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Sonnets: Form and Function

ITALIAN (Petrarchan):

14-line poem in iambic pentameter which follows this rhyme scheme:

a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
octave
c
d
c
c
d
d
sestet

The long love that in my thought doth harbor,
And in mine heart doth keep his residence,
Into my face presseth with bold pretense
And therein campeth, spreading his banner.
She that me learneth to love and suffer
And wills that my trust and lust’s negligence
Be reined by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardiness taketh displeasure.

Wherewithal into the heart’s forest he fleeth,
Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry
And there him hideth, and not appeareth.
What may I do, when my master feareth,
But in the field with him to live and die?
For good is the life ending faithfully.

note: the sestet can be arranged variously with 2 or 3 rhymes:
cdcdcd, or ccddcc, or cdecde, or ccddee, or cdeedc …. etc.

1. The Petrarchan sonnet can have either a bipartite (octave/sestet) or tripartite (2 quatrains/1 sestet) structure.

2. Generally, the envelope rhymes (abba) signal a resolved statement which is nonetheless linked by rhyme to the next abba quatrain.

3. The Turn or Volta signifies the resolution of the subject presented in the sonnet and conventionally occurs between the octave and the sestet, at the ninth line.

4. The best Petrarchan sonneteers exploit the principle of imbalance generated by the 8/6 rhyme scheme; thus, the rhymed words of the octave differ completely from those of the sestet.

5. Standard construction of a Petrarchan sonnet:

a. project the subject in the first quatrain & introduce the conceit

b. develop or complicate it in the second

c. execute, at the beginning of the sestet, the volta, which opens up for the solution of the problem advanced by the octave

d. the volta serves as either a logical action or a shift in address or rhetorical form

ENGLISH (Shakespearean)

14-line poem in iambic pentameter which follows this rhyme scheme:

quatrain

couplet

a
b
a
b

c
d
c
d

e
f
e
f

g
g

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh, no, it is an ever-fixéd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ; nor no man ever loved.

1. The Shakespearean sonnet asks more of the poet's capacity to develop and resolve. Shakespearean sonneteers must present a problem in those first three units and then resolve it in the couplet.

2. While the Petrarchan sonneteer resolves his problem by reasoned perception or by a relatively expansive and formal meditative process, the Shakespearean sonneteer, because his resolution must occur in a 20-syllable couplet, achieves his resolution more by the use of wit, or paradox, etc.

3. Thus, in the Shakespearean sonnet, the turn tends to pivot on one of the logical adverbs -- for, then, so, but, yet, lest, thus, etc.

4. The Shakespearean sonnet thus displays and plays upon (among other things) its linguistic prowess and its rhetorical skill.

The Petrarchan Tradition:	The anti-Petrarchan tradition (not the opposite of the Petrarchan ideal, but rather a variation on it, focusing on the reality rather than the ideal):
Ideally, human love reflects the love of God or the love of the spirit; it is therefore spiritual.	The sight of human beauty inspires desire AND love; therefore humans almost never feel love without feeling lust as well.
Lust is associated with the base functions of the body, and therefore has nothing to do with ideal love, which is associated with the mind and spirit.	Most humans cannot be satisfied with spiritual love because physical desire is so strong.
Ideally, all physical beauty – including the beauty of nature and human beauty – also reflects the eternal perfection of God’s design of the universe. Even if individual beauty is fleeting, it is part of the beautiful whole of God’s creation, and therefore good.	Love fades when the beauty that inspired it fades (as beauty, which is physical and transitory, always does).
Ideally, love for a beautiful human inspires in the lover the same feelings as divine love does.	Physical desire tends to be painful, possessive, and frustrating, rather than joyful, expansive and inspiring.
The best love is a love from afar for a person whose beauty is nearly divine, because it is most like a human’s love for God.	Paradox: love often dies when accompanied by the frustration of unrequited desire; however, when desire is satisfied, love often dies anyway because the destructive powers of lust often kill the positive aspects of love. For this reason, real human love rarely lives up to the ideal.
The object of love can be male or female because erotic desire is not an issue.	The object of love is of the opposite sex. If, however, love for a person of the same sex becomes tainted by desire or jealousy, that love is problematized.
Poetry is the most beautiful (therefore divine) form of language; therefore it is best suited to explore the divine beauty of love (or the divine love of beauty).	Similarly, most poets are not really divinely inspired, so their poems fail to inspire ideal love in the writer or reader.
THEREFORE: the emotion of love, expressed poetically, is humankind’s greatest path to good.	THEREFORE: the emotion of love is humankind’s greatest source of pain and frustration, either in practice or in poetry.

