Writing Italian & English Sonnets

 

In the battle of the bards concerning supersonic sonnets… let us consider the styles of Francesco Petrarch and William Shakespeare … progenitors of the Italian and English sonnets we use even today.

The intricacies of writing sonnet forms spans various variations that far exceeds the space of one blog. Here I expose the tale of the tape, if you will, in this contest of approaching Italian and English sonnets

The word sonnet comes from the Italian word sonetto, meaning “little song.”, and dates back to Italian courts of the thirteenth century, as well as the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. Italian sonnets became popular by the works of Francesco Petrarch (the above man on the left). Though he did not create the form, such popular poets as William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Browning, and Sir Thomas Wyatt came to use  it to splendid effect. 

The English sonnet of course was blown out of the water when set to pen by William Shakespeare  (the handsome fellow on the above right) at the end of the Elizabethan era in the late 1500s. English sonnets are most likely the simplest and most used of them all.

The most notable difference between Italian (Petrarchan) and English (Shakespearean) is the rhyme layout. 

The Italian sonnet is divided into two stanzas with a rhyme scheme of an octave (eight line stanza) of ABBAABBA and a sestet (six line stanza) of CDCDCD- or sometimes even CDECDE.

The English sonnet is divided into four stanzas with the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG… three quatrains (four line stanza) and a couplet two line stanza) Some alternative rhyme schemes you may like to give a shot could be ABAA CDDC EFFE GG or even ABBA ABBA CDCD CD. Changing up rhyme schemes with English sonnets makes for a fresh challenge, and can often turn up fantastic results you may not have come up with otherwise!

Both English and Italian sonnets are similar in that they are fourteen lines long, employ end rhymes, and are in iambic pentameter (unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable).

The English sonnet generally has ten syllables, though both sonnets generally allow for eleven as the poet feels it. French allow up to twelve! Why not…? C’est La vie.

Sonnets also contain a bit of a poetic touch known as a volta (or “turn” in Italian). The volta is essential to the poem, because it reverses or complicates the narrative of the first half of the poem. The meaning starts after the ninth line of an Italian style, and just before the end two lines (couplet) in English. See if you can identify them in the following works…

Here is an example of an Italian Sonnet by originator Petrarch himself!

O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!
’Mid which my pensive queen her footstep sets;
O plain, that hold’st her words for amulets
And keep’st her footsteps in thy leafy bowers!
O trees, with earliest green of springtime hours,
And all spring’s pale and tender violets!
O grove, so dark the proud sun only lets
His blithe rays gild the outskirts of thy towers!

O pleasant country-side! O limpid stream,
That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,
And of their living light canst catch the beam!
I envy thee her presence pure and dear.
There is no rock so senseless but I deem
It burns with passion that to mine is near.

                                       —

Here is an example of an English sonnet by the immortal bard William Shakespeare. Notice the similarities and differences.

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;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

  And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
  As any she belied with false compare.

These two sonnet forms are easy to begin with as far as jumping into the sonnet form pool. There are a number of others, with various line and rhyme patterns. However, these two are the best ones to start on, equally potent and just as relevant as the other with the proper application.

Matt Elmore