The Sonnet • from Italian word sonetto, a little poem or a little song

• invented during the Renaissance (early 13th century) in Italy by Giacomo da Lentini

• popularized by the Italian sonneteer Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in his Rime sparse (scattered rhymes), a sequence of 316 sonnets about his love for Laura

• imported to England by Thomas Wyatt in the 16th century

• since then the sonnet form evolved in both form (rhyme scheme) and contents, originally about love, the sonnets became the platform on which poets can write about God, nature, war, politics, etc.

• became one of the most enduring form of poetry, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Victorian poet, called it “the moment’s monument” Italian or Petrarchan sonnet

Rhyme scheme:

abba abba cde cde

or sestet

abba abba cd cd cd

octave • the first eight lines are called octave, in which the main idea or argument of the sonnet is set up

• the eighth line of the sonnet may include the change of idea or the turn of thought, called the turn

• the last six lines are call sestet; the sestet can either be an elaboration on or a conclusion of the main idea in the octave, or it can present a counterargument to the idea set up in the octave a b b a a b b a a b a b a b a b a b b a a b b a c d c d b c b c c d e c d d c e f e f c d c d c d e e e g g e e

Petrarchan Wyatt’s sonnet Shakespearean Spenserian sonnet sonnet sonnet a b b a a b b a a b a b a b a b quatrain octave a b b a a b b a c d c d b c b c quatrain c d e c d d c e f e f c d c d quatrain sestet c d e e e g g e e couplet

Petrarchan Wyatt’s sonnet Shakespearean Spenserian sonnet sonnet sonnet Courtly love

• Love poems about the longing which the speaker has for the superior lady, fair and chaste (blonde hair, lips like coral, cheeks like roses, eyes like stars etc.)

• The beloved lady is often called the mistress (the word meant the lady who is in charge of the household or the lady of high status, but it didn’t have the modern meaning of kept wife or a woman who has a sexual relationship with the married man)

• The speaker is often an abject or forlorn lover (sad, gloomy, unhappy)

• Unrequited (one-sided), unconsummated (no sex involved), and ultimately unattainable love

• Idolatry, women worship (the more impossible the love is, the more loyal is the speaker to the lady)

• Obedient love, constancy of the lover

• Pleasure-in-pain

• Neo-Platonism (love of physical beauty leads to spiritual love, and ultimately leads to God) • Sometimes the mistress is disdainful (is contemptuous of the speaker)

• She also has many admirers

• She is a teaser who likes to build up hopes of many men

• The speaker sometimes suspects that she is promiscuous

• Still, because of her good qualities, the lover continues to long for her

• The devoted lover suffers from her real or imagined inconstancy • Petrarchan conceits (an elaborate or extended metaphor) are usually limited to the life and experience of a courtly circle

• Classical Mythology

• Pastoral traditions (roses, garden, seasons, etc.)

• Ships and sea voyage

• War

• Hunting

• Vague dramatic situations; usually the lover is complaining alone to himself of his unrequited love

• Regular meter, traditional forms typical abject or forlorn lover Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder

• b. 1503, d. 1542

• graduated from Cambridge and became the diplomat in Henry VIII’s court

• became romantically involved with Anne Boleyn, in whom Henry VIII also became interested in

• by 1533, Anne became Henry’s second wife (legally enforced by the Act of Supremacy), but by 1536, Henry lost interests in Anne and had her executed

• Wyatt himself was almost executed (many of Anne’s former lovers were executed alongside her); he was imprisoned but was later released

• Wyatt’s poetry deals with the theme of instability of or in human life: both in love (women are always untrue or inconstant), and of life at the court (human fortune are dependent on the capriciousness of king, lords, or God) Whoso List to Hunt

• Rhyme scheme: abba abba cddc ee (divided into octave and sestet)

• The octave presents the speaker’s desire and frustration for the deer after which he hunts (and for the woman whom he loves).

• The turn occurs in line 7-8: “I leave of therefore, / Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.” After many frustration and disappointment, the speaker has resolved his mind and abandoned the hunt.

• The sestet concludes the main idea (the pointlessness of the hunt) and gives a lesson to both the speaker himself and other men: she has many admirers; moreover, she already belongs to someone else (line 13); and, lastly, even if the speaker can win her heart, she will sooner or later leave him (line 14). • line 5 & 8 and line 13 & 14 contain eye rhymes; the ending syllables do not rhyme correctly when read or recited (“mind”-“wind” & “am”-“tame”), but they appear to rhyme on the page, to the eyes.

• the word “deer” in line 6 is a homophone of or a pun on the word “dear”—a beloved person • conceit: the game of love ~ the game of hunting

• speaker, lover ~ hunter

• mistress ~ hind (female deer)

• other men who also admire the lady ~ other hunters

• the mistress’ lord or husband ~ the deer’s owner or Caesar They Flee from Me

• “They” (line 1) / deer - pun or homophone

• “naked foot” (line 2), “bread” (line 6), “thin array” (line 10), “loose gown” (line 11) - food and clothes imagery (like in the Prioress’s Prologue) has connotation of sexual appetite

• “guise” (line 10) means social customs or manners, but can also mean “pretense”

• “dear heart” (line 14) is a pun on “deer” (hind or female deer) and “hart” (male deer) • The last two line (“But since that I so kindely am served, / I fain would know what she hath deserved.”) introduces the turn or the whiplash (the sudden change of idea or the reversal of supposed roles) to the poem. It could mean either:

• a) Naturally (“kindely” in the first sense of meaning), she has left me (since she’s too good for me), but I still wonder what has become of her (who her new lover is). (The speaker wishes her well and expects her to find some new lover as good as herself. She deserves someone better than the speaker.) or

• b) Since she had treated me very kindly (verbal irony), I really would like to know who her new lover is (he must be someone who is better or kinder [verbal irony] than me). (The speaker longs for some kind of justice or for the punishment to befall her. He hopes her new lover will treat her badly or cruelly and abandon her, just like she did to him.)— in this sense of meaning, these last two lines are considered a whiplash because the speaker no longer conforms to the role of obedient lover, but now plays the upper-hand lover who wants revenge.