Textuality » 4A Interacting
The Renaissance
The Renaissance is a period of time in Europe between 14th and 17th centuries, when art, literature, philosophy and scientific ideas became important and a lot of new art was produced. The meaning of the word "renaissance" is that something is born again. The most important code of the renaissance was the central position of the Human being. Another important features was the consolidation of the Tudor dynasty with Elizabeth I and England became protestant too.
The sonnet
The sonnet is a lyrical form of poetry which aim is to tell a story and to foster reflections. It's about private feelings and emotions. The sonnet originated in Italy in XIV. The best known Italian sonneteers were Dante and Petrarch but just the second proved essential to the birth of the English sonnet. This kind of lyrical form, as the Renaissance, entered England one century later than in the Continent. Thomas Wyatt, an English sonneteer, tried to translate the Italian verses into English but with no success. As a matter of fact there was the problem of rhythm. In Italian language rhythm depends on the number of syllables in the words, on the other hand rhythm in English language depends on the alternation of stress and unstressed syllables. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey created a new structure of the sonnet later called "Elizabethan sonnet" or "Shakespearean sonnet". In this case the text is arranged into three quatrains in which it is posed the problem in three different aspects and a final rhyming couplet in which the poet tries to solve it. This kind of structure is different from the Petrarch one that was organized into a octave and a sestet. In the first part the poet wrote the problem and in the second he wanted to solve it. Both sonnets have 14 lines.
Sonnet XVIII
"Shall I Compare"
We talked about an English sonnet: "Shall I compare". The title refers to the first line of the sonnet. It was written by Shakespeare. It is composed of three quatrains and a couplet. The author compares a man with a season, summer. He talks about "the fair youth": the protagonist of the sonnet turns out to be better in any sense. Shakespeare wrote the young man of the description should not be compared to a summer day: summer is too hot, short and dangerous. It is dangerous because wind during summer shakes roses and flowers, and they fall. Moreover, sometimes the youth is dimmed by the sun and it hides his beauty. The author describes the young man ‘eternal', he has got beauty.