The Making of a Sonnet

With a title like that, you might think this new book is a teaching workbook, a how-to-write-sonnets exercise. But it’s actually an anthology of sonnets in English from the 16th century, when Petrarch developed the form in Italian and Shakespeare adapted it to his own rhyme-poor English language, through its low point in the 18th century, when Samuel Johnson defined a sonnet as “a small poem” and a sonnetteer as “a small poet, in contempt,” to its revival in the 19th century by the Romantic poets, to its many contemporary variations. A worthy addition to any poet’s or poetry reader’s library:

The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology
edited and with introductions by Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland
W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.
March 2008
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There’s a good review of the book in The San Francisco Chronicle:
“Collection sings the praises of the sonnet,” by Dean Rader
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. ... The world is too much with us. ... Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?... Batter my heart, three-personed God. ... If winter comes, can Spring be far behind? ... pity this busy monster, manunkind. ... Death, be not proud. ... My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun. ... You must change your life. ... With very few exceptions, the most frequently quoted passages of poetry come from sonnets. In fact, each of the well-known phrases above derive either from the first or last lines of sonnets. Writers as diverse as William Shakespeare, John Donne, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Pablo Neruda have devoted a great deal of their poetic opus to this most resilient of forms.... A testament to this resiliency is a new collection of sonnets at the ever-expanding dinner party that is the Norton Anthology project. The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology, edited by American poet Edward Hirsch and Irish poet Eavan Boland, may not be the main course at Norton’s party, but it is a surprise treat, sort of like an amuse bouche. Though it can’t stand up to the beefier texts, at a little more than 500 pages and spanning 600 years and a dozen countries, it’s hardly a side dish.”

And you can hear Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland reading selections from the anthology and talking about sonnets, on Web radio:
On Point, hosted by Tom Ashbrook at WBUR.org, where they have also posted a PDF of the excellent introductory essays written for the book by Hirsch and Boland.

More about sonnets:
The sonnet defined, in our glossary of poetic forms
Sonnet links, collections and commentary around the Internet
“Fragile” - Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 is a poetry film single

Sonnets in our libraries here at About.com Poetry:

• Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare (1609)
• Sonnet 98 by William Shakespeare (1609)
• Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare (1609)
• “Death Be Not Proud” from Holy Sonnets by John Donne (1633)
• Sonnet 100 by Lord Brooke Fulke Greville (1633)
• “When I Consider How My Light is Spent” by John Milton (1673)
• “An Enigma” by Edgar Allan Poe (1848)
• Sonnet 14 from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850)
• Sonnet 21 from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850)
• Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850)
• Sonnet 44 from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850)
• “Sonnets are full of love” by Christina Rossetti (1881)