What is a sonnet? The poem is a sonnet. Sonnet authors

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

A favorite of poets and poetry aficionados, the sonnet traces its lineage to the works of the Provençal troubadours, who created secular lyrics and were the first to compose songs in the vernacular instead of Latin. The name of the genre goes back to the Provencal word sonet - a sonorous, sonorous song.

What is a sonnet? Origin History

The Albigensian wars (1209-1229), which engulfed the south of France, forced many troubadours to move to Sicily, where in the 1200s in Naples, at the court of the patron and poet Frederick the Second, a school of poetry was formed. Its representatives contributed to the transformation of the sonnet - in Italian it was already called sonetto - into the leading genre of their work. Sicilian poets used the Tuscan dialect, which already at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries formed the basis of the Italian literary language. Many geniuses of the Renaissance wrote sonnets: Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, Pierre de Ronsard, Lope de Vega, Shakespeare… And each of them brought something new to the content of the poems.

Shape Features

The classic sonnet consists of fourteen stanzas. In the era of the Italian and French Renaissance, poets wrote poems in the form of two quatrains (quatrains) and two tertsinas (three lines), and during the English period - three quatrains and one couplet.

The sonnet poem is incredibly musical, which is why it is easy for him to compose music. A certain rhythm was achieved due to the alternation of male and female rhymes, when the stress falls on the last and, accordingly, on the penultimate syllable. The researchers found that the classic sonnet contains 154 syllables, but not all poets followed this tradition. Italy, France and England are the three cradles of the development of this poetic form. The authors of sonnets - natives of each country - made some changes in form and composition.

Wreath of sonnets

This particular form of poem originated in Italy in the 13th century. There are 15 sonnets in it, and the last contains the main theme and idea of the remaining fourteen. For this reason, the authors started the work from the end. In the fifteenth sonnet, the first two stanzas are important, and according to tradition, the first sonnet must certainly begin with the first line of the last and end with the second. Other parts of the wreath poem are no less interesting. In the remaining thirteen sonnets, the last line of the previous one must be the first line of the next one.

From Russian poets in the history of world literature, the names of Vyacheslav Ivanov and Valery Bryusov are remembered. They knew perfectly well what a sonnet was, so they showed interest in a wreath of sonnets. In Russia, this form of writing originated in the 18th century. Genius Valery Bryusovwas a master of this genre and strictly observed the prevailing foundations. His last poem from the wreath of sonnets ("The Fatal Row") begins with the lines:

I should have named fourteen

Names of loved ones, memorable, alive!"

To make the composition of the genre more understandable, a little analysis is needed. According to tradition, the first sonnet begins with the final stanza, and ends with the second; the third sonnet begins with the last line of the previous one, in this case - "the names of loved ones, memorable, alive!" It can be argued that Valery Bryusov has reached perfection in this genre. To date, literary critics have counted 150 wreaths of sonnets by Russian poets, and there are about 600 of them in world poetry.

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374). Italian Renaissance

He was called the first man of the Renaissance and the founder of classical philology. Francesco Petrarca was educated as a lawyer, became a priest, but did not live according to the principle of theocentrism. Petrarch traveled all over Europe, being in the service of the cardinal, began his literary career in the village of Vaucluse in southern France. All his life he interpreted ancient manuscripts and preferred the ancient classics - Virgil and Cicero. Many of his poems, including sonnets, Petrarch placed in the collection "Canzoniere", which literally means "Book of Songs". In 1341, he was crowned with a laurel crown for his literary merits.

Features of creativity

The main feature of Petrarch is to love and be loved, but this loveshould apply not only to a woman, but also to friends, relatives, nature. He reflected this idea in his work. His book "Canzoniere" refers to the muse Laura de Noves, the daughter of a knight. The collection was written almost all his life and had two editions. The sonnets of the first book are called "On the Life of Laura", the second - "On the Death of Laura". There are 366 poems in total in the collection. In 317 sonnets of Petrarch, the temporal dynamics of feelings can be traced. In "The Canzoniere" the author sees the task of poetry in the glorification of the beautiful and cruel Madonna. He idealizes Laura, but she does not lose her real characteristics either. The lyrical hero experiences all the hardships of unrequited love and suffers that he has to break a sacred vow. The author's most famous sonnet is 61, in which he enjoys every minute spent with his beloved:

"Blessed is the day, month, summer, hourAnd the moment when my gaze met those eyes!"

