Thread: Sonnets (Being Technical?)

I've been wondering about this for some time. When I was younger, we were taught that a sonnet is a short poem of 14 lines with a particular rhyme-scheme.

Now I'm doing my Bachelor's in the English Language, and this time we went further: that a sonnet has a particular meter as well (iambic pentameter), and the last two lines take a turn - they contain a thought different from the former 12 lines.


I'd written a few poems before. They are of 14 lines with the rhyme-scheme, but they don't follow that particular meter. The last two lines are stronger and more passionate than the previous 12 lines (I hope), but they don't take a turn.


I've become disappointed after I learnt this. Can I call my poems sonnets?

I'd say you can call them nontraditional sonnets! In the end it's up to you, how many rules and guidelines you want to stick to. I personally care mostly for good and quality work, rather than technical achievements. A proper sonnet however, should be something in its own right (following all those rules you mentioned), otherwise the defining label would lose its meaning...

They call it the volta, and I don't think it has to come in the last couplet necessarily, I think it can turn at the end of the second quatrain, so you have eight lines posing one point of view and six the other.

Yeah, the end for the second quatrain would be for the Italian sonnets, I suppose. So to label a poem a sonnet, you have to follow the guidelines. Saying it loud here makes me think clearer. Thanks.

It's often the way that putting something in words clarifies and crystallises it, when you get a new writing principle it is a good idea to use it straight away even if what you are writing doesn't lead anywhere immediately.

A lot of sonnets have the final rhyming couplet either answer a question presented/implied, or simply sum up the subject of the sonnet in a very satisfying way when you read. Traditionally, they do take a turn, but so many modern sonnets stray very far from the traditional guidelines - every sonnet I've read by well-published poets in the last 10 years has deviated from iambic pentameter many times, and at least one line has strayed from the rhyme.

I don't like it when people stray. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but the traditional ones were better.

Originally Posted by candid petunia

I don't like it when people stray. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but the traditional ones were better.

Yeah, that's interesting. If people stray, can it still really be called a sonnet? Doesn't it then become something else? I mean, a writer can write a fourteen-line poem and call it a sonnet, but if it's not a sonnet in the minds of his/her readers, is it still a sonnet? Which has more weight, the writer's intent, or the reader's reaction? And if they are both equally valid, isn't that a paradox? A poem is and is not a sonnet, depending on who's reading it? I think that's part of what makes poetry so exciting, the way you can't really define it, because as soon as you try to define it, you limit what can and cannot be a poem, and I happen to believe that there are no limits in poetry besides what the one reading or writing it may impose upon it... but since any limit can be imposed, then anything can be poetry...

I'm not really helping, am I?

Hahahha! Its ok. It somehow answers the question... poetry cannot be defined​ I guess.

‘Iambic pentameter’ describes the basic structure in which something is written. The basic metre of the poem provides a basis, a bit like the base drum providing the steady beat in music, that does not necessarily mean that the drum is actually present during the whole piece, there will be delicate passages where it is not there at all. Similarly something written in the basic verse pattern will not all be in iambic feet, or even in pentameters necessarily.

It is not only modern verse that strays from the basic patterns, Perfect regularity sounds quite boring, the sort of women’s magazine poetry that you could tap out a monotonous rhythm to, ker-bonk, ker-bonk. The ‘irregularity’ is not a failure or an error, it accentuates the meaning.

For example the famous speech from Hamlet has the verse pattern of iambic pentameter, but take the line “To be or not to be, that is the question”, Hamlet’s problem is whether to live or die, and that shows where the stresses should lie, to recite it with the stress on the ‘be, not, be, is, qu,’ syllables would sound ridiculous, it has to be on ‘be, not, that, qu’; and the last word has at least one extra syllable on the end (Elizabethans may well have separated qu-est-i-on.). Not only that but the stress is not equal all through, the strongest stress comes on the inverted fourth foot.

Similarly when Romeo finds the ‘dead’ Juliet and resolves to kill himself he finishes,
"From this world wearied flesh. Eyes look your last!"
The fourth foot has a double stress, making the line solemn and emphasising his resolve.

This is not irregularity in the sense of getting it wrong, it is irregularity which emphasises the important concepts in the line or the state of mind of the person speaking it. Perfect regularity, in the sense of each foot and each line being identical, would be a considerable defect in any poem, but in good poetry the irregularities perform a function.

That's a good way of putting it--it's variations within the form while still essentially being a sonnet.

But take the villanelle, for example. Elizabeth Bishop wrote a poem called "One Art." (Link: One Art- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More) Some might call it a villanelle, in that it's very similar in structure to, say, Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night." (Link: Do not go gentle into that good night- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More). But it doesn't follow the "rules" of a villanelle; the last lines of each stanza don't repeat word-for-word exactly the way they're "supposed" to, like they do in Thomas' poem.

So, at what point does "variations on a sonnet" become "no longer a sonnet", or villanelle, or whatever? That's when things get tricky. Like I said in my earlier post, you can call any 14-line poem a sonnet if you want, but let's say it doesn't rhyme, or it's in free verse and just happens to be 14 lines long. Is that, then, a sonnet? It's just like the fact that lots of poems are in iambic pentameter, but they aren't sonnets, because they're too long, for example, or they don't rhyme (which I think is called blank verse, if memory serves).

