Textuality » 3A Interacting
STRUCTURE OF THE SONET
FORM OF POETRY
OCTAVE (2 quatrains) :it poses the problem
SESTET (2 tercets) :it provides possible solutions
The sonnet is a written form of poetry and it is a lyrical poetry in fact the speaking voice speaks in first person.
Sonnets became fashionable (di moda) because they probably expressed feelings that were rather widespread.
PROBLEMS
Values had changed in time and the individual felt the contrast between body and soul as urgent. In the Renaissance the importance of the totally of the whole (completezza) of the human being.You can see it in the triumph of the sculpture because it celebrated the human body.Human nature presents conflicts when it cannot reach its goal (finalità).
What is the problem that afflicts Mr. Petrarch ?
Mr. Petrarch is unable to find a balance between his religious requests and the instinct and feelings moved by his love for Laura. Therefore he voices his inner doubts in his sonnets.
This is the initial structure from which the English sonnet starts its process of structural innovation.
Petrarch's structure of the sonnet could not longer fit to:
- The structure of the English language
- The modes of the people of the period
Petrarch's model gradually underwent significant modifications and innovations. They modelled their sonnets following the Italian structure of Petrarch.
THE ENGLISH SONNET
The first who introduced the sonnet in England was Sir Thomas Wyatt.
He kept the octave + sestet model and mainly translated Petrarch sonnet into English.
It was only with the contributions of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey that the English sonnet reached its final definite structure.
Surrey's model consisted of:
3 quatrains and a final couplet
What is the different function?
Now the poet presents in the different quatrains 3 different aspects of the same problem.
The final couplet on its own provides a solution. It goes with outside the sonnets were addressed a lady who did not reciprocate the poets love and there the problem come to surface.
The conventions of lyrical love were exactly the same of Petrarch's courtly love.
The lady was spiritually higher, pure, less by God with fair hair and blue eyes and she woke as if she were an angel and the poet always felt inferior.