One needs to be wary of the tendency to look at the Elizabethan sonnet as a monolithic genre. There are significant differences in the treatment of the form by Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and, of course, William Shakespeare. What links them is not merely their (relative) proximity in time but the fact that all of them, in their way, were self-consciously creating a new phase of English poetry based largely on Italian models.
In his Defence of Poesie Sidney acknowledges that the English lag behind the Romance-language countries in the creation of a significant national literature. But he sees no reason this has to be so, claiming that the English language itself has qualities that make it ideal for literary expression, and that it's perhaps (due to the clarity and simplicity of its grammatical rules) superior to other European languages. Both Sidney, especially in his cycle of sonnets
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to other European languages. Both Sidney, especially in his cycle of sonnetsAstrophil and Stella, and Spenser, in his Amoretti, follow the tradition of the Italian sonnet in depicting an idealized love-object. The rarefied and courtly language in Spenser sometimes includes deliberately archaic turns of phrase and (as in The FairieQueene) a harkening back to the previous ages, in which the courtly tradition, already passing away, had originated. Shakespeare's approach a number of years later is rather different. Though the tone of Shakespeare's sonnets is so multifaceted it's impossible to generalize, we can still say that his approach is more "realistic" than that of Spenser or Sidney. The language is down-to-earth and even cynical at times, as in, for example "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." In some ways we might even view Shakespeare, at least in his sonnets, as a transitional figure between the earlier Elizabethans and John Donne. (Donne's Holy Sonnets were probably written no earlier than 1609 and are therefore from the Jacobean period.)
Among the Elizabethans the technical aspects of the sonnets include a variety of rhyme schemes, sometimes close to or actually adhering to the Petrarchan pattern but more often diverging from it. In Astrophil and Stella Sidney generally uses the pattern abab abab ccedde. On the other hand Shakespeare's typical pattern is abab cdcd efef gg. In Amoretti Spenser's rhyming pattern is abab bcbc cdcd ee. Shakespeare's is in some sense the "easiest" because it requires the fewest repetitions of the same rhyme. It has often been observed that English, in spite of having a larger vocabulary than other languages, "lacks rhymes." If this is indeed true, it would explain the different patterns of rhyming established by the Elizabethan poets in comparison with their Italian models.
The term "Elizabethan" refers to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII, who ruled England from November 17, 1558, until she died on March 24, 1603. This is considered one of the great periods of English literature and is close to the beginning of the period in which "modern" (as opposed to old or middle) English literature developed. It therefore is part of what is called the "early modern" period (1500–1800). This period is also known, on the Continent as well as in England, as the "Renaissance," a term referring to the rebirth of learning and classical culture after the "dark" period of the Middle Ages. Another term applied to the period is "Reformation," referring to the rise of Protestantism. Queen Elizabeth followed the ecclesiastical "reforms" (i.e., the creation of the Protestant Church of England) of her father, Henry VIII.
The poetry of the period is characterized by use of early modern English rather than middle English or Latin. It follows the earlier innovation of Chaucer and his contemporaries in relying on primarily accentual syllabic meter, with iambic pentameter remaining a dominant form. Among the most important practitioners of the sonnet in this period were Spenser, Shakespeare, and Sidney.
The sonnet form was originally Italian and popularized by the poet Plutarch. The Italian sonnet form consists of an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines) and is used by many English poets of the period. The distinctively English form, sometimes known as the Shakespearean sonnet after the poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616), also consists of fourteen lines. It begins with three open quatrains and closes with a couplet. Thus, the rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Although the sonnet form was used for poems on many topics, it was traditionally associated with the love poem.
The Elizabethan sonnet is also called the English or Shakespearean sonnet. The Elizabethan sonnet tends to contain messages of love (similar to the Petrarchan sonnet).
The Elizabethan sonnet contains fourteen lines. These lines are broken into four stanzas. Three stanzas are quatrains (contain four lines) and one is a couplet (contains two lines).
The rhyme scheme of the Elizabethan sonnet is as follows: abab cdcd efef gg. This means that the first/third and second/fourth lines in each stanza rhyme. The final couplet (last two lines) rhyme as well.
The poem is written using iambic pentameter. An iamb is a foot of an unstressed and stressed syllable. Pentameter means that there are five feet in a line of poetry. A scansion of the iambic pentameter line looks like this ("u" identifies unstressed "/" represents stressed).
u/ u/ u/ u/ u/
For another view, the unstressed syllables will be written in lower case, and the stressed syllables will be written in upper case and bolded.
when I do COUNT the CLOCK that TELLS the TIME
In most sonnets, a volta or change appears. Normally, this signals a change in the message or the solution to the problem (named in the three quatrains). Traditionally, the volta appears at the end of line 12, the beginning of line 13, or at the end of line 9 (Shakespearean Sonnets).