Consider the sonnet as a verse form. With examples, compare Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets and show developments in the form to the twentieth century.

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Helen Thompson

Consider the sonnet as a verse form. With examples, compare Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets and show developments in the form to the twentieth century.

The sonnet originated in Italy and was first written by a man called Giacomo da Lentino. This form soon started to become popular, because it allowed the poet to express a large amount of thoughts or ideas in only fourteen lines. It was then developed by many poets to suit their own needs. It was especially popular with Cavalcanti, Dante and Petrarch. Francesco Petrarch was probably one of the most famous of the Italian sonnet writers and so the Italian form is also known as the Petrarchan form. This type of poem eventually spread to England, brought over by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of surrey.  The Petrarchan form is very rigid and is not open to variation in rhyme scheme or sequence (with an octave and then a sestet and a Volta in the middle). It is also very set with subject matter – love, time and change. The sonnet form has changed a great deal since the time of the first Petrarchan sonnets. In this essay I have discussed the changes that have been made to the sonnet form, by whom and for what reason.

The Petrarchan form of the sonnet was one of the earliest forms. This type is very rigid in format. It starts with the first eight lines, the octave, which states the problem or question. It then has a Volta in which the sonnet changes direction, or attitude. Then the sestet (the last six lines) follows by answering the question or solves the problem. Sir Thomas Wyatt’s sonnet ‘Who list to hunt’ is a famous example of the Petrarchan form in England. This sonnet was written about the queen and in the octave he talks about how he hunts for her but in ‘vain travail’ since it is like trying to ‘catch the wind in a net’. Then in the ninth line his tone of voice changes, as he is no longer thinking about catching queen, Anne Boleyn, he is giving advice to those who also try to hunt for her. He says that it is useless as she has ‘noli me tangere’ about her neck (meaning do not touch me) because she belongs to ‘Caesar’ (who is the king at that time – Henry VIII). This form has already changed from the original form, though, as it ends with a rhyming couplet and if it were exactly a Petrarchan the end rhyme scheme would be something like CCDCCD rather than CDDCEE. It does continue to use iambic pentameter as the true Petrarchan form does, which some later forms of sonnet do not. This shows that although Wyatt had changed the sonnet form so that it fits better for the English language, he still has based it very closely to the Petrarchan.  

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Wyatt also uses alliteration in his sonnets a large amount, this could be because it seems to make you focus on the second one more. For example ‘pease’ and ‘painful’, in his sonnet ‘Divers doth use’, you tend to notice the word painful more than you would normally.

Henry Howard wrote in a very similar form to Sir Thomas Wyatt. The main difference seems to be that Henry Howard tended to use more words to rhyme at the end than Wyatt ever did (as in if the rhyming words are lettered Howard normally went up to F, ...

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