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.

Sonnet Analysis: Ezra Pound

It has been a while since I did one of these, hasn't it? Today I take a look at "A Virginal" by Ezra Pound (text from The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology, ed. Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland).

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.

I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,

For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;

Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly

And left me cloaked as with a gauze of aether;

As with sweet leaves; as with a subtle clearness.

Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness

To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.

No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,

Soft as spring wind that's come from birchen bowers.

Green as the shoots, aye April in the branches,

As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches,

Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:

As white their bark, so white this lady's hours.

Triumphs:

I want to focus here on three particular elements of this poem that drew me to it when I decided to analyze it. All three are technical in nature (as befits a blog about writing sonnets). One is Pound's choice of rhymes: not so much the rhyme scheme although that is interesting in and of itself--I'll talk more about it in the Imperfections section because I'm not sure it works--as the complicated nature of the actual rhyme-words themselves. They tend towards feminine endings (lately, brightness, sheathe her, branches). This, along with the archaic style of the poem (archaic even for the time it was written--see Pound's other much more famous poems) creates a sense of the poem being almost overstuffed or overfull, whether of thought or emotion or what-have-you. 

This effect is heightened in the first and ninth lines (the start and the start of what would be a traditional volta) by the two strong caesuras in the line, which is related to the second element I want to emphasize: those two mirrored lines. I cait two caesuras (after the second no and the me) but it could even be three: no, no! has a strong spondaic rhythm that almost asks for a pause between the words. The effect of the pauses, I think, is again to make the line and thus the poem feel longer and more full than it actually is. The effect of the repetition, both within the line (no, no) and across the two lines is both to pull all parts of the poem together (across the volta) and to mark the strong sense of rejection that this poem gives off. This is not a traditional love poem, because the persona addressed does not seem to be the object of the romantic love in the poem--it is left extremely open exactly who is addressed, but it is emphatically not the her or this lady of the key lines here. 

The third technical element I want to draw attention to is the use of similar sounds and especially consonance across the poem, including variant forms of the same words: "sheath" in line 2 becoming "sheathe" in line 8, "no, no" in lines 1 and 9, "half in half" in line 8, the repeated "white" in the final line, but also more generally all the s-sounds, all the b-sounds, all the h-sounds (and also all the long a-sounds). This, in my opinion, makes the poem glide: it sounds like a coherent whole because the sounds of it are so consistent. This is powerful when combined with the overfullness and ambiguity noted above: somehow this sonnet feels like a single, unified idea despite at the same time feeling like it contains too much and reveals too little. It's a strong effect.

Imperfections:

I don't have a lot of imperfections to point out here: some things that might feel like weaknesses in a slightly different poem are here folded into the emotional impacts noted above, especially in terms of ambiguity. I might object in other cases to the ending of the sonnet, which I don't find especially compelling--but the very ambiguity of the value of "white" in the final lines works, I think, because of the rest of the poem's effects (or perhaps I've just read too many romance novels about rakes recently and "white" is not intended ambiguously--but I think, in this poem, I prefer it so). 

The major imperfection I want to draw attention to is, as with the triumphs, technical. As noted above, I'm not entirely sure I find this rhyme scheme works for me. It's a little hard to categorize: "brightness" and "lightness" should rhyme with "nearness" and "clearness" but they don't quite because of where the emphases fall in the feminine endings; similarly "savour" and "hours" look at first like they are trying to rhyme but don't. On the flip side, "aether" and "sheathe her" don't rhyme in my pronunciation of English, and yet they do here. This can, viewed one way, contribute to the ambiguity of the poem, but for me it feels more awkward than effective. I'm also just generally not a huge fan of Italianate sonnets (which this definitely is--a hard end-stopped turn at line 9, and a complex rhyme scheme [EFGGEF] in the volta) that don't embrace the power of the AB rhymes in the octave fully. Nor am I that fond of the volta's rhyme scheme itself, since the visual connection of the -our[s] rhymes, for me, flattens it out into almost a series of rhymed couplets. From my angle, then, while the word-work of the poem is strong (see Triumphs), the structural work makes poor use of it. Still, it is fascinating, from my perspective, to read a traditionally-shaped sonnet from Pound, a poet so known for eschewing traditional forms.

