My Favourite Sonnet - ELSA Online Meet 29 January, 2023

                                               ELSA Online Meet : Sunday, 29 January, 2023 

‘My Favourite Sonnet’

Report by Anjali Singh

Come 2023 and it was time for another of our ELSA meets. The topic this time was ‘My favourite Sonnet’. Prof Ghosh opened the meet and invited the first speaker Anjali to Introduce the ‘Sonnet’ She talked about this unique poetic form – its birth and the subsequent adventurous journey. “A comprehensive introduction that included the origins, the ‘import’ to the English language, the changes from Petrarch to the Romantics, the problems associated with it and the use of it by the modern poets...certain issues to be dealt with later...” said Prof Ghosh who kept the topic open for discussion later.

Dr. Manju shared her thoughts on Pied Beauty by G. M. Hopkins. She also remarked that there has been an element of ‘compression’ in this Curtal sonnet; even the dual emotion of the past has been compressed to a single one. Next, Professor Ghosh spoke on his favourite one – Let me not to the marriage of true minds by Shakespeare.

Dr. Chanda Singh was our next speaker who chose How do I love thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The next speaker was Dr. Rajan Lal who chose On his blindness by Milton with a special emphasis on the thematic and the technical aspect of this sonnet – though technically, Petrarchan this sonnet was thematically a revolution! Prof Ghosh remarked that this sonnet was a wonderful appendage to Paradise Lost’s ‘...justification of ways of God to the men....’. Emphasising the importance of faith, it made one understand this way – If you have faith, you don't complain, you only celebrate...whether it is an adversity or some advantage!

Introducing Toyesh Prakash Sharma, to ELSA, Prof Ghosh spoke about the youngster’s “fifty brilliant research paper published in International Journals”. The B.Sc student of Agra College, Toyesh was equally fond of writing poems – sonnets, specifically. Even though he had read sonnets of Shakespeare and Shelley, the challenge for him, lay in composing the iambic pentameter, the couplet and the rhyming scheme of the three quatrains.

Many participants emphasized the supremacy of the ‘Classical Poets’ in the discipline they adopted in poetic forms and their compositions; which is why they were able to balance the iambs with the rhymes unlike the poets of current times whose poetry can be termed as a mere ‘Poetic prose’. It agreed about the challenge of composing sonnets with the special discipline of the iambic pentameter and heroic couplet. The discussion that followed can be summed up as follows:

·        A sonnet is a poem of 14 iambic pentameter lines rather than a poem of 14 lines.

·        To introduce a sonnet into another language, certain points need to be kept in mind.

·        Follow the basic model, for example the Petrarch model of Octave and Sestet and the corresponding rhyme scheme.

·        Each line must have ten syllables – the short and the long ones in tandem.

·        And then practice, practice and practice. This is likely to put one into the discipline of a sonneteer’s poetic mind. Something similar to what the students of music do.

·        Not to be discouraged, one must remember that Dryden and Pope were not great writers of the iambic pentameter.

·        A training of such type for a period of six months to a year could create some sonnet sense of the Classicals which would be quite unique in the midst of today’s everyday poets.

·        The model or the original can be a source to begin with though improvisations such as a change in the rhyme scheme can be made. So, Improvisation is acceptable but the model has to be followed. All this provided that there is a command on the diction, etc.

After listening to both our senior intellects we were mesmerised. Alas! It was time to go. Prof Ghosh wished us all a Happy New year. We thanked him for such a wonderful and enlightening discussion.

The Sonnet: An Introduction

Anjali Singh

Sonnet is a poetic form that consists of fourteen iambic pentameters. Been around for over five hundred years, it has had a journey of its own. Originating in Italy in the thirteenth century, it owes its popularity to Petrarch who wrote love poems (sequence of over 300 poems) to his beloved Laura. Thus fourteenth century was the time this form gained a peak which was later imported to England by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard in the sixteenth century. It has thus changed since then in various ways.

To begin with, Petrarch’s sonnet had a theme that was divided in two parts, namely – Octave and the Sestet. The first part had a problem or a question or a conflict. The second part has the solution or the answer or the resolution. The Octave rhyme scheme was abbaabba while the Sestet rhymed as cdecde / cdccdc / cdedce.

In the English import, the challenge lay in adopting the rhyme scheme. So, improvisations were made. Instead of an Octave and a Sestet, there were three quatrains; the rhyme scheme being abab cdcd efef gg. Also, the couplet in the end consisted of the solution or the answer or the resolution of the problem / question / conflict presented in the first three quatrains. Shakespeare’s sonnets are one of the many that were popular and his form was most used even though there were others like Spenser who included his own signature style rhyme scheme of abab bcbc cdcd ee.

Thereafter came the Holy sonnets and the contribution of John Donne to them. The theme moved from amorous love to that of holy love - a shift in the theme of love. This further altered a bit with the Romantics, specifically Wordsworth (The World is too much with us). The next revival of sonnets happened in the later nineteenth century by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The twentieth century saw poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s composition Sonnette an Orpheus, a rare occurrence in the modern times.

