Textuality » 4A Interacting
During the Renaissance, a favourite form in courtly poetry was the sonnet (the term "sonnet" comes from the Occitan word "sonet" and the Italian word "sonetto", they both mean "little song") The sonnet originated in Italy with Petrarch in the 14th century and spread to Europe over the next two centuries.
Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced it into England with his translations of several sonnets from Petrarch. While the Petrarchan model consisted of fourteen lines organized into two quatrains and two tercets, Wyatt divided the final six lines into a new arrangement consisting of a quatrain and a couplet and created the structure of the English sonnet.
The standard theme of the English sonnets was that of “courtly” love: poests expressed their passion for an unattainable Lady.
Shakespeare refused to write conventionally about love and unlike traditional sonneteers, he addressed a young man (probably his patron and social superior) and a woman called “the dark lady”.
The man was beautiful while the lady wasn’t; the poet spoke of her physical appearance in a clear uncourtly and un
romantic manner.