Sonnet links

The sonnet (Petrarchan, Shakespearean or Spenserian) defined, in our glossary of poetic forms.

The sonnet is a fixed poetic form, confined to 14 lines, but it has paradoxically proven to be a most flexible container for all kinds of poetic ideas. Here’s our collection of classic sonnets, arranged chronologically to reveal the evolution of the sonnet form in English.

Helen Vendler’s smart and lovely commentary on these best-loved lyric poems in the English language was published by Harvard University Press in 1997. Richard Howard’s review in The New York Times calls her book the most intricately inquiring and ingeniously responding study of these poems yet to be undertaken, and includes a reprint of the first chapter.

Sweet Briar College Spanish Professor Alex Ingber offers a collection of 101 English verse translations of sonnets from the Golden Age of Spanish poetry (16th century)—from such poets as Lope de Vega & Miguel de Cervantes.

Billed as “a poetic fiction by James Louis Carcioppolo,” this book pretends to be a collection of 57 sonnets written by the original Cyrano de Bergerac: you can read the story of how the lost sonnets came to Carcioppolo and sample sonnets from the book.

Complete texts of Shakespeare’s sonnets with descriptive commentary, plus some other Elizabethan poets as well.

Want a different one of Shakespeare’s sonnets to ponder every day? Visit killdevilhill.com to sign up for daily email service, or just bookmark the site and visit when you feel the need for a small package of Shakespeare.

Eric Blomquist’s massive and well-organized Web library is the very first place to look for sonnets new and old, English, Irish and worldwide, RealAudio readings, sonnet criticism and an extensive annotated bibliography, even a collection of sonnets about sonnets. A great site!

The texts of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous sonnets are available online through Project Gutenberg, and theres a beautiful illuminated version of the book by Phoebe Anne Traquair at the National Library of Scotland.

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lovely and very melancholy sonnets, five untitled and the sixth called “Bluebeard,” appeared at the end of her 1917 volume, Renascence and Other Poems, and are collected in our library of poems by Millay.

Howard Landman’s translation of the 55 Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke has many lovely poems like “Erect no monument / Just let the roses / blossom” (#5) and offers links to other translations for comparison.

Penn Professor Al Filreis’ Modern & Contemporary American Poetry pages include this summary discussion of the sonnet and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sonnets written on the execution of Sacco & Vanzetti.