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Conrad
DiDiodato
WRITERS of sonnet verse have a fairly established tradition to draw models from
(though, as in the case of Katherine L. Gordon and Joan McGuire's renga "A Conjunction of Hearts,"
the strictures of sonnet form have been purposely discarded in the interests of a more graceful, unhampered lyrical movement). By definition the standard sonnet is a lyric poem comprising of fourteen iambic pentameter lines, with only rhyme patterns and stanza arrangements to distinguish between the traditional three main sonnet
types:
the Petrarchan, English and Spenserian.
There is, of course, nothing absolute about this verse form. Among the great modern poets to use,
to
great
effect,
a variant of any of the three traditional sonnets
are Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas and Joseph Brodsky.
Sonneteers in the
WHCpoetrybridge Sonnets section will use one of the following main patterns: (a) the
Petrarchan
sonnet
opens
with
an
octave (eight lines) with a b b a
a b b a rhymes and
a
concluding sestet (six lines) with its c d e
c d e or c d c
c d c rhymes; (b) the English sonnet is
constructed
of three quatrains (four lines each) and a concluding couplet, with a rhyming scheme of a b a b c
d
c
d e f
e
f g
g; and there is the interesting Spenserian variation in which the quatrains are interconnected by a
b
a
b
b
c
b
c
c
d
c
d
e e rhyming pattern. It is customary to grapple with a problem of some sort—ranging from the romantic to the intensely personal and spiritual—in the sonnet's opening octave, with resolution (or perhaps resignation to the lack of one) reserved for the sonnet's closing sestet.
The sonnet is a highly disciplined verse requiring patience and some metrical ingenuity. But it is also, after the final revised copy has been written, one of the most satisfying literary genres to engage a poet's hand.
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