INTRODUCTION TO THE

SONNET
 Who introduced the sonnet in
England?
• In the 16th century Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey introduced and adapted
the Italian Petrachan sonnet to English. There
were no fixed metrical rules yet for the sonnet
during this period (the reign of Henry VIII).
• Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spencer and William
Shakespeare perfected the sonnet during the
Elizabethan period. It became the best vehicle to
express courtly love in the Petrachan fashiion.
 What was courtly love?
• The courtly tradition concerns the
relationship between the great lady and
her courtier “servant”.
• Love is treated in many ways: as sickness,
servitude, worship and war.
• The lover is in agony, the lady disdainful,
her beauty idealised by comparisons with
nature.
 Wyatt’s love imagery.
• The conventions of courtly love deriving
from 12th century Provençal poetry are the
usual basis of Wyatt’s imagery.

• This courtly love tradition reached Wyatt

through two main sources, Geoffrey
Chaucer and Francesco Petrach, the
Italian model developing the aspect of
spiritual love more fully.
 Wyatt’s sonnets

• There was no equivalent in English of the

sonnet form. Wyatt discovered and
invented it.
 The Italian/Petrachan Sonnet
• It contained 2 quatrains (octave) and 2
tercets (sestet).
• =14 lines/verses of iambic pentameter
• 4 or 5 different rhymes: abab abab cde
cde or abba abba ccd ccd
• It was the perfect poem to express love in
the Petrachan fashion.
 The English Sonnet

• 3 quatrains and 1 couplet (12+2).

• The topic is developed in the three
quatrains and the couplet offers a
conclusion to the poem.
• 7 different rhymes: abab cdcd efef gg.
 The Age of Henry VIII
• Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard (Earl
of Surrey) adapt the Italian sonnet to
English. Their sonnets are published
posthumously in Tottel’s Miscellany (1557),
a collection of poems which had a
powerful influence on the poetry of the
time.
 Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
• He translated Petrarch’s sonnets into
English. His sonnets are still primitive and
rough English sonnets with poor accent
and rhythm patterns. This was normal
because there were still no set metrical
rules and the sonnet was in the process of
being invented in England.
 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

• He established a more improved and

definitive English form of the sonnet.
 The age of Elizabeth I
• Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spencer and
William Shakespeare improve the quality
of the English sonnet. They developed
cycles or sonnet sequences (sonnets were
sometimes chained as in Shakepeare’s
“sugared” sonnets and Spencer’s
Amoretti). With time, sonnet sequences
were used to make more sophisticated
“crowns”, such as John Milton’s Crown.
 SONETO DE REPENTE
[2 quatrains] (LOPE DE VEGA)
Un soneto me manda hacer Violante
que en mi vida me he visto en tal aprieto;
catorce versos dicen que es soneto: burla
burlando van los tres delante.

Yo pensé que no hallara consonante y

estoy a la mitad de otro cuarteto, mas si
me veo en el primer terceto,
no hay cosa en los cuartetos que me espante.
 SONETO DE REPENTE
[2 tercets] (LOPE DE VEGA)
Por el primer terceto voy entrando,
y parece que entré con pie derecho,
pues fin con este verso le estoy dando.

Ya estoy en el segundo, y aún sospecho

que voy los trece versos acabando;
contad si son catorce; y está hecho.
 Wyatt’s Sonnet (1)
• Petrarch used an endecasyllabic line
whereas Wyatt devised a normally
decasyllabic line.
• Iambic pentameter (five metrical feet with
one unstressed and then one stressed
syllable) became the prescribed form for
the sonnet later. Remember that there
were not yet metrical rules for the English
sonnet when Wyatt invented it. His meter
is rougher and he experimented with form.
 Wyatt’s Sonnet (2)
• Wyatt introduced a concluding couplet
which he employs with great flexibility and
variety of effect.
• Used courtly conventions to focus
attention more on the sufferer’s state of
mind than on the love situation.
• Introduced “conceits” (sustained
metaphors) in the English
sonnet.
• His verse contains passion.
 The long love that in my thought
doth harbour

• The long love that in my thought doth harbor,

• And in my heart doth keep his residence,
• Into my face presseth with bold pretense
• And therein campeth, spreading his banner.

• She that me learns to love and suffer

• And wills that my trust and lust’s negligence
• Be reigned by reason, shame and reverence
• With his hardiness taketh displeasure.
•
 The long love that in my thought
doth harbour (second part)
• Wherewithal unto the heart’s forest he fleeth,
• Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,
• And there him hideth, and not appeareth.
•
• What may I do, when my master feareth,
• But in the field with him to live and die?
• For good is the life ending faithfully.
 Questions
• 1. What is the basic conceit, or extended
metaphor, of this poem?
• 2. Now examine the conceit more closely;
is it more than just a one-dimensional
emblem for a physiological reaction?
Follow the conceit through to line 11—
what does it reveal about the speaker’s
state of mind?
 Questions (cont.)
• 3. Put the speaker, the “I”, of the poem
into some relation with the “warrior” of the
conceit. What does this relationship reveal
about the speaker? Lines 12-14 are
important here.
• 4. What sense do you get of the female in
this poem? What sort of character would
you say she has?
Translation of the same sonnet by
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Also a translation from Petrarch’s Sonnetto

in Vita 91.
 Love That Doth Reign and Live
Within My Thought

Love, that doth reign and live within my

thought,
And built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
 Love That Doth Reign and Live
Within My Thought
(cont.)

But she that taught me love and suffer pain,

My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire
With shamefast look to shadow and refrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
 Love That Doth Reign and Live
Within My Thought
(cont.)

And coward, Love, then, to the heart apace,

Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and
plain,
His purpose lost, and dare not show his
face.
 Love That Doth Reign and Live
Within My Thought (cont.)

For my lord’s guilt thus faultless bide I pain,

Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.