Is the Sonnet Also an American Art Form? David Bromwich Says Yes

The sonnet form of poetry has been with us since the 14^th century. We’re not sure who may have created it, but it was Petrarch (1300-1374) who made it popular. In the early 1500s, Sir Thomas Wyatt brought the Petrarchan sonnet to England, with his broadly popular translations as well as some of his own.  

But it was William Shakespeare who made the love sonnet a staple of English literature. He adapted the form of the Petrarchan sonnet and gave it a distinctly English cast. John Milton and Edmund Spenser modified Shakespeare’s forms, but it was the sonnets of the bard that we think of today when someone says “sonnet.”

 

David Bromwich, professor of English at Yale University, assembled a volume of sonnets that demonstrate what happened to the poetic form once it jumped the ocean. First published in 2007, the appropriately titled American Sonnetscovers roughly two centuries of composition of sonnets, including some by authors we might not have known were poets.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Elegy in September – 4 poems by Kerry O’Connor at Skylover.

 

From Contemplations – poem by Anne Bradstreet at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Death Musings – poem by Jeff Kemper at Society of Classical Poets.