Revision of the sonnet

ANALISI DENOTATIVA

Petrarch’s sonnet model consisted of an octave and a sestet, the model was gradually transformed when it entered the British scene to adapt to the English language and the rider. The progressive transformation due to:

·        Sir Thomas Wyatt who mainly translated Italian sonnets from Italian into English.

·        Henry Howard, Earl of Sunrey who forced reorganized the structure of Petrarch’s model into the typical structure of the Elisabethian sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet. Sunrey’s contribution to the sonnet to the needs of the English language,

 but the most creative and innovative sonneteers was William Shakespeare. He was able to reshake the typical conventions of the sonnet (courtly love poetry) to create something new. The sonnet “passa la nave mia colma d’oblio”  consists of 14 lines, in Petrarch’s sonnet the reader can recognize the typical structure of the Italian sonnet. The octave introduce the sonnet created 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 it seems not to care even of the terrible weather conditions. He sighs he has desires and hopes.

There follow the sestet where his pessimistic, sad mod are repeated: he weeps, he regrets his life as well as the conditions 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 poets life and the voyage progress. Unfortunately, such life doesn’t sounds easy by rather unveils difficulties torments that all together seem to make the poets unable to came autonomous solution of his pains.

Questions:

·        How is the analogy between life and voyage expressed?

The life of the poet is in analogy with a voyage because it’s full of difficulties and it’s expressed by the use of words such as: vela, nebbia, sarte; near:  sospiri, speranze, desio, lagrimar, sdegni, ignoranzia

·        What’s the role played by weather conditions?

They inspire tormented feelings and lots of worries and fears that the poet feels because they’re similar to them.

·        How does the intelligent reader understand that the voyage is only a pretext to talk about other things?

He understands that seeing the frequent repetition of using word referred to the ship voyage near to emotional words.