Talk:Sonnet

Uncategorized Discussion

In addition to the Shakespeare (or Elizabethan) sonnet, example in the article, there are also the other two traditionally acclaimed versions. These are often referred to as 'Petrach' sonnets. This, however, cannot be strictly accurate, for although Petrach was reported to have produced examples of these, there is little doubt that their styles were in vogue before his time. Both these two types of sonnet have the same stem. Its rhyme pattern being: A B B A A B B A One version then continues: C D E C D E

                           The other:     C  D  C  D  C  D

An example of the first version (i.e. ending in CDECDE), is as follows: "A Year From Now". A year from now, who knows what then could be? Amazing transformation in career. Successful fulfilment might then be here, Fulfilment that does propitiously Result in success vocationally, If in that direction our course we steer, This result, for all we know, may appear, Rend'ring existence steadfast and sturdy. Depending, of course, on efforts and work, For no fool's paradise should we enter, But be cautious in what we engage in. Although bold and determined, not berserk, And level-headedness always prefer. If this course rightly we hope to begin.

An example of a Petrach sonnet ending in CDCDCD is as follows: "Accountable Time". Our time accounted we should consider, For it is the means by which we succeed, And if to its transitions we take heed, Many obstacles may we then deter. This is a point to which if we refer, And if success is to accrue indeed, It can then to our means truly concede, Enabling their success to thus occur. Do not responsible reviews forsake, Or forget that we should not be deceived, If we can an astute existence make, So can a careful outlook be achieved. If we a method advisable take, Results advisable can be received. R.N.P

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de:Sonettnl:Sonnet fr:sonnet ja:ソネット

The sonnet is a traditional poem of 14 lines following a strict rhyme scheme, that has changed during its history.

In its original 13th-century Italian variant the sonnet was divided into a octave of eight lines and a sestet of six lines. The octave rhymed abbaabba. For the sestet there were different possibilities like cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce. The most famous writer of Italian sonnets is Petrarch.

In the sixteenth century the sonnet became popular in England. The form changed to three quatrains of four lines and a couplet of two lines. Usual rhyme schemes were abab cdcd efef gg and abab bcbc cdcd ee. One of the first poets to write sonnets in English was Sir Thomas Wyatt. (See Shakespearean sonnet. It is also known as Elizabethan sonnet.)

A classic rule of thumb for the writing or reading of a Shakespearean sonnet is to have the final couplet make a sharp thematic or imagistic "turn."

Along with his wonderful plays, Shakespeare is well known for his many sonnets, such as Sonnet 116:

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.

O no, it is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring barque,

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.

See Shakespeare's Sonnets for details.

See also

• Quatorzain
• literature
• poetry
• prosody

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The current article is very good! Well written and informative -- nice one!--Sam 23:43, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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I thought sonnets were supposed to be in iambic pentameter, but the article makes no mention of this. Am I mistaken? Tualha 19:25, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I was also taught that sonnets were 'supposed' to be in iambic pentameter- but remember: this is poetry, so not everybody follows the 'rules.' I'd also like to take this opportunity to mention that the poem provided as an example for Italian sonnets "On his Being Arrived to the Age of 23" does not follow the same rhyme scheme as stated in the description. I know a lot of poets mess around with the last sestet, but I think that the example should reflect what the article says. In addition, I think the article should mention that it is common for poets to play around with the rhyme scheme of the last sestet. -Frazzydee 18:16, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article is also incorrect in saying that hendecasyllables are the usual line for sonnets in the Romance languages. I have read sonnets only in Italian, French and English, but based on the two Romance languages of these, I can say that the Italians use the hendecasyllable line, and call it endecasyllabo, but the French, for example Baudelaire, use their usual so-called Alexandrine (Alexandrine is the formal name) for most sonnets. The Alexandrine alternates between a twelve-syllable line with a masculine ending, like "Je te donne ces vers afin que si mon nom" (first line of a Baudelaire sonnet) and thirteen-syllable lines with a feminine ending, like "Abord heureusement aux Epoques lointaines" (second line of the same Baudelaire sonnet). It's because of the difference between masculine endings (a masculine rhyme in English would be MART/TART) and feminine endings (MARTYR/TARTAR) that the feminine lines have that extra thirteenth syllable at the end. The French do have sonnets in ten-syllable lines, alternating with eleven syllable lines, but they also have sonnets in eight-syllable lines alternating with nine-syllable lines: the "hendecasyllable" is strictly Italian, where almost almost all the rhymes are feminine -- unless there's something about Spanish sonnets I don't know.

Sorry, I didn't sign my posting about Baudelaire, French Alexandrines, and so on just above. I'm chessw. Chessw 23:35, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)chessw

Much Spanish poetry uses hendecasyllable (endecasílabo in Spanish), though Alexandrines (Alejandrinos) are also used, and of course there are also sonnets that aren't in meter (though that's much mroe modern).

The "Bob" and "Wheel" of Spencer's sonnets should be explained in this article!

Redundancy

"The form consists of three quatrains of four lines and a couplet of two lines."

A quatrain is a four-line stanza; similarly, a couplet is two lines. I've changed this line. 128.2.169.22 04:10, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Who invented the sonnet?

Since Giacomo da Lentini from the Sicilian School is widely credited for inventing the sonnet [Segre: 1999; Migliorini: 1984; Bruni: 1983 etc], I added that to the article. His octave rhymes abab, abab (cf. Petrarch's: abba,abba). It seems certain, however, that Giacomo preceded Guittone d'Arezzo, who was inspired by the Sicilians. --Wikipedius 23:21, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a web directory

So I deleted a bunch of links and they were put back. I certainly didn't mean to offend or start an edit war, but it seems to me like the links section has been growing out of control. Here is the current list with my commentary and suggested cut/no-cut status. Perhaps others could comment and then we can cut as appropriate.

• Sonnets.org

A rather amateurish looking site, but it appears to be quite thorough.

• Selective Historical Bibliography on the Sonnet = Bibliographie sélective de l'histoire du sonnet

Seems okay, but not great. Keeper, I guess

• From The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti Translated by Ezra Pound

Seems awfully specific -- if we link to every web archive of sonnets by a famous poet, this list will rapidly grow far larger than the article. Definitely cut.

• Some English Translations of Petrarch

More justifiable than the Pound poets, since Petrarch is so critical to the history of the sonnet. However, this page is a subpage of sonnets.org, which is already linked. Definitely cut.

• Wyatt's Sonnets

Belongs on the page for Thomas Wyatt, not here. Cut.

• The Legacy of Francesco Petrarch and Sir Thomas Wyatt: an Historical Perspective

Seems awfully specific. Probably cut.

• Shakespeares Sonnets

A page of Shakespare sonnets makes some sense given the fame of the sonnets, though I say this reservedly. Nonetheless, the elook page looks easier to navigate -- in any case, we certainly don't need to link to two different Shakespeare sonnet pages. Definitely cut.

