A sonnet is actually an old form of poetry. What distinguishes a sonnet from other poems is that firstly, there are always fourteen lines, broken into eight and six. Shakespearean sonnets will be broken into twelve lines of three sets of quatrains, then two ending lines, as evidenced by modern poet Wendy Cope. The subject matter is almost always about love. In a way, a sonnet is a specialised type of poetry.
I came across this sonnet of all sonnets which puts it across so aptly why sonnets should be appreciated more than other types of poetry. William Wordsworth was a literary genius indeed!
"Scorn Not The Sonnet" - William Wordsworth
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours: with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains - alas, too few!
How in the world did he manage to squeeze in Petrarch (the "godfather of all sonnets"), Shakespeare, Torquato Tasso (Italian Renaissance poet), Luis de Cameons (Portugal's national poet during the sixteenth century), Dante Alighieri (of "The Divine Comedy"), Edmund Spenser (of "The Faerie Queene") and John Milton (of "Paradise Lost") all into one form? That is what really awes me!
I came across this sonnet of all sonnets which puts it across so aptly why sonnets should be appreciated more than other types of poetry. William Wordsworth was a literary genius indeed!
"Scorn Not The Sonnet" - William Wordsworth
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours: with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains - alas, too few!
How in the world did he manage to squeeze in Petrarch (the "godfather of all sonnets"), Shakespeare, Torquato Tasso (Italian Renaissance poet), Luis de Cameons (Portugal's national poet during the sixteenth century), Dante Alighieri (of "The Divine Comedy"), Edmund Spenser (of "The Faerie Queene") and John Milton (of "Paradise Lost") all into one form? That is what really awes me!
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