Not impossible to achieve the feat of being a sonneteer, this form requires a certain discipline and practice.

Anjali, Ph.D. Research Scholar

Why the Sonnet Matters

Nibir K. Ghosh

As teachers or students, most of us are expected to be familiar with the form that gained eminence through its use by literature heavyweights like Dante, Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton down to the Augustans — Dryden, Pope — to the romantics – Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley among others – and many in modern times hailing from various nations and cultures. With free verse allowing us the unbridled freedom to write anything in any form and calling it poetry, one finds it pertinent to ask if any justification is really needed for not bothering about composing poetry in strict formal patterns using iambic pentameter lines to create a quatrain or heroic couplet. Though I am not a poet and have never ever had the ambition of turning into one, reading or sharing hundreds of sonnets with my students at various levels has given me the awareness of the importance of meter, rhythm and music in poetry. Of course, I agree that, as Indians using English, it is quite a daunting task to use stress and accent in syllables like a native user of the language. But, apart from such complexities like the Received Pronunciation or RP (which once was a fashion in English language classes), it must be accepted the enormous vitality brought about by the sonneteers during different ages and movements to poetry in general and English poetry in particular.

To illustrate my view, I would like to cite one of my favourite sonnets “TRUE LOVE” by William Shakespeare that comes as the 116^th Sonnet in his creation. First the poem:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

The poem is about romantic love and its extreme ideal: it never changes, it never fades, it outlasts death and admits no flaw. What is more, it insists that this ideal is the only love that can be called “true”—if love is mortal, changing, or impermanent, the speaker writes, then no man ever loved. What is apparent in the poetic persona’s understanding of “true love” is the fact that it is not a union that binds two mortals in physical form but a “marriage of true minds.” It is like the Pole Star whose strength lies not in its steadfastness or rigid fixity but in its ability to be a guiding light to every “wandering bark” that has lost its way in the deep seas in the darkest of nights. Remaining unmoved, it inspires the lost ones in finding their direction and destination. Its height can be measured with devices but its value can never be circumscribed to terms of measurement. Time destroys everything that comes in its ambit but “true love” outlives time by the strength of its bonds.

In three quatrains running in harmony like musical notes, the poet begins by defining “true love,” elaborates its characteristic features through striking figures, dwells on the power of time and ends by asserting his enduring faith in the constancy implicit in union of  true minds.

The Sonnet

Manju

It was a matter of great happiness for me, getting an opportunity to listen to the insightful and intellectual discussion based on the most popular form of poetry i.e. sonnet, during a meeting held recently with the learned members of ELSA. Prof Nibir Ghosh said that now a days the budding authors generally avoid to write in poetic meters because most of them are not comfortable with it. He explained the meter, syllable and feet, the intricacies of sonnet in a very simplified way.

What is Meter in English Poetry?

Prof. Ghosh said that the words in English language are made of stressed and unstressed syllables like the word 'meter'. It has two syllables - me & ter - of which the first is stressed and the second is not.

These syllables are arranged to create a repeating pattern called "feet". The meter of a poem is made of such patterns. One simple pattern is made of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (as in 'meter'). Another such pattern is its opposite - an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. This pattern is called an iamb. Penta denotes five. So, if there are five repeats of a pattern in a line, the meter is pentameter.

Thus, a poem having five iambs in each line is said to be in iambic pentameter. This is the most common meter in English poetry. And this can be understood with the example of these few lines of a sonnet composed by a great sonneteer William Shakespeare.

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

 

There were many other notable intellectuals also who shared their worthy ideas related to the development of the sonnet.

Dr Manju, Professor, UILAH, Chandigarh University.

 

 John Milton as a Thematic Experimenter: On His Blindness

Rajan Lal

Historically speaking, the sonnet, a constitution of fourteen iambic pentameter lines, is thought to have been invented by Giacomo da Lentini, an Italian poet of the 13^th century. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian school of court poets, who gathered in the courts of Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) and his son, Manfred (d. 1266). Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, the Sicilian poets produced more than 300 poems of courtly love from 1230 to 1266, but this form was popularized and publicized by Francesco Petrarca, anglicized as Petrarch, a 14^th century Italian humanist scholar. He is known as the Father of the Sonnet because he created the first known sonnet sequence such as Canzoniere or Song Book, during the Dark Ages, (early Middle ages or sometimes the entire Middle Ages (1066-1500: M. H. Abrams) in the Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Milton composed 23 sonnets almost over a period of 25 years. The important point to be noted is that the Sonnet’s traditional theme was love, especially, the courtly love during the Middle Ages. Keeping in view the thematic and technical aspects of a sonnet, my favourite sonnet is Milton’s On His Blindness. It was most probably written in 1655 but published in 1673.  As regards technical finish of a sonnet, he was Petrarchan, following his rhyme scheme, ABBA, ABBA, CDE, CDE, but as regards the thematic spectrum, he was an experimenter. He vastly expanded the sonnet’s range. He used sonnet for all sorts of subjects and incorporated other generic elements as well as new complexity of rhetoric and tone. During the Middle Ages, poetry was a means of romantic expression, known as Courtly love as cited above but in the hands of Milton its spectrum got diversified. Milton's literary output was guided by his faith in God. He believed that all poetry should serve a social, philosophical, and religious purpose. He thought that poetry should glorify God, promote religious values, enlighten readers, and help people to become better Christians. He reiterated the same concept in Paradise Lost “to justify the ways of God to Man”. But he shows here his thematic experimentation going away the traditional boundaries of love. It is an “Expression of his frustration and wavering faith” that his blindness brought on. As he is a thematic experimenter, he also shows his moral approach here. The poem shows us ‘Patience’ a mighty weapon of success. In Milton’s opinion, the human life is full of ups and downs, we should patiently work to achieve success, facing all ups and downs, and trials and tribulations. He concludes his poem with a new moral theme, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Dr. Rajan Lal, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English Studies and Research, JS Hindu (PG) College, Amroha.

