Forms and Formats--
Sonnet and Villanelle
Now we start reading poems and using the Wiki as a discussion board. Each time you comment on a poem, you also respond to at least one other student’s posting. Every semester the students tell me that seeing everyone else’s comments is a great help--it will be this time as well if you work on thinking and creating thoughtful comments. Now let me be clear--looking information up on the web is fine simply cite the information. One of your best sources will be EBSCOhost which you can use with your NKU password.
Each time that we cover a poem, I will post my comments AFTER the due date.
Poems are often done in fixed forms. The form helps to tell the writer and the reader what to expect, and how read the poem. We will take a look at several fixed forms and then we will look at the “open forms.”Material for this section comes from http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sonnet.html, http://www.uni.edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoetry/sonnet.html, and Kennedy, X. J. and Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (7th). New York: Longman 1999.
Sonnet defined:
A sonnet is defined as a lyric (reference to moods and feelings) poem of fourteen lines. The sonnet will follow one or another of several set rhyme schemes. Originally, the sonnet was an invention (modification of an earlier poetry form) done by Petrarch. Petrarch used the sonnet to write of his love for the unattainable Laura. Thus, the sonnet came to life as a vehicle to convey love messages and passions. When the English picked up the sonnet the idea of it being a valentine lived on, but over time the subject of sonnets has greatly expanded.
One of the key distinguishing features of a sonnet is its raise and resolve an issue format. See the comparison table below.
History of the movement of the sonnet:
Thomas Wyatt, who translated Petrarchian sonnets, introduced the form into England. He also wrote over thirty examples of his own in English. Surrey, an associate, shares with Wyatt the credit for introducing the form to England and is important as an early modifier of the Italian form. Gradually the Italian sonnet pattern was changed and since Shakespeare attained fame for the greatest poems of this modified type, his name has often been given to the English form. When Petrarch began writing sonnets, he developed them as love poems. It took many years, a movement of the format to other countries, and a variety of poets but the theme of a sonnet is not just ‘unrequited love’ anymore. I have put three sonnets in a table at the end of this page. Two are about forms of love, and one is a political statement.
Some of the advantages of sonnets are:
The rhyme patterns occurring regularly within the short space of fourteen lines can create truly musical effects. The rigidity of the form forces an exactness and perfection of expression. The brevity of the form favors concentrated expression of idea or passion, and protects the reader from a long tedious expression of the poet’s feelings.
Outstanding sonnet writers:
Among the most famous sonneteers in England have been Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and D. G. Rossetti. Longfellow, Jones Very, G. H. Boker, and E. A. Robinson are generally credited with writing some of the best sonnets in America.
With the interest in this poetic form, certain poets following the example of Petrarch have written a series of sonnets linked one to the other and dealing with some unified subject. Such series are called sonnet sequences. Some of the most famous sonnet sequences in English literature are those by Shakespeare, Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, Spenser's Amoretti, Rossetti's House of Life, and Elizabeth Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. William Ellery Leonard, Elinor Wylie, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and W. H. Auden have done distinguished work in the sonnet and the sonnet sequence in this century.
Villanelle
Information for this page comes from several sources including: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/reports2000/page8.html, http://members.optusnet.com.au/kazoom/poetry/villanelle.html,
Let’s begin with the term Villanella. Villanellas were old Italian folk songs written to accompany a dance. The songs were, like all songs written to accompany music, repetitive in form and containing few major ideas. But the song has to be varied enough to create interest in the dancer, singer, or poetry reader.
By the mid 1500’s, the French had begun writing poetry to imitate the old dance music form. This French poetry form has no set number of syllables per line; common choices seem to be between eight and eleven. Sometimes English poets will write villanelles in iambic pentameter but the number of syllables per line is not a requirement of the form.
The villanelle carries a pattern of only two rhymes, and is marked most distinctively by its alternating refrain, which appears initially in the first and third lines of the opening tercet. In all, it comprises five tercets and a concluding quatrain.
| Line1-a-1 |
Does it still look like a complicated pattern? Look at the famous villanelle below and see how the pattern becomes an effective method of interlinking and reinforcing the two major ideas the author wants the reader to take away from the poem. Thomas gives us four examples and one emotional appeal to reinforce his ideas.
| Do not go gentle into that good night |
| Dylan Thomas |
| Do not go gentle into that good night, |
| Old age should burn and rave at close of day; |
| Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
| Though wise men at their end know dark is right, |
| Because their words had forked no lightning they |
| Do not go gentle into that good night. |
| Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright |
| Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, |
| Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
| Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, |
| And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, |
| Do not go gentle into that good night. |
| Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight |
| Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, |
| Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
| And you, my father, there on the sad height, |
| Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. |
| Do not go gentle into that good night. |
| Rage, rage against the dying of the light |
Note what are the two key ideas Thomas uses as the support of this villanelle? What are his examples and emotional appeal?
| One Art |
Elizabeth Bishop has taken a few minor liberties with the form but she has produced a very recognizable villanelle.
Assignment: Read “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” page 779 “First Poem For You” Addonizio (above)
Read The two villanelles above. Thomas (also on page 784) and Bishop
Use the discussion board (Sonnet/Villanelle Page) to discuss (a) the strengths and weaknesses of each format, (b) the meaning you perceive from each poem, (c) shift in tone and subject in each sonnet, and (d) decide which subject matter works better for the villanelle form and if bending the form a bit destroys it.
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