• William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 53, “Describe Adonis”

An individual Shakespeare sonnet certainly shouldn't be linked (or else we'll have 144 links here eventually). Definitely cut.

• William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, "bare ruin'd choirs"

An individual Shakespeare sonnet certainly shouldn't be linked (or else we'll have 144 links here eventually). Definitely cut.

• Spenser's Sonnets

See above (if we keep Shakespare's general sonnets link, I could see keeping this) Probably cut

• "Fatal Interview" with Edna Saint Vincent Millay (March 2005)

Belongs on Edna St. Vincent Millay page, not here. Definitely cut.

• A Comparison of Samuel Daniel's, "Care-Charmer Sleep" and Pontus de Tyard's, "Père du doux repos, Sommeil, père du Songe"

Far too specific and involves non-English works Definitely cut

• Sonnet 73: Memorials to Friends

Specific and appears to be utter quackers Definitely cut

• Shakespeare Sonnets – searchable database

Seems easier to navigate than the other Shakespeare site Keeper, I guess

• SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524, From E-zine to Print Journal: Pros and Cons

Seems a bit like an ad for a particular magazine, I'd say we should cut this and remove mentions from article Probably cut.

• Cumulative Index to The Vallance Review, Poetry Life & Times (UK), 2001-2006

Again, vallance review seems to be getting a lot of attention here. Cut

• Sonnet 107: Sonnet of Thanksgiving

Far too specific -- if we include not only links to individual Shakespeare sonnets but individual bits of criticism by no-one-in-particular, this will definitely grow to absurd lengths. Definitely cut.

• Sonnets of Michael J. Farrand.

Possible self promotion. Michael J. Farrand certainly isn't important enough to the history of the sonnet to warrant a special link here. Definitely cut.

Note that many of these pages might be better served with a list of notable sonnetteers with wikipedia pages. Such a list might include poets particularly known for their sonnets -- Wyatt, Shakespeare, Keats, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pablo Neruda, etc. Of course, given the difficulty of establishing criteria for importance, I'm hesitant to start such a list as I fear it would grow out of control and take over the article.

I'm going to go ahead and delete those that I marked Definitely cut, preserving them here for further discussion. I'll hold off the others until this has been on the talk page for a bit.

Tom

I very much appreciate the format and tone of this structured, civil commentary on links. -69.87.203.231 (talk) 17:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Justin Clemens ... an advertisement?

The following text was added, the reverted (by me), then added again: "In Melbourne, Australia Justin Clemens has published a book of sonnets (including some double sonnets) titled Ten Thousand Fcuking Monkeys." ... this seems like an advertisement. I don't believe that notability is justified, after all we don't even mention people like Denby or Berrigan or Berryman in the article. Wyatt, Frost, Auden, Heaney, and ... Clemens??? books.google gives '"Justin Clemens" poetry' only 4 hits, and none of these are connected with his activity as a poet: one is as co-author of an essay with David McCooey, one is a 'thank you' in the acknowledgement's section of a book by McCooey, one are reference in a footnote citing something called Reading Seminar XVII of which he was a co-editor, and one as co-author of a paper on the internet and terrorism. Any objections to reverting the Clemens sentence again? — Stumps 09:45, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ceratainly, Stumps is biased as has known John Forbes but not Justin Clemens. WP:BIO seems to favour British and American Biographies over Australin one. I wish I had brought (more)Australian wikipedians (especially users who know about his work, let alone (have) know(n) him). Justin does already have some notablility, he cites his influences being Wordsworth, Dawson, Blake, Forbes and Gautier. He has released a book of his poetry, and even a melodrama album (on Compact disc only) with many of his poems on musical background.Myrtone@Sonnet.com.au:-(

One other thing, Not just internet. Wikipedia is still "internet centric" and I wonder how many articles have been deleted as a result of interent centric adimistrators, it should be explicit policy that wikipedia is not "internet centric". Thus my advise to editors and administrators doing research to make decisions about either deleting article, listing articles for deletion, or even voting for their deletion, is not just internet. For example, if they do not get sufficant hits on any search engine thay use, they should try offline sources, books, etc.

OK, can you provide one reference in a book to Clemens' sonnets and their significance? I still don't understand why his work is worth noting in the article on the sonnet. — Stumps 11:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the following books at [http://www.amazon.com Amazon]

• [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826467245/sr=8-1/qid=1142860164/ref=sr_1_1/002-2090903-4968825?%5Fencoding=UTF8 Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy]
• [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0754608751/sr=8-6/qid=1142860518/ref=sr_1_6/002-2090903-4968825?%5Fencoding=UTF8 The Romanticism of Contemporary Theory: Institutions, Aesthetics, Nihilism (Studies in European Cultural Transition)]
• [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1863951733/sr=8-8/qid=1142860518/ref=sr_1_8/002-2090903-4968825?%5Fencoding=UTF8 The Mundiad]
• [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/905356716X/sr=8-9/qid=1142860518/ref=sr_1_9/002-2090903-4968825?%5Fencoding=UTF8 Avoiding the Subject : Media, Culture and the Object (Paperback)]

Myrtone@Sonnet.com.au:-)

Sorry, but no. These are books BY Clemens. No one doubts that he is an academic and a poet, the issue here is how notable are his sonnets? The article does not mention many poets; the following rate a mention: Milton, Gray, Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In an article that doesn't mention Denby or Berryman or Berrigan, we are going to have to work harder to justify the significance of Clemens' contribution. Is there a reference to ANY of Clemens' poetry in ANY book about poetry? — Stumps 14:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

PS ... I see an anon user (with an IP in Virginia USA) removed the Justin Clemens sentence from the article (it was strangely the user's only edit!?) Feel free to put it back while we discuss it here. — Stumps 14:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The following pages refer to Justin Clemens:

• Liberiauniversita
• Books.MusicaBona.com
• NewMatilda
• a page of the webiste of Deakin University where Dr. Clemens works
• The Future of Critical Theory

Also, WP:BIO is not actually a *policy* as such but a guideline, becuase notability is, as Justin himself would put it, not a category. Myrtone@Sonnet.com.au ?

21st Century Sonnet section - encyclopedic?

The second part of the Modern Sonnet section appears to be nothing but ads for websites/particular publications to me. Do others feel that these sites/publications are of enough importance to warrant the prominent mention here, or should we cut? Here's the section in question:

The 21st century has seen a strong resurgence of the sonnet form, as there are many sonnets now appearing in print and on the Internet. Sara Russell is the editor of the UK e-zine Poetry Life and Times, in which she publishes hundreds of sonnets; Richard Vallance, the editor for rhymed verse in Poetry Life and Times, also publishes the Canadian Quarterly journal, SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524, dedicated to the sonnet, villanelle, and quatrain forms, as well as the monthly Vallance Review on historical and contemporary sonneteers. Michael R. Burch publishes The HyperTexts and there are sonnets from well-known poets on his site. William Baer has also recently published 150 Contemporary Sonnets (University of Evansville Press 2005). ]] Even Rapper K-Os is talking about sonnet in his "Lovesong".

