The Art of the Sonnet"Few poetic forms have found more uses than the sonnet in English, and none is now more recognizable. It is one of the longest-lived of verse forms, and one of the briefest. A mere fourteen lines, fashioned by intricate rhymes, it is, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti called it, "a moment's monument." From the Renaissance to the present, the sonnet has given poets a superb vehicle for private contemplation, introspection, and the expression of passionate feelings and thoughts." "The Art of the Sonnet collects one hundred exemplary sonnets of the English language (and a few sonnets in translation), representing highlights in the history of the sonnet, accompanied by short commentaries on each of the poems. The commentaries by Stephen Burt and David Mikics offer new perspectives and insights, and, taken together, demonstrate the enduring as well as changing nature of the sonnet. The authors serve as guides to some of the most-celebrated sonnets in English as well as less-well-known gems by nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets. Also included is a general introductory essay, in which the authors examine the sonnet form and its long and fascinating history, from its origin in medieval Sicily to its English appropriation in the sixteenth century to sonnet writing today in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other English-speaking parts of the world." --Book Jacket. |
Contents
Dates indicate first book publication except where otherwise noted | 1 |
Whoso list to hunt | 9 |
Norfolk sprang thee | 30 |
Astrophel and Stella | 38 |
Delia | 48 |
Caelica 7 | 56 |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1609 | 64 |
Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 46 LADY MARY WROTH | 72 |
The New Colossus | 210 |
Thou art indeed just | 218 |
Nests in Elms | 227 |
Contents xi | 299 |
To a Winter Squirrel GWENDOLYN BROOKS 1965 | 310 |
Autumn Testament 27 JAMES K BAXTER | 318 |
JOHN DONNE | 320 |
Searching ROBERT LOWELL | 325 |
Oh to vex me contraries meet in one | 80 |
Prayer I GEORGE HERBERT | 87 |
X | 88 |
JOHN MILTON 1673 | 92 |
Sappho and Phaon 24 MARY ROBINSON | 100 |
Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore | 107 |
Surprised by Joy WILLIAM WORDSWORTH | 113 |
Four seasons fill the measure of the year JOHN KEATS 1818 | 121 |
England in 1819 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY | 130 |
Swordy Well | 138 |
Tomorrow HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW original | 147 |
The Columbine | 155 |
Sonnets from the Portuguese 28 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING | 162 |
Retreat | 170 |
A Dream Charles TENNYSON TURNER | 178 |
Renouncement | 186 |
For a Venetian Pastoral | 194 |
Contents | 202 |
National Trust | 333 |
An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England 7 | 341 |
The Cormorant in Its Element | 351 |
Jacob EDGAR BOWERS | 359 |
A K RAMANUJAN | 366 |
Necrophiliac | 373 |
in winter | 381 |
Radial Symmetry 3 TONY LOPEZ 2003 | 389 |
Homework Write a Sonnet About Love? | 397 |
Zion | 405 |
Psalm at High Tide MARTHA SERPAS | 414 |
| 427 | |
| 432 | |
| 443 | |
| 445 | |
| 446 | |
| 448 | |
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Common terms and phrases
American beauty becomes begins beloved birds Bluebeard called Christian Coleridge contrast couplet dead death depicted divine DONALD REVELL dream earth Elgin Marbles England English enjambment eyes feels final fish flowers Frost Geoffrey Hill GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS gives God's grief heart heaven Hopkins Hopkins's human imagination implies JOHN KEATS Keats Keats's landscape Lazarus Leda live Longfellow look lover Lykaion lyric means Milton mind move nature never night octave Ozymandias Paradise passionate pastoral Persephone Petrarch Petrarchan phrase poem poem's poet poet's poetic poetry quatrain readers remains Reprinted by permission rhyme Robinson Rossetti Sappho says scene second quatrain seems sense sequence sestet Shakespeare Shelley Shelley's sonnet Sonnet 68 soul sound speaks Stickney suggests Swan T. S. Eliot tells thee things thou tion tradition turn verse W. H. AUDEN winter words Wordsworth writes wrote Yeats Yvor Winters