Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses the Petrarchan sonnet to express her personal love, dedicated to her husband Robert, in the sonnet ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ Despite the use of Petrarchan technique in this sonnet, Browning contradicts Petrachan’s ideology of courtly love by actually writing ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ in tribute to a man whom she loves and is loved by in return-this being her husband Robert.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.”
The sonnet starts very powerfully by repeating the words ‘I love thee’ in the first two lines and by using the ‘rule of three’ with the words ‘depth and breadth and height’. The words ‘ends of Being and ideal Grace’ are used to mean ‘life and death’.
The first eight lines follow the required rhyme pattern for the Petrarchan sonnet, namely:
The first line ends in ‘ways’, the second in ‘height’, the third in ‘sight’, the forth in ‘grace’, which has to be said with a long ‘a’; thus completing the first half of the octave.
The second half follows the same pattern to make the full octave.
The octave poses the question of how deep is her love and is answered in this section by vague ideals, ‘....the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach’. The last two lines of the octave epitomise this idealistic view.
“I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses a capital letter to emphasise the strong words in the sonnet such as Being, Right and Praise.
The last six lines however, the sestet, express her true feelings and are far more effective at expressing the real depth of her love, ‘ with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life!’. Like the Petrarch sonnet these are now feelings that are tangible and we can all relate to.
The English or Shakespearean sonnet was introduced to England by Sir Thomas Wyaltt in the early 16th century having travelled from Europe. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) adapted the form, publishing 154 numbered sonnets in 1609. The themes employed are about love, time and change. Most were addressed to a young man (identity unknown) or to ‘the dark lady of the Sonnets’ perhaps Queen Elizabeth I or a Negro abbess. The English sonnet has the simplest and most flexible pattern of all sonnets. It consists of three quatrains of alternating rhyme followed by a rhyming couplet: a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g. Each quatrain develops a unique idea, but one closely related to the ideas in the other quatrains. The Shakespearian sonnet is the most simple in terms of its rhyme scheme as it requires only pairs of rhyming words, rather than groups of four.
The concluding two lines of the sonnet portray an example of a rhyming couplet; sometimes works like a ‘punch line’ or unexpected twist.
Throughout all of Shakespeare’s sonnets there is also a particular metre, this stresses each alternate syllable. This is called ‘Iambic Pentameter’.
The sonnet ‘My mistress’ eyes’ describes Shakespeare’s mistress. When you first read the quatrains of the poem your immediate impression is that he does not harbour any affection for her. He does not compare her to anything beautiful; in fact he does the exact opposite.
A lover would typically describe his mistress as having eyes that rival the sun, lips that are redder than coral and breasts as white as snow. Shakespeare however says:
“My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun”
In this way Shakespeare with his paradoxical similes; her eyes are nothing like the sun, coral is far more red than her lips red, is claiming to be speaking the truth, unlike other lovers who lie extravagantly.
The rhyming couplet however, abides by the specification since it twists the meaning of the poem:
‘And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.’
This explains that although his mistress is not perfect, and he couldn’t describe her as anything beautiful, he still loves her with all his heart!
Shakespeare with this poem could have been mocking other poets who unrealistically and with the use of hyperbole compare their love to some object of beauty.
Another Shakespearean sonnet ‘Shall I compare thee...?’ also displays how the ‘rhyming couplet’ ends the sonnet with a flourish.
The first line of the poem:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is a rhetorical question and a wise way of starting the sonnet because it makes the reader curious; as they want to answer the question posed by Shakespeare. The first line also has great riches of implication packed into it. ‘A summer’s day’ is itself full of meanings, both lovely and warming. It represents the season of flowers, growth and love, and also when the days are at their longest of all the seasons of the year. The answer to the question is given on the next line ‘Thou art more lovely and more temperate:’ As there is a colon at the end it indicates that the next six lines are going to expand on this statement.
Then Shakespeare pronounces that his love is superior to a summer’s day as it will last forever. In the first line of the third quatrain Shakespeare says:
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”
The phrase ‘eternal summer’ is in itself difficult to understand because summer is not eternal and the first time you read this line you think that it means that she will never die. The couplet then changes your mind completely, and you understand the use of this phrase.
“So long lives this, and gives life to thee.”
This line explains that although she won’t actually live forever the poem will always keep her memory alive.
Another Shakespeare sonnet is ‘Let Me Not’, which shows how Shakespeare believes in the strength of true love. In the first two lines
‘Let me not to the marriage of true mindes
Admit impediments, love is not love.’ He uses words from the marriage service to emphasise his claim that nothing must be done to get in the way of these honest people’s true love. ‘It is an ever fixed marke’ reveals that true love is fixed which is emphasised by ‘that lookes on tempest and is never shaken’ saying that it cannot be changed. Furthermore the next line ‘It is the star to ever wandring barke’ states that love can be depended upon and Shakespeare may also be suggesting in a metaphor that love is fixed, just like the stars in the skies or the pole star guiding sailors to safety. Shakespeare also personifies love and time relating it to us thus making it even more personal. Shakespeare’s evaluation is very powerful, saying that if this is not true then he is not a writer and man has never loved a woman.
