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The Soulful Sonnet – 3

How to write a sonnet

Writing modern sonnets does not require any rhyme scheme at all, but the basic thought process of the sonnet should remain intact. Present a thought and then a conclusion. When we take liberties with poetic forms we often create new ones, don't be afraid to experiment with sonnets and make them your own.

Certain points to make in mind while writing a sonnet include that sonnets are generally pomes of love and war. Nothing showcases a soulful poem of love more than a lilting sonnet.

Certain qualities common to the sonnet as a form should be noted. Its definite restrictions make it a challenge to the artistry of the poet and call for all the technical skill at the poet's command. The more or less set rhyme patterns occurring regularly within the short space of fourteen lines afford a pleasant effect on the ear of the reader, and can create truly musical effects. The rigidity of the form precludes a too great economy or too great prodigality of words. Emphasis is placed on exactness and perfection of expression.

Among the most famous sonneteers in England have been Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and D. G. Rossetti. Longfellow, Jones Very, G. H. Boker, and E. A. Robinson are generally credited with writing some of the best sonnets in America. With the interest in this poetic form, certain poets following the example of Petrarch have written a series of sonnets linked one to the other and dealing with some unified subject. Such series are called sonnet sequences.

Some of the most famous sonnet sequences in English literature are those by Shakespeare (154 in the group), Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, Spenser's Amoretti, Rossetti's House of Life, and Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. William Ellery Leonard, Elinor Wylie, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and W. H. Auden have done distinguished work in the sonnet and the sonnet sequence in this century. The brevity of the form favors concentrated expression of idea or passion.

I suggest you read a lot of sonnets to get a feel of the form, it is actually an easy form and not at all tough to master, but when you read the works of masters like Shakespeare you will realize the depth of the form and the magic that can be achieved with it.
Below is Shakespeare’s sonnet number 1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

The following link is a rich resource for Shakespeare sonnets and one I always fall back on http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/

Till I meet you next week, I wish you a happy week of writing sonnets, the weather is just right for it. Its time to curl up with a hot cup of cocoa and read sonnets – preferably written by you.

– Smitha Chakravarthula
May 23, 2004

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