Thoughts would be appreciated. Tom 22:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with you on this point. In my opinion, the maxim to follow on a literature/poetry entry is that unless an author or editor has created or showcased important examples of work which have helped define/advance the genre as a whole they do not deserve space to be dedicated to them in the main article. If new articles were created to it from the "links" in the case of journals or from the "soneteer" category in the case of persons I would see no real problem with it as long as the list did not grow too large. However, the presence of entries like this in the main article seems a bit off to me Prokopton 02:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Lentini, Giacomo da

The name Giacomo da Lentini on Wikipedia is different than in The Development of the Sonnet: An Introduction by Michael R. G. Spiller (Routledge, 1992) (ISBN 0415087414). There it is spelled Giacomo da Lentino which seems to be the more common spelling of his name. Perhaps whoever copied the information from Encyclopædia Britannica is correct, but this is the only time I've seen his name spelled like it is on the Wikipedia site. Please correct me if I am mistaken. Galo1969X 14:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't know, but "Giacomo da Lentini" gets 16,300 google-hits, whereas "Giacomo da Lentino" only gets 271. I know wikpedia is mirrored a lot, but 16,300 seems pretty convincing. Stumps 14:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

A Convolution for the Masses: The Sonnet alambiqué

I developed a form of sonnet that takes the number of rhymes in a Shakespearean sonnet and adapted it to fit the form of a Petrarchan sonnet. I have read that the English sonnet is not balanced with the turn (generally) after the third quatrain, thus leaving a witty couplet. That the Petrarchan sonnet nearly conforms to the golden ratio clearly advances the idea of balance and proportion. I created this form by an algorithm which with a little alteration allowed for an interesting but convoluted form: ABCA DBCE DFG EFG, or ABCA DBCE DFG FGE.

~ ~ ~

Some may argue that this form does not constitute a sonnet (but more a quatorzain) since the rhymes in the octave flow into the rhymes in the sestet. In that respect it would be more like the Onegin Stanza, though not as flexible as Pushkin's form allowed. I find it an enjoyable and challenging form that does not force me to adopt a form that is hundreds of years old, and thus overused. I also created this form since the Petrarchan sonnet does not in its limited rhyme scheme work well in the English language, but obviously well in Italian, which has a superfluity of rhyming words. If anyone wants to discuss this matter I'm open to further comment, especially if someone has actually seen this form created before. Thanks. Galo1969X 08:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Sonnetology: Article, Category, & List to create

NOTE: eventually create article for "Sonneteer" (a person who composes sonnets), create "Category:Sonneteers" and add many names, and build a manual list of prominent sonneteers @ List of sonneteers (sub-category of "Category:Lists of poets"). --WassermannNYC 13:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, create Category:Sonnets. --WassermannNYC 13:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

English Rhyme Scheme Example

Illustrating the English sonnet, is Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, including the following lines:

Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)

Within his bending sickle's compass come; (f)

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. (f)

The words "come" and "doom" don't seem to rhyme. Do they rhyme under some pronunciations, or is this a violation of the rhyme scheme? In either case, shouldn't there be an explanatory note? Aknyra 09:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if they ever rhymed, but keep in mind this was from a time during the Great Vowel Shift, and vowels sounded different from how they sound today, so it is quite possible the words rhymed at the time. 74.104.224.144 00:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It could also simply be an example of a slant rhyme. Pnkrockr 02:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Its not a violation of the rhyme scheme. If you read material about pronunciation during that time you would see that they do rhyme. They did for a long while after as well, in fact. And in some dialects of english still do. A selection from Dicken's 'Nicholas Nickleby' (chapter 39) where he has a lower class character, John Browdie Speak:

'Monsther!--Ye're aboot right theer, I reckon, Mrs Browdie,' said the countryman good-humouredly, as he came slowly down in his huge top-coat; 'and wa'at dost thee tak yon place to be noo--thot'un owor the wa'? Ye'd never coom near it 'gin you thried for twolve moonths. It's na' but a Poast Office! Ho! ho! They need to charge for dooble-latthers. A Poast Office! Wa'at dost thee think o' thot? 'Ecod, if thot's on'y a Poast Office, I'd loike to see where the Lord Mayor o' Lunnun lives."

The Bolding is mine; but you can see by this "phonetic" writing style that the words do rhyme Prokopton 02:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Are sonnets founded by William Shakespeare????

Most sonnets are by Shakespeare??? Are they founded by him??? Or did he just bring them to life??

Please refer to the section on Sicilian School for more information on the genesis of the sonnet form. Galo1969X 16:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The Italian sonnet

The start of this section has an incomplete sentence.--207.6.168.116 20:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This page needs sections on French and Spanish golden-age sonnets.

152.160.39.70 (talk) 18:08, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I confirm: this article is too nationalistic: Britons were not the only sonnet-writers. You also missed the Italian sonnets of XVI century. Lele giannoni (talk) 17:30, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

sources

To better allow readers to verify the information provided on a sonnet, this article should include more sources from a ride range of respected literary critics to back up the claims it makes about the poetic form and references. Mrathel (talk) 18:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

"little song"

I have reverted a recent undocumented change from "little song" to "little sound" ... because that would shift to the literal Italian and ignore the Occitan reference in the sentence. Note that this "minor" issue is fairly complicated: See [1]. Perhaps a longer sentence would get this "exactly" right, but the introduction may not be the place for such detailed etymology. Comments? Proofreader77 (talk) 16:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Spelling

Per MoS, if the article subject is specifically British or American, that spelling is used, otherwise the first spelling used in writing the article is adhered to, as a precedent. This article was originally spelled with American spelling (pentameter, not pentametre) but a case could plausibly be made that the subject, where it is not Italian, is British. I leave this to the usual editors of this article to discuss. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 17:50, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The British spelling is not pentametre, so pentameter is not evidence of American spelling. Snugglepuss (talk) 12:47, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Not Encyclopaedic

"... (with some typical variances one may expect when reading an Elizabethan-age sonnet with modern eyes):" appears to be un-encyclopaedic and informal. If it is not fixed by someone soon, I will remove it. Zen Clark (talk) 02:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Please explain why you do not feel it is correct. There is an issue here of students reading and being confused by the fact some of the lines do not rhyme according to the specification: abab cdcd efef gg. And some words had more syllables then, than now. Feel free to suggest how this might be phrased more suitably. Proofreader77 (talk) 03:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The Verve