 Influence of The Canonical Book of Psalms on Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Jessica Joel

English Literature is riddled with biblical reflections, characters, inspirations, references and dialogues. The book of Psalms from the Old Testament in the Holy Bible is a collection of 150 poems divided into 5 sections, the first four end with concluding doxology; King David is the most prominent Psalmist who wrote approximately 73 Psalms. Scientists and mathematicians have and are still decoding the numerical patterns in the Hebrew and Greek Bible, the Book of Psalms is no less a mystery when it comes to numerical patterns. The patterns are based on similar words and themes occurring multiple times in a set of corresponding chapters, the number of these chapters can be divisible by a certain given number within the poetry forming a set numerical pattern.

What amazes is many writers and poets in the British Literature could comprehend these patterns and respond to them. William Shakespeare was one of those geniuses who not only wrote his 154 sonnets in a parallel dialogue with the 150 Psalms, his work is also coherent to the thematic pattern within the Book of Psalms, especially relating most with the King David’s  abiding worship, deliverance, lament  etc.

There’s a massive influence of the then history of Israel in 1000BCE in the psalms written by King David, but Shakespeare’s Fair Youth sonnet sequence (Sonnets 1-146) appear densely imbibed with allusions from the canon.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 24 forms a numerical and thematic pattern with Psalms 139. Sonnet 24 is a well-known sonnet sincerely for Fair Youth and runs in a deep parallel dialogue with Psalms 139 which is a remarkably introspective psalm utterly devoted to God.

 “O Lord thou hast me tride & known, my sitting doost thou know”. Psalm 139

 “Mine eye that play’d the painter and hath steeld”. Sonnet 24

Both start with a deep introspection and meditation on probing into man’s innermost thoughts on the confines of human knowledge. Sonnet 24 has introspection as a continuous theme as literary source for reflections, its central trope is basically ‘two people looking into each other’s eyes’ similar to the Psalmist’s “From sight of thy all-seeing spirite, Lord, whither shall I go?”

Both the Psalmist and the sonneteer close with reference to the heart:

 “Try me, O God, and know my hart.” Psalm 139

“Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart” sonnet 24

Both the Psalmist and the sonneteer admit to the lack of cunningness:

“Too wonderful above my reach, Lord, is thy cunning skill” Psalm 139

“Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art” Sonnet 24

There’s introspective reference in both the sonnet and the psalm to ‘eye’ and ‘searching the heart’, and ‘cunning’.

In many similar parallel dialogues, similar words subtly put by Shakespeare in the sonnets as referring to the Psalms can be seen.

“The words of the Yahweh (Lord) are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” Psalm 12

 “And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white” Sonnet 12

 Sonnets 146 and 147 paired by many synchronized thematic resonances as in Psalm 146 and 147:

“God... who feedeth the hungry”.  Psalm 146

“The Lord .. who .. feedeth the young ravens that call upon him”. - Psalm 147

“Buy tearmes divine in selling houres of drosse:

Within be fed, without be rich no more,

So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,

And death once dead there's no more dying then”. sonnet 146, ll. 11 14

“My love is as a feaver longing still,

    For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Th'uncertaine sicklie appetite to please:

...

Desire is death, which Phisick did except”. Sonnet 147, ll. 3 4, 8

 “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds” Psalm 147

Both Psalm 146 and Sonnet 146 start with P with similar theme addressing the soul and continue to remind the soul of body’s mortality and perishability:

“Praise the Lord, O my soul...O put not your trust..”  Psalm 146

“Poore soule …Why dost ....”?     sonnet 146,1.1.

“For when the breath of man goeth forth he shall turn again to his earth : and              then all his thoughts perish”. Psalm 146

“Shall wormes inheritors of this excesse,

Eate up thy charge? is this thy bodies end?”  sonnet 146,11.7 and 8

Shakespeare’s Biblical Knowledge by Richmond Noble states 135 references to the Psalms in his plays and confirms many other references in the sonnets. He confirmed that Shakespeare referred to the Psalter in the Bible more than any other book and might have known many of the Psalms by heart as singing of Psalms was a common recreation in Elizabethan times.  Thus, the book of Psalms in the Bible has had an impact on Shakespeare and reflects in the dialogue and thematic synchronization of the Sonnets with the Psalms especially the ones written by King David.