On Turns

It occurred to me today, as I was teaching my class about sonnets, that a key factor in a successful sonnet is the use of the turn. The turn is a part of a sonnet I have not yet written about here in any depth, but it is intimately bound up in the content, form, and meaning of a sonnet. The turn(s) is (are) where the sonnet differentiates itself from other forms, because the turn is where the movement happens.

A sonnet is not a good sonnet unless it takes advantage of the opportunity that every sonnet rhyme scheme provides for a turn: a change from setting up or describing a situation to developing that situation. I use "developing" intentionally, as there are many ways to develop a situation: a reversal, a continuation, an explanation, a narrowing of focus, a broadening of focus, etc. What is crucial here is that something changes: that the sonnet is not static, but progressive.

The standard place for a turn is where the rhyme scheme changes. This can be a big bold change like in a traditional Petrarchan or Italian sonnet (ABBAABBA/CDECDE or CDCDCD with the turn at the end of the AB section). It can be a last-minute whiplash like in a traditional Shakespearean or English sonnet (ABABCDCDEFEF/GG with a turn before the couplet). There can be a series of smaller turns, as in the same form (ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG with turns after each change in rhyme). And I find that having this alignment between rhyme and turn is actually a good sign of a well-crafted sonnet: there is no ironclad rule that says a sonnet cannot have its turn where there isn't a change in rhyme, but doing so allows the rhyme scheme to pull double duty. This can apply to other elements as well: metrical substitutions or changes, for instance, can also be a turn's best friend.

What I wanted to focus on here is that the turn often makes less traditional rhyme schemes more interesting. Take, for example, a Spenserian sonnet (ABABBCBCCDCDEE). This has quatrains like a Shakespearean sonnet, but the rhyme scheme links across them by the reuse of the same rhyme, creating couplets. This means that a Spenserian sonnet flows together until the climactic EE rhyme at the end, offering the potential for an extremely potent couplet turn, even more powerful than in a Shakespearean sonnet. A similar effect appears in Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey's early sonnet "The soote season," which has the unusual rhyme scheme ABABABABABABCC. The sense of motion is different than in the Spenserian rhyme scheme, but the core element of heavily emphasizing the couplet turn remains, if anything made stronger by the use of only one rhyme pair before the turn and by refusing all couplets before the end as well.

A different but equally potent effect can come in poems with multiple turns, as in the 4/4/4/2 Shakespearean example but also in other forms as well. Sir Thomas Wyatt's "Whoso list to hunt," another early sonnet in English, finds a hybrid form derived from Petrarch with an ABBAABBACDCDEE rhyme scheme. This provides for two turns: as in Petrarch, between AB and CD rhyme schemes, but also between the CD and the final EE couplet. Petrarch's own poem on which this is based (Sonnet 190) does a softer version of this by having a mini-turn in the middle of the sestet between the CDE and CDE rhyme pairs. This is an advantage of the CDECDE ending to a Petrarchan sonnet (as opposed to CDCDCD) in that the two repetitions of the three-line CDE unit is more congenial to this kind of mini-turn than the three repetitions of a two-line CD unit. It's not that a turn can't be two lines (see: every couplet turn ever) but rather that the CD units would require an additional turn (between each pair), which is harder to achieve.

There is no reason, of course, why this turning element in the sonnet should be limited to traditional rhyme schemes (though as I hope the above shows, "traditional" covers a wide range already). Shelly's "Ozymandias" is ABABACDCEDEFEF, a decidedly untraditional scheme, and main two turns come exactly where you'd expect: at the hiccup in the rhyme, the E ("And on the pedestal these words appear") and at the final turn to the F rhyme ("Nothing beside remains. Round the decay"). Changes in rhyme can overlap with turns wherever they are found. Want to write a sonnet with seven different rhymes and put a turn every time you switch? More power to you (it's going to be hard though). Want to put your couplet at the start and then run four quatrains of turns after it? Enjoy! The central idea though, remains: a good sonnet has interesting turn(s), where the ideas shift and the poem moves, and those turn(s) should line up with the changing rhyme. This is a classic example of how craft meets meaning, and of how the tools of the sonnet can contribute to the forms' poetic effects.

A Note on Feminine Rhymes and John Fletcher

It has been quite a while since I sullied this blog with something other than a poem, but the itch has come again and will not be denied. In today's edition, I will ponder an aspect of rhyme that I have come to reconsider since this blog began: the feminine rhyme in the style of John Fletcher.