That's why I think, going back to candid's original post, you can't take definitions in poetry too terribly seriously. There may be certain rules observed by certain writers, but those rules can and ought to be broken. In my opinion, what you're trying to communicate takes precedence over form any day. And while I don't doubt that you can probably learn some things from writing structured poetry, I think it's pretty much a dead art today. I mean, is there really any reason to write sonnets or sestinas or whatever these days, other than as an intellectual exercise, just to see if you can do it?

You cannot lump sonnets together and seek one definition of the discipline. Shakespearean, Italian, French, Spencarian etc. etc. all have at least subtle differences and in some cases GREAT differences.

For sake of an example I'll give a few particulars of the Shakespearean Sonnet as it is the one I am most familar with.

Yes it is limited to 14 lines. Yes it is written in iambic pentameter but aside from the metrical foot ... it must follow a rhythm as well. Stressed and unstressed syllables must be established and followed throught the poem. This is best described as da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM. Once you have your syllable count and your rhythm you can proceed to the development of your Shakespearean Sonnet.

Now, the 'change' or 'volta' comes at the 9th line. The first two stanzas set up pattern, the 9th line volta ponders the first two stanzas or offers a contrasting view or questions them. The last two lines (a couplet) offer resolution, define the entire disposition or 'close' the poem.

If you NEED to label a sonnet, a limerick, a haiku, a triolet or any other long accepted discipline, then YOU need to examine your threshold for the discipline. Do you want it to be recognized as a specific style, structure or form? Can you accept a beautiful poem if it varies? Can you enjoy an offering by another if it does not suit your particular definition of a particular form?

In closing, a very easy search of 'poetry forms' will lead you to thousands of pages of views, opinions and perceptions. Choose a few you like and write so that it is pleasing to you then offer your work up to whoever shall ...............

fp

it does not matter if you have a turn or not in the last two lines of a sonnet as long as you have the right meter and rhyme pattern. if you don't use the right meter and rhyme as required in a sonnet, you are not writing a sonnet, you just write a poem with 14 lines. by the way, the sonnet you are talking about is the Shakespearean sonnet. there is another form of sonnet we seldom use.

Originally Posted by Bachelorette

That's a good way of putting it--it's variations within the form while still essentially being a sonnet.

But take the villanelle, for example. Elizabeth Bishop wrote a poem called "One Art." (Link: One Art- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More) Some might call it a villanelle, in that it's very similar in structure to, say, Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night." (Link: Do not go gentle into that good night- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More). But it doesn't follow the "rules" of a villanelle; the last lines of each stanza don't repeat word-for-word exactly the way they're "supposed" to, like they do in Thomas' poem.

So, at what point does "variations on a sonnet" become "no longer a sonnet", or villanelle, or whatever? That's when things get tricky. Like I said in my earlier post, you can call any 14-line poem a sonnet if you want, but let's say it doesn't rhyme, or it's in free verse and just happens to be 14 lines long. Is that, then, a sonnet? It's just like the fact that lots of poems are in iambic pentameter, but they aren't sonnets, because they're too long, for example, or they don't rhyme (which I think is called blank verse, if memory serves).

That's why I think, going back to candid's original post, you can't take definitions in poetry too terribly seriously. There may be certain rules observed by certain writers, but those rules can and ought to be broken. In my opinion, what you're trying to communicate takes precedence over form any day. And while I don't doubt that you can probably learn some things from writing structured poetry, I think it's pretty much a dead art today. I mean, is there really any reason to write sonnets or sestinas or whatever these days, other than as an intellectual exercise, just to see if you can do it?

It has been some time since you posted this, I apoligise for not replying earlier, the rcent new post drew my attention. Vocabulary is always changing, meanings change grossly so sometimes it is difficult to see any relationship between a modern word and the Latin or Anglo Saxon one it derived from without knowing the intermediary stages. The concept of writing within closely restrited boundaries is, however, one that is common to all those literary traditions in various forms. I feel there is good reason for this, it stimulates the mind and verbal capacity. When people say "You have to know the rules before you break them" I think that an awful lot of people then dissmiss, or at best learn, the rules, without applying them. Why should they when the goal is to break them? Think of it like some other skilled ability, playing the flute, or premiership football, before you can play a Motzart Concerto or a Wembly Cup Final you will spend hours going round bollards and making long distance passes, or playing scales and doing 'technicals'.

Anglo Saxon poets composed long works and performed them in an oral tradition using alliteration in set orders and places. Latin uses suffixes to denote a words grammatical place in the sentence, so it is possible to construct very regular hexameters.

In modern English hexameters don't work, the heroic couplet was an attempt to imitate, and the predesossor of the iambic pentameter. There are other formal structures, but iambic pentameters is by far the most popular, it works beautifully in English, splitting naturally an holding two ideas in the line so often, it may have had its origins in Latin and formal learning but it is English through and through. There is a sort of reaction against the prescriptive methods of the first half of the last century and earlier, the trouble with reactions is that they tend to throw the baby out with the bath water. Knowing something does not simply mean knowing about it, it means using it, exploring it, until it becomes second nature, that's the way to know sonnet writing. There are several variations, shakesperian, Wordsworth etc., named after their originators. Having explored these you may decide you are at least the equal of these poets and develop your own variation, I do hope you are successful if it comes about that way.

Hey Olly Buckle,

I was going to respond to Bachelorette's comment about the Sonnet being a "dead art" but your own comment is more recent.

Anyway, I don't think the sonnet is dead. Some of us still compose sonnets and try to stay within the rhyme and meter boundaries.

In my own opinion, even an average Sonnet, is an exceptional work of poetry.