On Structure and Restriction

Writing a sonnet is (fundamentally, at least for me) about creation within structure. It is about allowing the constraints and requirements of the form to shape but not dictate the work that you are doing and the expression of your ideas. It is about finding the parts of an idea that can be constructed into the sonnet form. In a sense then, any poem can be or could be recast as a sonnet if the ideas and emotions contained within it can be reforged.

This is the reason that I hold so firmly to my belief in certain restrictions on the sonnet. I believe that sonnets should have 14 lines. I believe that sonnets must rhyme. I believe that sonnets must have meter. It is of course possible to think that some of these restrictions can be relaxed or that some of them could be tightened. The name of this blog of course suggests iambic pentameter or at the very least some 10 syllable line in a 14 line poem to make 140 syllables. And yet many of the sonnets on this blog use iambic tetrameter and I have not renamed the blog to 112syllables. similarly there are poems on this blog that use extremely unusual rhyme schemes, though I believe there are no unrhymed sonnets on the blog. 

The point for me is that there needs to be a certain level of restriction; and for me the quantity of lines, the consistency of meter, with (historically) the one exception of the final couplet, and the use of a consistent rhyme scheme where every line has a rhyme somewhere in the poem are those restrictions. I cannot and do not object to others viewing this differently, but I think it is relevant to considering the creative process of writing a sonnet to factor in the restrictions that should be placed on it. I find that this also permits certain types of analysis based on the choice of rhyme scheme and meter and their interaction with the 14 line structure. 

There are also of course sonnet traditions. Thus a poem that is or is adjacent to a Petrarchan sonnet has different restrictions and should be analyzed differently than one that approaches the Shakespearean sonnet tradition or the Spenserian or that creates its own rhyme structure entirely. The turn, for instance, is a common element in sonnets but it's placement, effect, and connection to the rest of the poem are elements that can be moved around depending on the tradition or the invention of the author. but operating within the general restriction of the sonnet or the more specific restriction of a son of tradition (for me) brings meaning both to the creation and the analysis of the sonnet.