Elizabethan Sonnet

The sonnet in English literature is a foreign importation. It originated in Italy during the 13th century. Petrarch and Dante were the pioneer leaders in this direction. The sonnet as a literary form appeared in England as one of the distinct effects of the ‘Renaissance’, under Wyatt's literary initiative.

The sonnet in a general sense means a short poem. It is a poem of fourteen lines with a special arrangement for rhymes, and generally, it treats one thought or emotion. The Italian sonnet as Dante and Petrarch used, is a short poem of fourteen lines.

It is divided into two unequal parts. The first eight lines of the poem called “octave” with the rhyme scheme “abba, abba”. The last six lines of the poem are called the sestet, the rhyme scheme is “ede, ede.” Along with the Petrarchan technique, the Elizabethan sonnets before Shakespeare are found to follow mostly this basic situation.

Thomas Wyatt who was the innovator of the English sonnet is found to follow by many of his imitators. Wyatt's great service to English poetry is the introduction of the sonnet with its chastening strengthening influence on English metre and diction. In Wyatt as in Petrarch is seen a convention of personal emotion.

Sir Thomas Wyatt was successfully succeeded by his contemporary and follower Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. His attempt is not to imitate Petrarch blindly. There is a variation in the rhyme-scheme to suit the purpose of English poetry in his sonnets. The new forms, introduced by Surrey, comprises three quatrains with a closing couplet. This form found popularity as the Shakespearean form.

Both Wyatt and Surrey, however, have followed the Italian theme of love, with its passion and pang. Their sonnets go together inseparably in the history of English sonnets. Their sonnets were published in “Tottels' Miscellany”, a volume of miscellaneous poems in 1557.

Wyatt and Surrey initiated the fashion of sonnet writing, and it became a sort of literary exercise in the Elizabethan period, in keeping with the spirit of the Renaissance.

The next remarkable name among the English sonneteers is Sir Philip Sidney. His “Astrophel and Stella” contains a series of 108 sonnets about his own frustrated love for Penelope, the daughter of the Earl of Essex. In fact, Sidney's sonnets show the poet's intense personal feelings and expression.

Edmund Spenser was another great sonneteer of the Elizabethan Age His sonnet, which appeared in 1595, has actually an Italian title, inspired by Petrarch. The sonnets are addressed to his lady love (Elizabeth Boyle) who became his wife and contain some autobiographical matters. The sonnets written in his maturity reveal is efforts to introduce further innovation in the rhyme-scheme.

Between the publication of Sidney's “Astrophel and Stella” in 1591 and the appearance of Shakespeare's sonnets, there came a number, sonneteers. Among them, Henry Constable's ‘Diana’, Samuel Daniels' ‘Delia’, Thomas Watson's ‘Tears of Fancy’, Barnaba Barnes's ‘Parenthenophil’ and ‘Partheopole’ etc, are most important.

All these works are mainly the sequences of amorous sonnets. The amorous sonnet sequence is, in fact, the dominant feature in the pre-Shakespearean Elizabethan sonnet.

But the greatest name in English sonnets is the greatest name in English theatre-William Shakespeare. One hundred and fifty-four sonnets of Shakespeare stand out as the specimens of his unparalleled art. Indeed those sonnets are unsurpassable for their loftiness, profundity, picturesqueness and melody.

One hundred and twenty-six sonnets are addressed to a young man of rather an uncertain identity. Two sonnets are about Cupid, and the remaining twenty-six are addressed to an unknown Dark Lady, better known Dark Lady sonnets.

Shakespeare's sonnets are somewhat different from the conventional sonnets of the Elizabethan period. These are not merely about love, addressed to a fair but unresponsive lady love-but of masculine friendship also. Even in the Dark-lady sonnets, no Petrarchan convention is followed by him. They are more realistic and have not the sentimental adoration of the ladylove.

The fourteen lines of the Shakespearean sonnet are divided into four parts-three quatrains and a concluding couplet. The quatrains state the poet's argument and the complete sums up his theme. There are altogether seven rhymes (ab, ab, cd, cd, ef, ef, gg), as opposed to the five of the conventional Petrarchan sonnet.