Smith was not well known by the general populace after her death, but that her voice endures-if only for a single poem in this book-is testament that she took the events of her own time seriously. Save where is heard the repercussive roar Night o’er the ocean settles, dark and mute, Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore, Her sonnet was also borne of her subsequent ability to get out of debt by becoming a very successful novelist and poet. Shakespeare built his sonnets differently, as three block-like quatrains (four-line units) followed by a couplet.” Both professors contribute revealing, edifying essays around their choices what might be called now the “back story” inhabits each sonnet, each poet’s life, many with facts not widely known about the circumstances during composition.Ĭharlotte Smith’s 1798 sonnet “Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore” depicts her fears about the sea, about political upheaval in France, and her own unhappy marriage (she and her husband had been imprisoned for debt). The Italian poets divided their sonnets into two uneven units, the eight-line octave followed by the six-line sestet. Mikics explains why this poet is unique: “Shakespeare revolutionized the sonnet in several ways. This were to be new made when thou art old,Īnd see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold. Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,” If thou could’st answer, “This fair child of mine How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. To say within thine own deep sunken eyes, Where all the treasury of thy lusty days, Then being asked where all thy beauty lies, Will be a tatter’d weed of small worth held: Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, When forty winters shall besiege thy browĪnd dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Look for the volta, or turn, about line eight or nine:
The sonnets that follow are usually only fourteen lines, the traditional length, as is Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 2” from 1609, seven years before his death.
Amidst poets you’ve probably never heard of there are also many recognizable names. Powell’s “corydon & alexis, redux” from 2009.īurt and Mikics have chosen highly intriguing examples in the sonnet’s long history, and the essays are generally urbane and highly informative. The range is wide and mostly from poets writing in English, from Thomas Wyatt’s 1557 sonnet “Whoso list to hunt” to D. Stephen Burt and David Mikics, both English professors (Burt at Harvard, Mikics at the University of Houston), have here created a most ambitious literary compendium, providing a brief history of this form of poetry before launching full steam into their main presentation: one hundred sonnets, each with an evaluative essay by either professor.
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