‘If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.’
The rhyme in these last two lines helps to emphasize his conclusion. There is also a great deal of hyperbole in this poem which helps to persuade the reader to agree with the poet. The language of the poem also helps to convince you or tempt you to agree with him.
There is another type of sonnet called the Spenserian sonnet which was invented by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599). His most famous work is ‘The Faerie Queene’. This is a moral allegory, a straightforward story that also has a second meaning or hidden message, where the characters and events are symbols to make a point about moral standards. He developed the stanza pattern used in ‘The Faerie Queene’ (a b a b b c b c c) which is a major work to form the Spenserian sonnet, which has the following rhyme pattern: a b a b b c b c c d c d e e.
There are other sonnets however that do not fit into any of the above structures. The sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ has a unique rhyming pattern of a b a b a c d c e d e f e f. It was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 — 1822).
This sonnet is not about love or death but is a political message and is a moral poem. In the first line the poet speaks, introducing the traveller, who then tells the rest of the poem. The traveller describes a huge ruined sculpture of a king, Ozymandias that stands in the desert of “an antique land.” The parts of the monumental sculpture are scattered on the sands. The face is partly buried, but one can still see its proud and sneering expression. Ozymandias thought himself to be all mighty and powerful but now he has been reduced to rubble as ‘Nothing beside remains.’ There is alliteration in the poem such as ‘survive, stamp’d’ this helps the flow of the poem and is also used with two contrasting words. There are other examples of alliteration for example ‘boundless and bare’ and king of kings.’ When the monument was put up the king intended to bully his rivals with the evidence of his power. Now all traces of his power have crumbled to dust. Thus any powerful person can see from these ruins what happens when power is abused. Nothing will eventually be left of it except dust and fragments.
The last line is saying that he desires every person to be equal:
‘Level sands stretch far away,’ has the metaphorical meaning that he wants everyone to be on a level plain with no-one thinking they are superior to others. The poem is about the fall of leadership and is promoting the idea of revolution to make everyone equal.
The sonnet ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ was written in September, 1802 by Wordsworth (1770 - 1850). It describes the two different views, the ‘country scene’ and the ‘heart of the city’ which could be seen from Westminster Bridge in those days.
It has a rhyming scheme of a b b a a b b a c d c d c d.
This is the same as the Italian sonnet, and is still divided into an octave and a sestet. The change in rhyming scheme, like the Petrarchan sonnet, also has a change in subject where the subject moves from looking at the beauty of the morning sun which covers the city to the quietness and ‘spiritual’ beauty of the city, which he admires. Unlike the Petrarchan sonnet, however, this work does not present the problem in the octet and then ‘solve’ it in the sestet.
Christina Rossetti uses the sonnet ‘Remember’ to describe the prospect of death. This has the rhyme pattern abbaabbacddece, which is a variation on the Petrarchan sonnet. It again has the octet and the sestet and the change in theme from one to the other. In the octet she is insistent that they should remember her when she is ‘gone away’, which is a euphemism for death. The sestet however is more considered; where she says it would be far better if they forgot her for a while if afterwards, when they do remember, they are happy memories rather than sad.
A modern sonnet ‘I Shall Return’ by Claude McKay is a powerful poem with great emotional power. Claude McKay left his home in Jamaica in 1912 and became a key figure in the American Black working class movement for equality. The first line, ‘I shall return again. I shall return’, which is repeated in the penultimate line, uses repetition to emphasize his longing and determination to go back to his homeland. He uses colour throughout the sonnet; ‘golden noon, blue- black smoke to sapphire skies and blown blades.’ This appeals to the reader’s imagination and helps them to create the picturesque place as he remembers it in their own head. In several of the lines, for example, ‘That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses’, ‘laugh and love’ and ‘watch with wonder-eyes’ the poet uses alliteration to immerse the reader into the scene of gentle flowing water. In the second quatrain the verb ‘loiter’ in the first line creates an image of time slowing down. Repetition of the title opens the final quatrain as he appeals to our sense of hearing in describing Jamaican music as ‘the fiddle and fife.’
The final couplet is both the repetition of the first line using ‘again’ in a different position and the introduction of a new thought and feeling. Also the line ‘To ease my mind of long, long years of pain’ the word ‘long’ is again repeated to emphasize the time he has been away and the suffering he has experienced as a Black in a ‘White’ world. The tightness, compression and discipline of the sonnet form does not disguise but rather emphasises his love for Jamaica and his suffering since he left.
In conclusion therefore, the sonnet has developed from its traditional form albeit still retaining some of the aspects Petrarch may have once used centuries beforehand such as an octave/sestet structure. It was originally a formal love ‘song’ with high ideals and a rigid format. Shakespeare transformed it and made the sonnet more accessible and fun for the common man to enjoy. The sonnet has since evolved further and can be used in a wide variety of forms and for an even wider range of subject matter and can be easily read by audiences world-wide.