For those of you who are looking at the page very blankly, John Fletcher is a playwright - or was a playwright, as far as I am aware he is dead, buried, and gone, sans Zombie Fletcher, though that would be cool but I digress - from the late Elizabethan, Jacobean, and even Caroline periods of the English Renaissance. He was a major force in his day, especially in collaboration with Francis Beaumont (so much so that after Fletcher's death {he outlived Beaumont} a large number of his solo works were bundled into a Beaumont and Fletcher joint folio), Philip Massinger, and William Shakespeare, among others. He is supposed to have had a hand in many of Shakespeare's later works, including the lost Cardenio, but his reputation has faded with the years as the kind of showy, mixed genre theater he primarily wrote has waned in popularity and critical acclaim.

For those of you looking a little less blankly, or who just read that, Fletcher had a somewhat distinctive writing style, characterized for our purpose by a particular verbal tic: the tendency towards feminine rhyme (or at least feminine endings of lines) with a monosyllablic word at the end of the line. That is, "I am a poet though I did not know it": 11 syllables, iambic, and therefore with the stress on the penultimate rather than the ultimate syllable, despite the last syllable being a word in and of itself.

Now, as far as I know Fletcher published no sonnets (he was big a little after the late 1500s sonnet craze) but that does not in any way reduce how associated he is with that style. I have no doubt he would have used it in sonnets had he published them, and the question still remains of what to do about the style within the sonnet. Are these rhymes useful or appropriate to the sonnet?

I have for years disliked this choice and considered it inartistic and ugly, especially in rhyme (I have fewer reservations about blank verse in the style, though I still try to avoid it). This is because I have always felt that rhyme should use new words each time as much as possible (I am not of the Homer Simpson bowling episode position that rhyming Homer and homer deserves applause), and this style results in rhymes like "know it" and "blow it" which use the same rhyme word at the end. I am less troubled by "poet" and "know it," assuming your dialect makes it a true and not slant rhyme, because they are different words.

However, recently I have come to a greater comfort with this style, as I have reasoned that certain words are almost unrhymeable without it, as they have difficult stress patterns to match or complicated internal assonance or consonance. Also, I have had to confront the fact that my idea that the restrictions on form should be pared down to the minimum necessary in order to highlight the chosen restrictions more brilliantly conflicts with this prejudice. As such, I am now much more open to this style, which I hope in the fullness of time will be a good thing, artistically and critically.

On Spenserian Form

There is one more type of standard stanza that I have neglected to mention, an oversight which I will here rectify. This is another English form, known as the Spenserian sonnet from its association with the sixteenth-century poet Edmund Spenser. It consists of a set of three quatrains and a couplet, much like a Shakespearean sonnet, but with a specific set of rhymes that overlap between quatrains. Specifically, the sonnet has a rhyme scheme ababbcbccdcdee: the second rhyme in the previous quatrain becomes the first in the new one. This allows for substantially more couplets within the overall structure, while retaining the flexibility of alternating rhyme as well.

The effect of this rhyme scheme is, broadly speaking, to tie the quatrains together more tightly and place (even) more emphasis on the division of twelve and two rather than the Petrarchan eight and six. Where a Shakespeare sonnet has three clear rhyme divisions (after each quatrain), the Spenserian has only one, after the last quatrain; in this, and in its number of rhyme sounds, it resembles the Petrarchan sonnet, but the placement of the turn is substantially altered. The Petrarchan form permits an extended discourse in the sestet concerning the situation set up in the octave; the Shakespearean allows incredible flexibility in where a turn can come; the Spenserian demands, insists, requires that there be a turn at line thirteen - or if there is not, it demands explanation (it is crucial to recall that poems can create effects by pushing against, as well as going along with, the conventions associated with the form). In either case, there is a magnifying glass placed on that section of the poem - as well as an expectation, again to be played with if desired, that the three quatrains will meld together. The intricate interlacing of those quatrains can produce beautiful effects; and it can also be used to create a heightened sense of disharmony if the enfolding rhymes are thrown into contrast with discontinuous thought. Scorn not the Spenserian sonnet, for it has hidden depths.