Petrarch's collection is a poetic confession in which he expresses his inner freedom and spiritual independence. He worries, but does not regret love. He seems to justify himself and glorify earthly passion, because without love humanity cannot exist. The sonnet verse reflects this idea, and it continues to be supported by later poets.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). Italian Renaissance

The great Renaissance writer (best known for his work "The Decameron") was an illegitimate child, so he was initially treated with contempt, but talent wontop, and the young poet received recognition. The death of Petrarch touched Boccaccio so much that he wrote a sonnet in his honor, in which he revealed the idea of the frailty of earthly life.

To Sennuccio, joined Chino, And to Dante you, and before you

Then what was hidden from us appeared visible."

Giovanni Boccaccio dedicated sonnets to Dante Alighieri and other geniuses, and most importantly - to women. He called his beloved by one name - Fiametta, but his love is not as ex alted as that of Petrarch, but more mundane. He slightly changes the genre of the sonnet and sings of the beauty of the face, hair, cheeks, lips, writes about his attraction to the beauty and describes the physiological needs. A harsh fate awaited the rogue and favorite of women: disillusioned with the nature of beautiful creatures and having suffered betrayal, Boccaccio took holy orders in 1362.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585). French Renaissance

Born into a family of we althy and noble parents, Pierre de Ronsard had every opportunity to get a good education. In 1542, he gave meager French poetry new meter and rhyme, for which he was deservedly called "the king of poets." Alas, he paid dearly for his success and lost his hearing, but the thirst for self-improvement did not leave him. He considered Horace and Virgil to be the foremost poets of antiquity. Pierre de Ronsard was guided by the work of his predecessors: he knew what a sonnet was, and described the beauty of women, his love for them. The poet had three muses: Cassandra, Marie and Elena. In one of the sonnetsdeclares his love for a certain dark-haired and brown-eyed girl and assures her that neither red-haired nor fair-eyed will ever evoke bright feelings in him:

"I burn my brown eyes with living fire, I don't want to see gray eyes…"

Translations of this author's sonnets were made by Russian writers of the twentieth century - Wilhelm Levik and Vladimir Nabokov.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616). English Renaissance

In addition to the magnificent comedies and tragedies listed in the treasury of world literature, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets of particular interest to modern literary critics. It was said about his works that "with this key he opened his heart." In some sonnets, the writer shared his emotional experiences, while in others he was restrained, dramatic. Shakespeare dedicated fourteen stanza poems to his friend and the Swarthy Lady. Each sonnet has a number, so it is not difficult to identify the gradation of the author's feelings: if in the first works the lyrical hero admires beauty, then after the 17th sonnet, pleas for reciprocity come. In poems numbered 27-28, this feeling is no longer joy, but an obsession.

Shakespeare's sonnets were written not only on love themes: sometimes the author acts as a philosopher who dreams of immortality and condemns vices. Nevertheless, a woman for him is a perfect being, and he asserts with confidence that beauty is destined to save the world. In the famous sonnet 130, Shakespeare admires the earthly beauty of his beloved: her eyes cannot be compared with the stars, her complexion is far fromshade of a delicate rose, but in the last couplet he assures:

"And yet she will succumb to those hardly, Who was slandered in the lush comparisons."

Italian, French and English sonnets: similarities and differences

The Renaissance gave mankind many masterpieces of literature. Beginning in Italy in the thirteenth century, a little later the era moved to France, and two centuries later to England. Each writer, being a native of a particular country, brought some changes to the form of the sonnet, but the most relevant topic remained unchanged - the glorification of the beauty of a woman and love for her.

In the classical Italian sonnet, quatrains were written in two rhymes, while tercetes were allowed to be written both in two and in three, and the alternation of male and female rhymes was optional. In other words, the stress in a stanza could fall on both the last and the penultimate syllable.

In France, a ban was introduced on the repetition of words and the use of inaccurate rhymes. Quatrains from tercetes were strictly separated from each other syntactically. Renaissance poets from France wrote sonnets in ten syllables.

An innovation has been introduced in England. The poets knew what a sonnet was, but instead of its usual form, consisting of two quatrains and two tercets, there were three quatrains and one couplet. The final stanzas were considered key and carried an expressive aphoristic maxim. The table shows normalized rhyme variants in different countries.

Italy	abab abab cdc dcd (cdecde)
France	abba abba ccd eed
England	abab cdcd efef g

Sonnet today

The fourteen-stanza original form of verse has successfully evolved into the work of contemporary writers. In the twentieth century, the most common was the French model. After Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak brilliantly translated Shakespeare's sonnets, the authors became interested in the English form. The latter is in demand even now. Despite the fact that all sonnets were translated by outstanding literary geniuses, interest in this genre remains relevant to this day: in 2009, Alexander Sharakshane released a collection with translations of all Shakespeare's sonnets.