This post via the Interesting Literature blog caught my attention because I love a good sonnet. A well-written sonnet is a thing of beauty.
I have long been an admirer of the form, and have recommended poems such as John Keats’ ‘When I Have Fears’, John Donne’s ‘Death, Be Not Proud’ or Charles Best’s ’Sonnet of the Moon’ on my blog before. Shakespeare wrote some magnificent sonnets, and Philip Sidney wrote the story of ‘Astrophil and Stella’ in a sequence of 108 sonnets, which is extraordinary!
Sonnets are hard to write. There are rhyme and rhythm patterns that one must observe and maintain, which force the poet to refine and craft their words meticulously so that no nuances of meaning are lost in the interests of obeying the rules.
I have written one sonnet of which I am very proud.
I have also written several others which are pretty rubbish, and therefore will never publish them. I firmly believe that their value lies in the learning and the practice, rather than in the reading. Failure can, after all, be a most effective instructor.
I hope you enjoy the poems this post has to offer, and find yourself more informed about the beauty and complexity of the sonnet when you leave it than when you arrived.
***
10 Classic Examples of the Sonnet Form via Interesting Literature
The sonnet form is one of the oldest and most popular poetic forms in European literature, having been invented in the thirteenth century and used since by poets as varied as Petrarch, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Tony Harrison, Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage. Below, we offer […]
Source: 10 Classic Examples of the Sonnet Form – Interesting Literature
WordyNerdBird 