Is it necessary to have a link to the Verve song at the the beginning of the article? The subject of this article is likely what the majority of users will be searching for when they come here, and I don't feel it is necessary to have this link at the top simply because there happens to be a song with the same title as one of the most common poem forms in the history of English literature. If it were a wildly notable song, it might be different, but as far as I know, it is hardly on the same level. I am unsure of precedence on the matter, so I do defer to the judgment of others. Mrathel (talk) 17:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The "hatnote" link is "standard procedure" .... If there were many articles with the name "Sonnet (x)" there would be a disambiguation page "Sonnet (disambiguation)" and the link at the top of this page would point there. But disambiguation pages aren't created unless there are more than two articles to link to. When there are two (as we have here), the "hatnote" link to the other is standard Wikipedia process. (I think I'm repeating now. :) Cheers. Proofreader77 (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It just appears strange to me is all. Its like having a hatnote for the Qu'ran that says "the article on the Qu'ran, click here for the 1975 hit song by Paul Simon's brother." or something of the like. But, I guess I can just wait and pray that more notable subjects get an article with the title "Sonnet" :) Mrathel (talk) 17:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

You're very welcome. Will be scanning the zeitgeist for potential articles. ^^ Happy holidays. Proofreader77 (talk) 18:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Occitan sonnet's sestet

The description says the sestet is c-d-c-c-d-c, but it looks to me a lot more like c-d-c, d-c-d:

Nostre Senhier faccia a vus compagna

per qe en ren no vus qal[la] duptar;
tals quida hom qe perda qe gazaingna.
Seigner es de la terra e de la mar,
per qe lo Rei Engles e sel d'Espangna

ne varran mais, si.ls vorres aiudar.

Can anyone explain how this is c-d-c, c-d-c please?
Corgi (talk) 17:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to merge NotFromUtrecht (talk) 18:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

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Petrarch's and Shakespeare's Sonnets contains a lot of unsourced material/original research and is written like a personal essay, but does contain some content which could be merged here. Rather than listing it for deletion I thought I'd suggest merging it here first. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 09:52, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Actually, I've just reviewed the Petrarch's and Shakespeare's Sonnets article, and it contains so little useful content that I'm simply going to list it for deletion instead. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 18:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Globalize/UK

The article, as it is now, is far too focussed on English sonnets, and Shakespeare's for that matter. There's nothing wrong with covering those in detail, but outside of the section on sonnets' Italian origins and the strangely tacked-on bit about Urdu sonnets, a reader must get the (entirely false) impression that sonnets did not exist in other languages and in other nations' poetry. -- Schneelocke (talk) 23:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The introduction jumps straight to Shakespeare, as if his predecessors were unimportant. I see no reason why the introduction shouldn't stop at, "...although the term can be used derisively." The English sonnet is covered adequately in the body of the article. I intend to truncate the introduction, unless someone offers an argument for leaving it as it is. Dayvey (talk) 10:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Chain of Sonnets

I just read about a form of sonnet collection da:Sonetring consisting of 15 14 line sonnets, where each sonnet begins with the last line of the precding one and the fifteenth sonnet (called a master sonnet) is composed of the 14 first lines. This seems different from both Crown of Sonnets and Sonnet cycle. Does this format exist in English poetry and if so what is it called?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:05, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Sonnet's Inventor?

The article's first line states that the sonnet's creation is credited to Petrarch, but in the first section it states (correctly, I believe), that its inventor is Giacomo da Lentini. Could somebody correct this? I know in English the typical Italian sonnet is often called "Petrarchan", but Petrarch hardly invented the sonnet, considering that there are sonnets composed long before he was even born. 2.38.247.136 (talk) 11:49, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

External links

I just want to reply to the person who was talking about cutting the links. I disagree. Links means that the audience will have sites to go to if they need info. I don't see the good thing in cutting them out. It will, in fact, make the article more informative as the audience will have more ideas and resources to go to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwertypranav123 (talk • contribs) 01:48, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

2016 Tony Award Acceptance Speech by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Is it notable enough to include in this article (under a "21st Century" heading, perhaps) that Lin Manuel Miranda accepted his 2016 Tony Award in sonnet form? Here's one news reference: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/06/lin-manuel-miranda-tony-speech --Theodore Kloba (☎) 15:41, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

'Canadian poetry' hyperlink on a tab in the article

In my opinion, the hyperlink to the 'Canadian poetry' article on a tab in this article should be removed and the link to the 'Canadian poetry' article should instead be placed in the 'See also' section as in my opinion having a hyperlink on one tab and none on the others makes the article inconsistent. Xboxsponge15 (talk) 21:12, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

too long

if by some later discussion the community would come to the conclusion that the article needs to be shortened, i suggest it could end here: "The structure of a typical Italian sonnet of the time included two parts that together formed a compact form of "argument". First, the octave forms the "proposition", which describes a "problem" or "question", followed by a sestet (two tercets) which proposes a "resolution". Typically, the ninth line initiates what is called the "turn", or "volta", which signals the move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that do not strictly follow the problem/resolution structure, the ninth line still often marks a "turn" by signaling a change in the tone, mood, or stance of the poem. "

the rest of the article with dante and from there on seems to be a less than necessary and also somewhat arbitrary collection of languages thet were used at some point to write sonnets.

also missing the hungarian poet Faludy Gyorgy from the (superfluous) listing of nationalities/languages having a noticeable endeavour with the sonnet form.

though the last sentence of the citation (by me, above) might be considered a tautology: of course "the ninth line ((of the sonnet)) often marks a turn by signalling a change of tone" since the minimal definition of what is viewed as a sonnet requires it to do so.

195.139.18.246 (talk) 16:06, 13 July 2021 (UTC).

Crybin sonnet

Here and at Petrarchan sonnet we are told of the existence of the Crybin sonnet, or Crybin variation, rhyming ABBACDDC EFGEFG. Will someone please show that such a thing exists? J S Ayer (talk) 01:12, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I notice that these edits (and similar at Rhyme scheme) comprise the only edits by 98.186.163.68 (talk · contribs), whose sole task here at WP has been to inform us of the existence of the Crybin sonnet. In an admittedly quick perusal, I do not find this term in:

• Alden: English Verse (1903)
• Bullock: "The Genesis of the English Sonnet Form". PMLA, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Dec., 1923), pp. 729-744
• Crossland: The English Sonnet (1917)
• Hamer: The Metres of English Poetry (1930)
• Oliphant: "Sonnet Structure: An Analysis". Philological Quarterly, Vol. 11 (1932), pp. 135-148
• Oppenheimer: "The Origin of the Sonnet". Comparative Literature, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Autumn, 1982), pp. 289-304
• Ordeman: "How Many Rhyme Schemes Has the Sonnet?". College English, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Nov., 1939), pp. 171-173
• Steele: All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing (1999)
• Tomlinson: The Sonnet: Its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry (1874)
• Turco: The New Book of Forms (1986)

