, Lord Brooke.

Glauco Mattoso: escrita e transgressão

O trabalho consiste em um exame da produção poética de Glauco Mattoso, tendo como horizonte a noção de transgressão e utilizando como corpus sua produção de sonetos e o Jornal Dobrabil. Com uma produção iniciada na década de 1970, o autor é um dos escritores mais prolíficos do cenário literário brasileiro contemporâneo, levantando questões referentes à perversão formal, à crítica do poder autoritário e à criação ficcional da persona autoral por meio da escrita de si. Acreditamos que, por sua técnica apurada e sua vasta produção, trata-se de um autor que merece um estudo acadêmico aprofundado, buscando o diálogo entre seus temas e as questões culturais que se apresentam ao pensamento contemporâneo

Chan ceist duit a bhás go bráth: 'An Lon Dubh Báite'

This article discusses an enigmatic poem by the 18th century Gaelic poet Séamas Mac Cuarta, and three subsequent translations into English. The poem is written in the 'Trí Rann agus Amhrán' form, reminiscent of the English sonnet.