UNIVERSE (macrocosm)	SOCIETY	THE HUMAN SELF (microcosm)
GOD	KING	INTELLIGENCE (“God’s own image”)
ANGELS (Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Principalities, etc.)	NOBLES & GENTRY	THE TRIPARTITE SOUL: 1) rational (shared with angels, capable of thought and choice)
HUMANS (amphibious creatures, linked to heaven and earth, existing as the median between all opposites)	COMMONERS (The “middle class” doesn’t really exist; also, any person’s status as a human being varies depending on perception. Therefore, all commoners are technically equal, but some are more equal than others (see below)
ANIMALS	“OTHERS” non-Christians non-Europeans darker-skinned peoples the insane or diseased	2) sensitive (shared with animals, capable of sensory perception and feeling)
PLANTS		3) vegetative (shared with all living things, capable of growth and reproduction)
STONES		THE BODY
CHAOS		THE FEMALE BODY

The Four Elements and Humors:

element	Property	Humor	Characteristic
earth	cold and dry	black bile	melancholy (gluttonous, lazy, sentimental)
water	cold and moist	phlegm	phlegmatic (dull, pale, cowardly)
air	hot and moist	blood	sanguine (amorous, happy, generous)
fire	hot and dry	yellow bile	choleric (violent, vengeful)

A much more detailed discussion of medieval/Renaissance concepts of cosmic order can be found on Michael Best's "Internet Shakespeare Editions" website at the University of Victoria.

The Neo-Platonic Ladder of Love

PLOTINUS (3^rd C)	FICINO (15^th C)
(Each level naturally & eternally aspires upward)	(An individual may aspire upward by exerting the will)
THE ONE/THE TRUE THE GOOD (World of Ideas)	TRUE/ETERNAL/DIVINE BEAUTY
The Divine Mind (World of Forms)	Spiritual union with the Ideal of Beauty
Soul (Link between the intelligible and material worlds)	Knowledge of Beauty in general
Individual soul (Tripartite)	Love of beautiful person
The Body (World of Matter)	Desire for beautiful person
Chaos	Lust

. . . It is no flaming lustre, made of light;
No sweet concent, as well-tim’d harmonie;
Ambrosia, for to feast the appetite,
Or flowry odour, mixd with spicerie;
No soft embrace, or pleasure bodily;
And yet it is a kind of inward feast,
A harmony, that sounds within the brest,

An odour, light, embrace, in which
the soule doth rest.

A heav’nly feast, no hunger can consume;
A light unseene, yet shines in every place;
A sound, no time can steale; a sweet perfume
No winds can scatter; an intire embrace
That no satietie can ere unlace.

Thomas Fletcher — “Idea Beatificall”

PLATO (d. 347 BC): Symposium and Republic: proposed categories of The One, Forms, etc.; allegory of the cave

PLOTINUS (3rd c. AD): created a hierarchy from Plato’s concepts

FICINO (15th c. AD): Florentine humanist who translated and wrote commentaries on Plato’s writings; attempted to reconcile Platonism and Christianity by equating “The One” with the Christian God. His De Amore proposed that the beauty of women could represent an aspect of Divine Beauty.

PLOTINUS (3rd C)

FICINO (15th C)

(Each level naturally & eternally aspires upward)

(An individual may aspire upward by exerting the will)

PLOTINUS (3^rd C)

FICINO (15^th C)