The few Google hits I found seem to postdate these WP edits. I assume this is a hoax. Phil wink (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Phil wink, I agree with the doubts expressed above. The claim should at least have been sourced. In the absence of any evidence of mention of the term in the sources listed above, I propose that we have a consensus to delete that sentence...Or, since some of the authors above must have noted that variation, perhaps we should substitute the term used when commenting on it, if any? Sweetpool50 (talk) 09:47, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

At a minimum, {{cn}}, but I would support deletion. As to finding and highlighting an alternate term, Ordeman states "It can be shown mathematically that 51,300 arrangements are possible without destroying the sonnet as a recognizable form." (So this still includes restraints on being "sonnet like"!) Weeks finds 262 different rime schemes in actual use by known poets (and this, too, is based on formal restrictions that, for example, exclude even the sonnets of Edmund Spenser). All this to say that any given sonnet structure -- even if it's known to be used and has a name -- would need to have its notability established before WP throws bytes at it. Out of 6,283 sonnets surveyed, Weeks finds 8 that are ABBA CDDC EFGEFG. Anyone is welcome to establish that this scheme has enjoyed a stealth renaissance since 1910, but absent that, there are dozens of schemes that are more notable. Phil wink (talk) 15:53, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

References

 Done All 3 references have now been removed. Phil wink (talk) 22:22, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I now find that Alan Seeger's sonnet "Vivien" conforms exactly to this pattern: ABBACDDCEFGEFG. Seeger experimented with various innovations on the sonnet form, for example combining Elizabethan octaves with Tuscan sestets. J S Ayer (talk) 16:45, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Seeger's Poems were published posthumously in 1916. J S Ayer (talk) 17:10, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

American Sonnets

The first American Sonnet was verifiably Anne Bradstreet and this should not continue to be removed by User:Sweetpool50. 76.102.179.97 (talk) 21:17, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The user has not bothered to look at the poem. It is 12 lines long and rhymed in couplets. That is not the sonnet form. Sweetpool50 (talk) 21:25, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Scholars consider it a sonnet -- Shakespeare has some twelve line sonnets too. . Also there is a Phillis Wheatley poem many scholars call a sonnet prior to Humphrey. 76.102.179.97 (talk) 21:35, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The Shakespeare poem referred to is Sonnet 126, which is 12 lines of heroic couplets. However, the only reason for it to be considered a sonnet is its context (within Shakespeare's Sonnets), and in fact scholars point out "the failure of the poem to be a sonnet", and that is it "not a sonnet in any technical sense". Phil wink (talk) 03:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

The Poetry Foundation article does not claim that Anne Bradstreet wrote sonnets, only that some (personal) poems were sonnet-like. Nowhere in the introduction to her collected poems is there a claim that she was the first American poet to use the form. The claim is most usually made of her poem "To my dear and loving husband", 12 lines in couplets. There are two others, one to her father and the other to her mother, which do have 14 lines but are again rhymed in couplets. Bradstreet almost invariably uses the couplet in her poetry. There appears to be no contemporary source that identifies these shorter poems as sonnets, and no responsible prosodist that so identifies them. As for the Phillis Wheatley poem, I believe that has fifteen lines. I appeal to Phil wink whether there is any mention of these two authors in the authorities he mentions above. Sweetpool50 (talk) 10:25, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

The question of "rhymed couplets" would mean that Terrance Hayes's great works wouldn't be considered sonnets either. The larger point is that American poets have from the very beginning pushed sonnet boundaries.The Wheatley sonnet is definitely a sonnet, with a Volta and an understanding of the flow. 76.102.179.97 (talk) 15:28, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Facts I would not expect most of the sources I have to hand to specify the first sonnet in the USA (or American colonies). I had some hopes for Campbell: A History of the Sonnet, with Special Reference to England and America (Thesis) Boston University: 1931. But it states: "The sonnet began in America with its first major poet, WLLLIM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878)"... so maybe not the most exhaustively-researched thesis. PEPP4 (repeating PEPP3) states "While sonnets were ubiquitous in the colonial Americas, [which I take to mean the Spanish colonies] the form did not appear in New England until the last quarter of the 18th c., in the work of Col. David Humphreys". I do not notice a sonnet in my copy of Wheatley (Renfro: Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley (1916, rpt. 1969)). To clarify, the Wheatley poem that editors appear to be referencing is "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1768". In my edition it is printed as a 15-line poem; however, the first line -- being metrically deficient and lacking a rime -- is plainly just an introduction and not part of the formal verse structure, so it is really a poem of 14 lines: 7 heroic couplets.

Observations Wikipedia requires WP:Verifiability, so it doesn't really matter what I think, or what Sweetpool50 thinks, or what 76.102.179.97 thinks. I do not see WP:Reliable sources that attribute sonnets to Wheatly or Bradstreet. If I've missed one, please let me know, but failing that, we, as mere editors, don't have to decide; our RSs decide for us. Having said that, sometimes we as editors are called to draw some kind of non-robotic conclusions from our sources. In these liminal cases, we would have to consider the context of the poems in question. Take Terrance Hayes's poem (from the thisfrenzy link). It's named "Sonnet". It's in a book of poems he says are sonnets. It has 14 lines, all in iambic pentameter. It is divided into just the sections you'd expect from a Shakespearean sonnet. Although this is a rebellious sonnet, it is just as plainly a sonnet. Personally, I'd call it a meta-sonnet or an anti-sonnet, and I doubt Hayes would disagree. But beyond the words on the page, we can know something about it due to its context. We come to a different conclusion when we interrogate the context of Bradstreet's and Wheatley's poems. Here we see bodies of work in which no certain sonnets exist, but heroic couplets loom large. Poems with a variety of lengths, some of which happen to fall at 12 or 14. Are Bradstreet and Wheatley known for their formal adventurousness? No; rather, they are formally doctrinaire. Even in 1609 (when Shakespeare's Sonnets was published) that form was kind of past its sell-by date. Should we think that Bradstreet radically repurposed a throwback verseform once -- in a way that incidentally made it indistinguishable from a somewhat short example of her usual practice -- or that she was in fact just writing more heroic couplets... as she did? The case is similar for Wheatley. Now, my arguments don't mean much against reliable sources. But I think the reliable sources I've seen support this conclusion.

