Shakespearean Sonnet
The Shakespearean sonnet follows the rhyming scheme and pattern used by Surrey. It is divided into four parts and has no pause ( caesura ) and turn of thought ( volta ) at the end of the eighth line. The ideas in this variety run up to the couplet. The climax of the thought in a Shakespearean sonnet is attained in the couplet Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets in all. They were not printed until 1609.
Some of them were circulated in the manuscript for at least eleven years before their publication. While the Sonnets of Sidney and Spenser form the very core of their poetic work, Shakespeare's sonnets were written in moments snatched from work for the theatre. His 154 sonnets were first published in 1609. and as Wordsworth has put it, it was with this key that the poet unlocked his heart.
It is in the sonnets alone that the poet directly expresses his feelings. Besides their sincerity of tone, they have literary qualities of the highest order. They touch perfection in their phraseology, in their perfect blending of sense and sound, and in their versification. Shakespeare's sonnet - sequence is, " the casket which encloses the most precious pearls of Elizabethan lyricism some of them unsurpassed by any lyricist. " He divides his sonnets into three stanzas of four lines followed by a concluding couplet.
Other English Sonneteers:
Among the other English sonneteers, John Done, Thomas Gray, Thomas Warton, William Wordsworth,, John Keats, Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Bridge, GG. Rossetti , Christina Rossetti . George Meredith, Gerad Manley Hopkins Rupert Brooke, Robert Frost, John Crowe Ranson and W.H. Auden have composed memorable sonnets.
During over 700 years the sonnet form has been adapted to a remarkable variety of experiments and development. Initially used to express the emotions of love by the Italian and Elizabethan poets, the sonnet has now become an effective instrument to carry a wide range of subjects ranging from religion and politics to mundane activities of modern man's tension-torn life.
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- Plot construction of 'She Stoops to Conquer'
- English Comedy before Goldsmith
- Sentimental Comedy: Reaction of Goldsmith against it
- Character and role of Miss Neville
- Discuss She Stoops to Conquer as a Sentimental Comedy
- Discuss Goldsmith's View of Sentimental Comedy
- Give an estimate of Goldsmith as a dramatist
- Contribution of Goldsmith as a Dramatist