On Slant Rhyme

There is one major category of rhyme I have not covered already in this series, and I shall now treat it. That rhyme is slant rhyme, and it falls neatly between the non-rhyme of eye rhyme and true rhyme. That said, it is still difficult to define, because the key point of slant rhyme is that it involves what is almost but not quite actual rhyme. Typically this is done by the change of a single consonant: n for m, b for p and v, and so on. There are technical terms for the types of consonants that work this way, but since the writing of poetry is not the composition of technical treatises, but rather a contingent process of writing words that sound right together, it is most useful to simply use one's mental ear when writing. Vowels can also be switched, although more rarely (and switching both generally results in simply non-rhyme): set and sit (in certain accents) are close enough, for instance.

The use of slant rhyme in sonnets should be minimal, because it is not actual rhyme; but it is still within the bounds of good taste, if I may pretend for a moment to be an arbiter of such. It is particularly useful with words that have no or few true rhymes; you may note that in my last sonnet I used "preserved" and "undisturbed" as slant rhyme, as there are quite few words that are true rhymes with either (they do exist - swerved and curbed, for instance - but they are rare). Slant rhyme should be used only when the word fits so neatly into the sense of the sonnet that the slight hiccup in the rhyme scheme is almost unnoticed (and of course, as with the metrical variations, a slant rhyme may be used for effect too). Too much slant rhyme loses the rhyme scheme and starts looking like unrhymed verse, but in moderation it can significantly free up the poet's ability to make meaning.

On Different Types of Rhyme

So having defined a rhyme scheme, it occurs to me that we require another definition to make sense of that one: the definition of a rhyme.

I have in most of my definitional work here used the term rhyme sound rather than simply rhyme. This was not only to avoid confusion between too many uses of the single word rhyme, but also to define a rhyme in a sonnet against a specific type of rhyme, the eye rhyme. This "rhyme" is not a proper rhyme, as the words involved will have explicitly different sounds. Rather, the eye rhyme consists of two words that share a spelling of their final syllables but not the sound, and so look like they should rhyme (hence the name) but do not. Home and come, plough and tough, c'est and west: these are all eye rhymes. The definition can expand a little to include spellings that, while not identical, still look to the eyes like they would normally be pronounced the same way: Illinois and annoys, for instance. In any case, these are not rhymes, at least for the purposes of the sonnet, whose name, meaning "little song," serves as a hint to its primary concern with sound rather than sight. That does not mean they cannot be used for effect; rather, if they are, it means the two falsely rhymed words should be actually rhymed (obviously with different words) as well.

With that behind us, there are also differences in actual rhymes to be considered. The key one is the difference between masculine (one-syllable) and feminine (two-syllable) rhymes. A masculine rhyme has the same sound only in the last or only syllable of the final word: lady/baby, scorn/horn, school/fool, to borrow from Shakespeare's Benedick. A feminine rhyme has the same sound in the last two syllables of the word: assigner/diviner, wining/dining, carry/marry. It can also be created by adding the same word (or homonyms) to the end of two otherwise masculine rhymes: want to/haunt too, to be/newbie, cram it/damn it.

The main difference between the use of these rhyme types is in the flow of the poem: feminine rhymes, by using more syllables in the rhyme, emphasize the interconnectedness of the lines, and speed the reader through the poem by making more syllables predictable in some way; masculine rhymes are almost default, being easier, but therefore almost serve to get out of the reader's way, making the rhyming less marked. A feminine rhyme within enjambment is very marked to the reader, where an enjambed masculine rhyme has a very light touch. Poems may and should freely intermix types of (actual) rhymes for intentional effect. It is worth noting, finally, that feminine rhymes are less marked in feminine (11-syllable in iambic pentameter) lines, as the extra syllable is swallowed into the rhyme.

Introduction to the Sonnet IX: Rhyme Schemes

So I previously mentioned that a sonnet is a poem with a rhyme scheme. However, that definition is useless unless a rhyme scheme is in turn defined, which I intend to do here. I will begin by defining a rhyme scheme in general and then turn to rhyme schemes and the sonnet.

A rhyme scheme is any organization of the final sounds in a poem. Theoretically this includes rhyme schemes without any rhyme (Ezra Pound springs to mind) but as a practical matter there must be rhymes; and usually at least as many rhymed lines as unrhymed (ABCB is a common ballad rhyme scheme for instance, and the previous post mentioned the ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme of an English sonnet). A rhyme scheme expressed in this manner (with letters standing in for different rhyme sounds ending lines) is a useful tool for seeing how a poet has organized a poem, particulary as regards sound, flow, and interaction between lines.