Wikipedia has struggled in its coverage of women and minorities (though it's getting better). But attributing things to women and minorities that they don't actually seem to have done is not the solution. I hesitate to suggest this -- because in my view the article is way way way way too long already -- but I wouldn't mind another couple sentences from the Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition source. Very high-level: what made the form inappropriate? how did these poets defend, or transform, its use? To me, this is as interesting (though admittedly less consequential to overall culture) as "what did Satchmo do with that trumpet?" I would like to see 76.102.179.97 get hands on the actual book (so we don't have to be content with a publisher's blurb as a citation) and put that in. Apologies for the wall of text. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 21:19, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I ordered Forms of Contention but it will take a few days. In the meantime online sources also support many unorthodox sonnets by African American poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks's 15-line "To a Winter Squirrel." The Burt/Mikics/Moores anthology The Art of the Sonnet also calls it a sonnet. So it would seem that in the American tradition some leeway is called for. Something new is happening and the American sonnet should not be seen as more of the same. In my opinion.76.102.179.97 (talk) 21:45, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

My understanding is there was a pause while we await that book? I do not see the need to rush.130.157.157.12 (talk) 19:01, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

If you're talking about Forms of Contention..., then my suggestion about that was to make an addition which was essentially unrelated to the article's state, either before or after my "consensus" edit. Nothing in my edit could be construed to prevent further information from that source being added later, when the source is available. So your rationale for reverting it is incomprehensible to me. Phil wink (talk) 19:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I added the Wheatley. I 76.102.179.97 (talk) 14:31, 27 October 2021 (UTC)would like to delete the Wyeth paragraph as random and unjustified. Could anyone justify it before I do?

The reference given nowhere mentions Wheatley's name. If a reliable source is not provided, that piece of misinformation will be reverted. Sweetpool50 (talk) 15:02, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Do you need a screen shot? It is on p. 73. The text reads: "Subsequently Phillis was sent to London by the Wheatleys to publish a volume of her work, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773. One poem, "To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty" (1768) is a sonnet. It begins, "Your subjects hope, dread Sire--" and continues:

[the sonnet here] "To the King's Most Excellent Majest" is a political sonnet of praise in the tradition of John Milton's "To the Lord General Cromwell" (1694). --I hope this is sufficient. 76.102.179.97 (talk) 20:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I will admit that 76.102.179.97 has found an academic who calls "To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty" a sonnet - but not every academic with a narrow focus of interest is trustworthy. One thinks of the discredited David Irving, or Richard A. Lobban when he argued that Aesop was an Ethiopian slave on the slimmest of evidence. The fact remains that Advanced Book Search provides no other reference to the Wheatley poem being a sonnet, including several editions of her complete poems and critical studies of them. In view of this, and in line with WP policy in controversial cases, we will need a second trustworthy reference.

One or two of Wheatley's early poems were without rhyme; a few later poems (titled ode or hymn) used a six-line stanza rhymed aab,aab. Apart from that, the bulk of her work, like that of Anne Bradstreet, is in rhyming couplets. The form of "To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty" is laid out in the 1834 edition as having a sixteen syllable first line followed by thirteen decasyllabic lines rhymed as couplets. That may make a quatorzain but it isn't a sonnet. Phil wink surmised that the first six syllables of the first 'line' (as laid out in the 1793 edition, the earliest I can find) might have been by way of introduction, but without it the opening two lines don't even make sense, so the 1834 solution to the problem is probably the most helpful. Sweetpool50 (talk) 15:33, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

If I may, User:Phil_wink above indicated he was ready to be convinced and the book was procured. I think the controversy is of User:Sweetpool50's making. This isn't much of a controversy. I like seeing Wheatley there and why not? There's general support for the idea already here on this talk page. Maybe a compromise would be to start with the Wheatley 'sonnet' with caveat rather than deleting it altogether. Just an idea.130.157.157.12 (talk) 20:26, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, I, too, now have this book on order because -- Thomas-like -- I must thrust a finger into the wound myself. You'll forgive me if I decline to comment on the Contention-contention until I've had a chance to review it. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 23:11, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

References

Wheatley's alleged sonnet

The poem in question

Your subjects hope, dread Sire—
The crown upon your brows may flourish long,
And that your arm may in your God be strong!
O may your sceptre num'rous nations sway,
And all with love and readiness obey!

  But how shall we the British king reward!
Rule thou in peace, our father, and our lord!
Midst the remembrance of thy favours past,
The meanest peasants most admire the last.
May George, belov'd by all the nations round,
Live with heav'ns choicest constant blessings crown'd!
Great God, direct, and guard him from on high,
And from his head let ev'ry evil fly!
And may each clime with equal gladness see
A monarch's smile can set his subjects free!

— Phillis Wheatley: "To the KING's Most Excellent Majesty. 1768."

Undoubtedly, this is 7 heroic couplets. The question is: is it also a sonnet?

TL:DR: It aint.

(NB: Both I and Hollis Robbins assume that this is in fact a 14-line poem with a sort of extrametrical introduction at the beginning… we both take "The crown…" to be the first line of the actual poem.)

Consensus before Robbins

First I will note that I searched JSTOR for "Wheatley" & "sonnet". I reviewed the first few dozen hits, and without exception every instance of these words in proximity was in reference to June Jordan's (for us, unhelpfully entitled article) "The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America; Or, Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley" -- which for the record does not mention the poem in question. Further hits seemed to yield these words in less proximity and less relevance.

Next, note that any reference to the earliest American sonnet being by David Humphreys is necessarily a denial that Wheatley's poem is a sonnet at all. There is no doubt that her poem was written before Humphreys's sonnets. And Wheatley was a cause célèbre in her time, so anyone who knows Humphreys would surely know Wheatley.

To begin, then: books about sonnets: The earliest reference I've found is in an 1867 anthology by Leigh Hunt and S. Adams Lee: "The first American sonnet was written... by David Humphreys" Wheatley is not included either under the rubric "American Sonnets", nor the unfortunate separate category "Female Sonneteers". This is echoed in 1887 (though seemingly with Hunt & Lee as a source) in The Berkeleyan. Representative Sonnets by American Poets (about a quarter of whose sonnets are listed as "irregular", eliminating a strict formal bias) includes Humphreys, not Wheatley.

More recently, the Twayne publication A Book of the Sonnet states: "Humphreys wrote a sequence of twelve sonnets during the years 1776-99, of which the present poem ["Addressed to His Royal Highness, The Prince of Brazil..."] is reputed to be the first genuine sonnet written by an American poet." Wheatley is not mentioned in this book. The current Wikipedia article supports Humphreys's priority with a citation of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4th ed.). It should be noted that the passage in question originated in the 1st edition of 1965, and has been retained through all editions, under 3 different editorial teams and through 2 updates of the article by a total of 4 authors. This article alone constitutes a half century of scholarly consensus.

Continuing with books about Wheatley/African-American verse: Directly after a discussion of Wheatley's conformity, we read that "Paul Laurence Dunbar is normally credited with being the first innovator and first truly gifted formal poet among blacks." [emphasis mine] I don't believe this could be said of a poet who wrote a sonnet in couplets. The compilation Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, which traces her critical reception from 1767 to 1982 in 65 essays contains the word "sonnet" only once: describing a poem by another author who wrote about Wheatley. Sweetpool50 has already performed a similar automated search, and come up dry, but I wanted to highlight some specific instances.

