LESSON NOTES

THE SONNET

The sonnet is a lyrical form of poetry. The most influential poets are Petrarch and Dante. Petrarch's sonnet model consists of an octave and a sestet, the model was gradually transformed when it entered the British scene  to adapt to the English language and British rhythm.

The progressive transformation was due to:

1)Sir Thomas Wyatt, who mainly translated Italian sonnets from Italian into English (see handout);

2)Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who first reorganized the structure of Petrarch's model into the typical structure of the Elizabethan sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet. Surrey's contribution to the sonnet is both thematical and structure. In a few words he tailored the sonnet to the needs of the English language.

But the most creative and innovative sonneteer was William Shakespeare. He was able to reshape the typical convention of the sonnet (courtly love poetry) to create something new.

DENOTATIVE ANALYSIS

The sonnet belongs to a collection and it consists of 14 lines (it is organized/arranged into 14 lines).

In Petrarch's sonnet the reader can recognized the typical structure of the Italian sonnet. The first octave has the function to introduce the problem creating a comparison between the speaker's life and a ship travelling in tormented seas at midnight. The skipper is worried by private thoughts that are so sad that he seems not to care even  of the terrible weather condition. He sighs, he has desires and hopes.

There follows the sestet where his pessimistic, sad mood are repeated: he weeps, he regrets life as well as the condition of the weather puts his voyage at risk. In the ending tercet the speaker hides his feelings in the same way as he cannot see the stars. He seems unable to use reason and even worse  to be able to reach the harbour.

It goes without saying that there is an apparent analogy between the poet's life and the voyage progress. Unfortunately, such life does not sound easy but rather unveils difficulties, problems, torments that all together seem to make the poet unable to come to an autonomous solution of his pains.