Preamble:

To be perfectly honest, I must admit that this review, of the sixty or so I have already written, has to be the most challenging I have ever had to grapple with.   It has caused me quite enough headaches.  I have been pondering this question for years, viz.: what are the essential characteristics of the modern early twenty-first century sonnet?    If that sounds like a tall order, it most certainly is.   Most of the time, I feel as though I have been vainly trying prevent water from slipping through my fingers.  I cannot even remotely claim I have scratched the surface of this prickly question, or more properly, dilemma.   It is not difficult to surmise how easily readers, poets and poetry critics will shoot my premises full of holes.  But that’s al right with me.   I am merely laying the groundwork for what I hope will be a fruitful ongoing discussion of the “ideal sonnet” in our century.

Introduction:

I hear you saying, “What kind of a question is that?”   Isn’t it obvious what a sonnet is?   Your liberal education and literary acumen offended, you protest,  “I often read sonnets, and I know one when I see one!”    Fair enough.   But how are we to distinguish between a run-of-the mill sonnet and one which is truly memorable in our day and age?

Do sonnet “rules” a sonnet make?  Conventional “definitions”

According to conventional wisdom, ever since the sonnet was first introduced on the stage in Italian in the early thirteenth century (1), poets, poetry aficionados and critics have zoomed in on a few clearly definable “characteristics” or requisite elements of the sonnet.  I won’t belabour the point by having recourse to the countless definitions, explanations, articles, books and treatises on the qualities of the sonnet, which are neither strained nor to be restrained.  Let’s limit ourselves to simply itemizing the essential characteristics of the sonnet as a strictly formal poetry genre.  I suppose we can safely affirm that the sonnet must:

1. without exception, be exactly 14 lines long;

2. strictly adhere to the five foot, 10 syllable iambic pentameter ... at least in English (2).  This means, no variants allowed in the metre, the stress invariably being unstressed, stressed in a line or verse of exactly 5 feet;

3. As a corollary of 2 above, it naturally follows that if your metre is strictly iambic pentameter, then as a matter of course, your sonnet’s rhythm should sound truly “musical”, appealing to both the outer and “inner” ear of the listener.

4. At least according to conventional wisdom, the sonnet must adhere to a strict rhyme scheme.  I shall not belabour the point by dredging up for the umpteenth time the exact rhyme schemes for the Petrarchan, Spenserian, Shakespearian and Miltonian sonnet, amongst others.  If you don’t know what the de rigueur rhyme schemes are, you can find them just about anywhere on any “introduction to the sonnet” sites on the Internet, which are legion.

5. A sonnet should have a “volta” [2] or thematic/ psychological “turning point” at the end of the eighth line, come what may.

6.1 The sestet of Petrarchan sonnets should always be comprised of two tercets of 3 lines each.

6.2 The sestet of Spenserian and Shakespearian sonnets should always be comprised of 1 quatrain followed by a rhyming couplet.

There are of course other considerations to be taken into account in any basic “definition” of the sonnet, as far as definitions go, but those enumerated here will suffice for our purposes.

When is a sonnet not a sonnet?

One would surely think we have pretty much covered the essential elements of the sonnet.  But is this so?  The long and the short of it is: all too many “contemporary” sonneteers are not contemporary at all.   Their sonnets typically are throwbacks to normative models of sonnets commonly accepted in times past (i.e. from the thirteenth to the early twentieth century).   The problem is that too many specifics of the paradigms on which Petrarchan versus Shakespearian and English sonnets were based are no longer pertinent to the literary norms of modern poetry.   It is essential to clearly distinguish between the “rules” or, preferably, the normative components of the models themselves, as enumerated in our conventional definitions of the sonnet above, and the fine points of these norms.  The primary defining elements of the sonnet remain the same, and probably always will.   However, it is important to realize the very norms underpinning the sonnet’s structure are subject to refinements in their psycho-social-cultural context, as we shall soon see.

Having said all that, let’s address some of the more flagrant symptoms which plague sonnets so many sonneteers compose these days.    Many poets seem to resort to these tried and tested techniques of sonnet composition either because:

– they are simply unaware of new developments in techniques of sonnet composition;

– they unconsciously, though quite innocently, introduce historic anomalies into their sonnets;

– they apply such anomalous techniques to their sonnet writing in order to adhere to classical models and norms, as they understand them;

– they are so conservative or stubborn that they insist on resorting to superannuated and archaic techniques;

– they simply cannot grasp how or why the sonnet as poetic genre must of necessity keep pace with the demands of today’s continually evolving literary, social and cultural norms, not to mention with the globalization of literature in all languages in the modern world;

– they do realize that such changes in the sonnet are just as inevitable as in any other domain of poetry and literature, but they feel inadequate to the challenge;

– and for a variety of other reasons I have as a matter of course failed to pinpoint.

Technical flaws in contemporary sonnets:

Predictably egregious flaws or if you like, “fault lines” in the composition of sonnets are rampant, where literary metamorphoses in the twenty first century poetry are concerned.   There are so many historical precedents for notable exceptions to the “rules” subsumed in section one above that one has to wonder out loud whether these “rules” are not so universal after all.  Even where sonnets composed by so-called “modern” sonneteers strictly adhere to all of the essential elements of the sonnet form as outlined above, we can readily flag some of the most glaring failings in their execution of  sonnets, first at a technical level.  Some of them more blatant of these are:

[1] reliance on archaic vocabulary, grammar and syntax: usage of such antiquated words and phrases as “thee”, “thou hast”, “methinks”, “o’er”, “ev’ry”, “shalt”, “dost”, “behold the sun/moon”, “the thund’rous skies”, “where’er” etc. etc. (you get the picture).  You can pretty much rely on one thing: almost all contemporary editors of respectable journals and e-zines distinctly dislike such anachronisms, and many will outright reject submissions couched in such language.

Since such anomalous language is totally foreign to modern English in the twenty-first century,

why on earth would anyone need to resort to it in poetry, not to mention sonnets?

Taken directly from lines of anonymous contemporary sonnets cited on the Internet:

Example of the (usually) “wrong” way:

And like a pipe unmindful of its note,

From granted purpose find my heart aloof

And scrape my antic steps by dint of rote;.

Cited lines illustrating the correct way taken from issues of our journal, Sonnetto Poesia:

Example of the correct way:

bringing the eyes to the constant verge of tears

caused by filth, smog, far too much light and colour,

and noise-pollution, with a cruel, sadistic’...

Joe M. Ruggier (Sonnetto Poesia, Vol. 6 no. 1, pg 22)

NOTE that although Joe Ruggier’s sonnets are all Christian and deeply religious, his style is definitively contemporary.

[2] likewise, inversion of sentences by placing the verb at the end of a line just for the sake of rhyme is almost always a sign of weak style, or even worse, weak inspiration.

Examples of the “wrong” way:

The birds and bees so delightfully fly   (a pedestrian line anyway)

... just to rhyme with “cry” “die”  “sigh” “try”

(or whatever lame rhymes one resorts to)

& this:

There's comfort now and I in peace recall...

(This should be, “I recall in peace”)

Example of the correct way:

He plays with tender notes in minor scale

So perfectly in pianissimo

Each note becomes the whisper of a veil

Sara Russell (Sonnetto Poesia, Vol. 6 no. 2,  pg.  23

Once again, since verbs terminating phrases or sentences and sentence inversions merely for the

sake of rhyme are totally foreign to modern English in the twenty-first century, why would

anyone need to resort to it in sonnets?