Even scholars evidently in Robbins's orbit do not support Wheatley's authorship of a sonnet. The Trials of Phillis Wheatley by Robbins's own sometime co-editor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., contains only 1 instance of the word "sonnet" -- referring to June Jordan's article. In another article he states that "all of her extant poems, except five, utilize the heroic couplet", and these exceptions he conveniently names; "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty" is not listed as an exception to her prevalent mode.

The African American Sonnet: A Literary History (blurbed by Robbins as "impressive") begins: "When Albery Allson Whitman, a minister and former slave, published his first collection of poetry in 1877, he inaugurated an unlikely genre: the African American sonnet." As if to forestall a suspicion of too-strict formal criteria, the sonnet in question, "Sonnet: The Montenegrin", has 15 lines! Indeed Müller explicitly states in an endnote: "Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poets, including Phillis Wheatley and George Moses Horton, occasionally published fourteen-line poems in heroic couplets. These poems were not regarded as sonnets at the time and are therefore not treated as such in this study."

On what, even, is a sonnet, really?: One does not have to be an irredeemably exclusionary formalist to doubt whether 7 heroic couplets really constitute a sonnet. L. T. Weeks tabulates 1015 possible rime schemes that he judges to be reasonably regular (he finds only 262 of these schemes occurring in actual sonnets). He also notes blank verse and some other rime schemes outside of his already quite broad norm, but appears not even to consider 7 couplets as a candidate. (Incidentally, this proliferation of rime schemes (published before 1910) should give pause to anyone seeking to argue that sonnet experimentation is an unusually American or African-American or 20th-/21st-century phenomenon -- all of these categories surely representing minorities in Weeks's survey.) E.H.C. Oliphant, setting out a quasi-generative list of rules for the possible structures of sonnets (not to limit, but to encourage innovation) generates hundreds of candidates, but programmatically dismisses a series of 7 couplets in rules 7 and 8 of his foundational set of 10 rules.

Robbins

In light of the long-held consensus that Humphreys wrote the earliest American sonnet, that Wheatley did not write a sonnet, and that 7 heroic couplets do not constitute a sonnet, it would be incumbent upon anyone making the claim that "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty" is a sonnet to provide a salient argument. But Robbins merely makes the assertion and moves on. She further asserts that there is a volta at line nine, a very sonnet-like feature. However, this ignores the much more obvious change in perspective at line 5 which is emphasized in the first edition by verse paragraphing; Wheatley's original un-sonnet-like reading is suppressed in Robbins's reprinting of the poem.

So if she won't explain why "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty" is a sonnet, does she propose an overall definition? She states that "[t]he sonnet, or "little song," is fourteen lines of iambic pentameter with an organized rhyme scheme." Although she cites The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet as her source for this statement, it is corroborated neither on the page, nor even anywhere in the chapter she cites. But she is not constrained even by this broad and dubious definition, as she accepts poems in blank verse and rimed free verse.

Her nadir of selection would seem to be a run of 7 couplets which she first calls a "sonnet excerpt", but in her very next sentence confidently styles a "sonnet". The lines in question are extracted from The Pleasures of Hope, a long poem in heroic couplets, divided throughout into rather short verse paragraphs, the so-called "sonnet excerpt" occurring in a run numbering 4-8-10-6-14-8-8-4-18. This is just silly.

But Robbins is not punctilious when analyzing verseforms. She describes "A Sonnet" by John Willis Menard as "[w]ritten in iambic tetrameter rather than pentameter, in rhymed couplets rather than a Shakespearean or Petrarchan rhyme scheme… Menard's poem is a sonnet in name only." So perhaps at last we've found Robbins's formal limit. In fact the poem is not in couplets, but boasts a precisely Shakespearean rime scheme, so is formally identical to Shakespeare's Sonnet 145, which she holds up as an example of the sonnet tradition adapting itself. She describes the line "We sliced the watermelon into smiles" as possessing "brazen non-iambic ten syllables." This is an unambiguous and regular iambic pentameter that Alexander Pope would happily accept -- but hey, she counted the syllables correctly. In discussing Petrarch's "Amor con sue promesse lusingando" she writes: "The rhyme scheme is easily perceived: ABBAABBA CDCDEE." But this is the rime scheme of the English translation she prints, not of Petrarch's original, which goes ABBAABBA CDCDCD. Who cares, right? But famously a strict Petrarchan sonnet never ends with a couplet, nor does this sonnet in Petrarch's Italian.

And another thing

In the final analysis, the claim that Wheatley's poem is America's earliest sonnet is self-defeating. It is easy to find other even earlier examples of (colonial) American poems comprising 7 heroic couplets. In 10 minutes of skimming I found 2 in one frequently-reprinted anthology, without even bothering to get to the end: "March 4th Anno 1698[/9]: A Charracteristicall Satyre on a proud upstart" by John Saffin, and "To the Rev'd Mr. Jno. Sparhawk on the Birth of His Son, Aust. Or Sept. 1713" by Samuel Sewall. If Wheatley's is a sonnet, theirs are too. In fact, both of these poems are slightly more convincing "sonnets", as they do not feature the very un-sonnet-like 4-10 line structure of Wheatley's poem. But no one has claimed these as earlier sonnets than that of Humphreys, showing that it is neither racial nor sexual animus against Wheatley that has prevented her recognition as a sonneteer. Rather, it is the fact that heroic couplets -- at the very least, heroic couplets in a heroic couplet context -- are not sonnets. Phil wink (talk) 01:13, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