Sonnets have certain traditional rhyme schemes (the Italian and English sonnet styles, with their 8/6 and 4/4/4/2 splits between similarly patterned sections are the two major ones) and certain conventions regarding what is and is not acceptable outside of those traditions. For instance, all the lines should rhyme with at least one other line; no ABCB unless there's another A and C rhyme in there later or earlier. Also, usually (but less rigorously), these rhymes should be close together; it is vanishingly rare to see more than 4 lines between a rhyme sound and its nearest rhyme, and most common to see 0, 1 or 2. Couplets (AA) are acceptable, triplets (AAA) rare and any longer string basically nonexistent; couplets are rarely followed by another couplet, unless locked into something like the Italian ABBAABBA. AABBCCDDEEFFGG is only arguably a sonnet; interlocking of rhymes is highly prized within the form, as it forces the poem's lines out of hermetically sealed little rhyme boxes into a larger poem-as-a-whole form. If one does flout that convention, enjambment is a practical necessity; seven heroic couplets do not a sonnet make. Finally, repetition of rhyme sounds is perfectly fine (as an "English" sonnet going ABABCDCDEAEADD) so long as it does not turn into long strings of the same sound (once more, no AAAA). Within these rules there is great flexibility, as I hope is demonstrated by at least some of the sonnets I post here.

Introduction to the Sonnet III: Rhyme

Sonnets rhyme. There are those benighted souls who disagree, but since this is my blog, and the weight of history is largely on my side, we can ignore them for the moment. Sonnets rhyme, and what is more, they rhyme in predictable ways; a sonnet will not have its first line remain unrhymed until the last line, for instance. With that said, sonnets do not have to adhere to a single rhyme scheme; and here I will present some of the most common and most interesting rhyme schemes available for the sonnet.

Probably the most familiar sonnet rhyme scheme is the English, or Shakespearean, sonnet. The rhyme scheme for this type of sonnet is usually given as ABABCDCDEFEFGG, where each letter represents a different rhyme sound. This is not strictly accurate, although the overall effect given of having three quatrains of alternating rhyme and a final couplet is correct. Although many English sonnets do have seven different rhyme sounds, a sonnet with fewer rhyme sounds still following the overall pattern is also acceptable: ABABCDCDEAEACC is a perfectly good English sonnet rhyme scheme for example, even if a couple of the rhymes are repeated. AAAA (or the like) is discouraged, however, as alternation of rhyme is an important part of the English sonnet. The last couplet often, but not always, undercuts or somehow reverses the effect of what has been built up in the previous twelve lines. This can be a nice effect, but is not necessary.

Shakespeare's sonnets (unsurprisingly, given the name) tend to follow this pattern, as do many, many others. As an example, however, I will give a sonnet by Shakespeare's contemporary, Michael Drayton, from his sonnet sequence "Idea," sonnet 61:

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part;

Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,

And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart

That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.

Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,

When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,

When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And Innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over

From death to life thou mightst yet him recover.

The other most common sonnet rhyme scheme is the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet, which is the form used by Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, the original popularizer of the sonnet form in Italian. This form is divided not into quatrains with a final couplet, but into two halves, an "octave" of the first eight lines and a "sestet" of the last six. The octave always has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA; the rhyme scheme in the sestet is more flexible, although it never includes the A or B rhyme sound. The most common sestet rhyme scheme are CDCDCD and CDECDE, but almost anything goes so long as there are no unrhymed lines. Traditionally the point of division between the octave and sestet marks a turn, a change in the poem's approach usually associated with a re-examination or rejection of the idea presented in the octave.

Petrarch's poems are in Italian; since I would prefer to give examples in English, here is a poem by Christina Rossetti, a Victorian poet, entitled "Remember." Her rhyme scheme is ABBAABBACDDECE.

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half-turn to go yet, turning, stay.

Remember me when no more, day by day,

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then, or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that I once had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

There are also other rhyme schemes that can be used in a sonnet, as many as can be imagined so long as every line is rhymed and there is not so much space between the rhymed lines that the existence of the previous line is forgotten (ABCBCDEDEFGFGA might be hard to hold together, for instance). I will give only one example of another rhyme scheme, Percy Bysshe Shelley's great "Ozymandias." His rhyme scheme is ABABACDCEDEFEF.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passion read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.