The Sonnet

Catalog description

For some, the sonnet form epitomized a revolution – the shift from a communal world of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, a rebirth of the individual. The fourteen-line form, with its not-quite-mid-poem shift of direction, revealed and, for some, may even have created modern mind in its depiction of torturous action. We will examine its origins in love poetry and its very different modern uses, attentive to the politics of the form and its technical aspects, as well as how it has seemed to define kinds of people and kinds times. We will also attend to dissenting voices that question the sonnet’s uniqueness and its place in apparently transformative movements.