References

References

• Brogan, T.V.F.; Zillman, L.J.; Scott, C.; Lewin, J. (2012). "Sonnet". In Greene, Roland; Cushman, Stephen; et al. (eds.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Fourth ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 1318–1321. ISBN 978-0-691-13334-8. OCLC 908736323. (The previous, and functionally identical, version of this entry from PEPP3 is available here at the Internet Archive.)
• Campbell, Thomas (1800) [1799]. The Pleasures of Hope; With Other Poems. New York: John Furman.
• Crandall, Charles Henry (1890). Representative Sonnets by American Poets. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin.
• Gates, Henry Louis (1982). "Phillis Wheatley and the Nature of the Negro". In Robinson, William H. (ed.). Critical essays on Phillis Wheatley. Boston: G.K. Hall. pp. 215–233. ISBN 978-0-8161-8336-4.
• Gates, Henry Louis (2003). The Trials of Phillis Wheatley. New York: BasicCivitas Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02729-3.
• Huddleston, Eugene L. (1982). "Matilda's "On Reading the Poems of Phillis Wheatley, the African Poetess"". In Robinson, William H. (ed.). Critical essays on Phillis Wheatley. Boston: G.K. Hall. pp. 102–112. ISBN 978-0-8161-8336-4.
• Hunt, Leigh; Lee, S. Adams, eds. (1867a). The Book of the Sonnet. Vol. 1. London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston.
• Hunt, Leigh; Lee, S. Adams, eds. (1867b). The Book of the Sonnet. Vol. 2. London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston.
• Jordan, June (Summer 1986). "The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America; Or, Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley". Massachusetts Review. 27 (2). The Massachusetts Review: 252–262. JSTOR 25089756.
• Kallich, Martin; Gray, Jack C.; Rodney, Robert M., eds. (1973). A Book of the Sonnet; Poems and Criticism. New York: Twayne.
• Meserole, Harrison T., ed. (1985) [1968]. American Poetry of the Seventeenth Century. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Müller, Timo (2018). The African American Sonnet: A Literary History. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-4968-1783-9.
• Oliphant, E. H. C. (1932). "sonnet Structure: An Analysis". Philological Quarterly. 11: 135–148.
• Ostendorf, Berndt (1982). Black literature in white America. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press. ISBN 978-0-389-20257-8.
• Robbins, Hollis (2020). Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-5764-5.
• Rowell, Joseph Cummings (June 1887). "The Sonnet in America". The Berkeleyan. XXIII (4). Berkeley: University of California: 167–184.
• Weeks, L. T. (June 1910). "The Order of Rimes of the English Sonnet". Modern Language Notes. 25 (6): 176–180. JSTOR 2916919.
• Wheatley, Phillis (1773). Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London: A. Bell.

That's the most comprehensive demolition of poor scholarship that I've ever seen. Many thanks for your thoroughness, Phil wink. Can I take it we now have concensus to revert the false claims and special pleading at the head of the American subsection? Sweetpool50 (talk) 19:14, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Robbins, at least on this topic is WP:FRINGE. And I don't see how the Kenyon Review citation supports the statements made. Phil wink (talk) 22:58, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

English section

The layout of the English section suggested a separate article that had been badly integrated into the general article. Its first two paragraphs appeared to function as a lead. And since there are no images of authors in other sections, those of the Earl of Surrey and Shakespeare seemed without precedent. Most of the text that followed was unsourced and contained the nonsensical claim that Wyatt had translated Dante and Ronsard. Quotation of entire sonnets in later paragraphs was quite unjustified without discussion of them, which in any case would have been best left to the articles on the individual authors. Revision therefore concentrates on the development of the sonnet as a form over the Tudor and Stuart period rather than cramming in as many names of poets as possible, some of them not notable from that point of view. Sweetpool50 (talk) 21:11, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Some reversions to beginning of the article

The leading sentence should begin with a definition in accordance with MOS:LEADSENTENCE. More recent edits have made the lead an etymology of sonnet. Etymology is certainly relevant to the article but it is not helpful as the lead sentence. The literal meaning of "little song" does not make Mary Had A Little Lamb a sonnet, for instance.

Recent edits have reduced the scope of the first paragraph, and resulted in some unclear passages. For example,"Over the following centuries, the sonnet was taken up in many other European language areas ..." is present despite the time/geographic origin of sonnets never being previously mentioned in the current version of the article. I think since Sicily is where sonnets originated, it does not make sense to relegate the historical information to the Sicily subsection of the article. A good future compromise might be establishing a History subsection to contain some of the information that seems superfluous in the leading paragraph.

I think @Sweetpool50 correctly recognized that the opening is becoming rather bloated, and moved and removed several things to bring it into focus, but I think some damage was done in the process. Would like to hear some users' opinions on my changes which I summarize as follows:

1. Starting the article with a definition of sonnet as a fourteen line poem with a rhyme scheme
2. Bringing some minimal historical background back into the first paragraph
3. minor changes to the 'Sicilian' section to avoid redundancy with respect to changes from point 2

Plebian poblano (talk) 18:24, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Changes were made in line with MOS:LEAD. The subject of the article is "Sonnet" - so, no to your second and third suggestions. The history of the sonnet is part and parcel of the form's development over linguistic and geographical areas and is best summarised very generally. Thanks, however, for pointing the way to what was wrong with the original opening. Expansion would be unhelpful and against editorial guidelines. Sweetpool50 (talk) 19:21, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Help me to see how the current state of the article is in line with MOS:LEADSENTENCE.

from MOS:LEADSENTENCE: "The first sentence should introduce the topic, and tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is and often when or where."

An explanation of the etymology does not satisfy this. It may very well be relevant for understanding what a sonnet is, but in the current state it reads like a factoid placed in the lead.

As for the history question. I think a perfectly good version of this article could exist with the History buried, but by reverting my edit the non-sequitur sentence is back in the first paragraph. "Over the following centuries, the sonnet was taken up by many other European language areas." A confused reader will probably ask: following which centuries? and following which European language areas? This sentence can only exist in the context of a preceding sentence. It refers to something that came before when nothing comes before it.

Let me know what you think about the issues I raised Plebian poblano (talk) 20:44, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

That was a valid point, initial time and place need to be established briefly. A one sentence explanation of the derivation of the term at the start leads naturally into what a sonnet is and would be intrusive if transferred anywhere else. In any case, there is no such guideline as the one you state, nor can I find any reference to what should be in the first sentence in MOS:LEAD. Can we now agree that the lead fairly summarises the rest of the article? Sweetpool50 (talk) 08:03, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your change putting the time/place grounding, thanks. I don't think any further history needs to be in the lead.

However with regards to the leading sentence, I think a change is still needed. The guideline I previously stated in italics is a direct quote from the manual of style. Ill give you a raw url in case the link is not functioning well on your end. The relevant points are:

"The first sentence should introduce the topic, and tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where."

"If its subject is definable, then the first sentence should give a concise definition: where possible"

"Avoid constructions like "[Subject] refers to..." or "...is a word for..." – the article is about the subject, not a term for the subject."

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#First sentence

"Do not include foreign equivalents in the lead sentence just to show etymology."

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Foreign language

I'm not against including the Italian in a bracketed aside in the first sentence, but I cannot find any articles where this is done for etymology. I think it is only done for direct loans eg in the Meringue or Lingua franca articles. Plebian poblano (talk) 22:59, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sweetpool50 did you get a chance to look over this? Plebian poblano (talk) 06:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you are being unduly precious about this, @User:Plebian poblano, especially as the present reading of the first sentence only needs the substitution of a colon (:) - for the present full-stop - to bring it into accordance with the guideline. The suggested bracketing of the etymological information would be clumsier, making it more of an afterthought, rather than an intrinsic placing of the sonnet within its cultural context. Sweetpool50 (talk) 10:18, 11 July 2024 (UTC)