Italian and English sonnet in comparison

Questo appunto di letteratura inglese per le scuole è un approfondimento dettagliato sulla differenza tra le due forse del sonetto, quella italiana e quella inglese, con un’analisi delle differenze stilistiche e strutturali e dei poeti più famosi che hanno reso questa forma poetica così famosa.

The sonnet - History and differences in typology

The poetic form of the sonnet was born in Italy, probably by Jacopo da Lentini, but it is with Petrarch that it reaches the highest level of poetry. From Petrarch onwards, most poets re-elaborate that formless matter and consonant with expressing their own interiority which is the sonnet. This form, composed of 14 verses divided into quatrains and triplets, arrives in contexts completely different from that of birth and each time comes out regenerated. Many poets have used the sonnet openly declaring their adherence to Petrarch, just think of Luis de Gòngora in Spain during the Siglo de oro up to the most recent Ungaretti in Italy. Others, while using this poetic form, have always been accused of antipetrarchism such as Shakespeare.

Petrarch’s influence on Shakespeare

The sonnet from Italy arrived gradually in England, land of poets and lovers of Italian art and literature. It is not surprising that both Shakespeare, fascinated by the sonnets of Petrarch, has tried to make this form famous and also used in England. In this way, thanks to the influence of Petrarch on the artistic genius of Shakespeare, he allowed the spread of the genre on British soil and led to the birth of one of the most studied works in English, the Shakespearean sonnets. Some historians point out that the bard began to write these compositions in the 1990s of the sixteenth century, making an important contribution to a form that existed in that context for just over fifty years.
Shortly after, In fact, the one who imported the sonnet in the first half of the 500s was the diplomat Sir Thomas Wyatt to whom we owe the introduction of the final couplet rhymed that changes the structure of the sonnet, "making it tends towars a neat conclusion in the final two lines". After him, many tried their hand at writing and at the same time helped to adapt this poetic form more and more to the language in which it had arrived, among all must be remembered Henry Howard who invented the scheme rhyming the typical English sonnet: 14 lines divided into two quatrains and two tercets:

• abab cdcd efef gg

Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella collection, the name of the poet, allowed the sonnet to be widely distributed, which became fashionable.

Stylistic and thematic differences between the two forms of sonnet

After many centuries, the shape of the sonnet has clearly undergone major stylistic changes. Can we therefore still speak of a continuity between Petrarch (Italian sonnet) and Shakespeare (English sonnet)? Despite what seem to be huge differences, a deep sense of continuity emerges between the Chansonnier and the collection of the English poet. What differentiates the two forms of sonnet are the formal evolutions that the genre has undergone and that become emblematic from time to time of the style of the author who composes them. What is striking about the original evolution of the sonnet, however, is more thematic than structural. The ability to play with themes of the genre, reversing them, connects the work of the bard not only with Petrarch but also with other great poets of world literature such as Dante. Any poetic work plays with conventions known to a given audience, the ability to be able to rework those conventions for another audience in another society and what most of all amazes. This mechanism is present in Shakespeare’s work that, starting from topoi petrarcheschi, expands the thematic conventions and arrives at new creative solutions.But how did the themes of the sonnet evolve in the passage between Petrarch and Shakespeare?
The first sonnets, produced on the basis of Petrarch’s translations, had at the center the love theme, dear to the poet and to his time. In the English sonnet, the continuity in the stylistic form is there, it is the themes that evolve towards a real betrayal of the canons of Petrarch’s love opera. The woman is no longer idealized but only desired and loved.
Another difference lies in the perception of poetry: the center of Petrarch’s lyric is the inner life of the poet himself, who speaks of his suffering and does so with the use of words belonging to the semantic field of suffering. For the Elizabethan poet, however, the main concern seems to be not so much the survival of the beauty of the beloved, as the immortality of his poetry. In the history of English literature, the sonnet then dealt with the most disparate themes: from the classic theme of love to metaletterary reflection, from Keats' romantic sonnets to Milton’s social and political criticism, until the War Poets, with their denunciation of the trauma of the First World War.

Differences in the structure of poems

Another substantial difference concerns the structure of poetry and the division in syllables. An Italian sonnet has an octet of 8 verses and a sextet of 6 verses, for a total of 14 verses. An English sonnet has 3 quatrains of 4 verses and a couplet of 2 verses, always for a total of 14 verses.

• Italian sonnet 4 + 4 + 3 + 3
• English sonnet 4 + 4 + 4 + 2

In the Italian sonnet, the two initial quatrains are followed by two final tercets, in which the knot presented in the two previous stanzas is untied. The English sonnet, on the other hand, transforms the fourteen verses of the sonnet into three quatrains and a final couplet. It is what is commonly called English sonnet, which differs substantially for this reason from the Italian sonnet. However, the way in which poetic matter is treated does not change much: in the first two quatrains the initial problematic situation is presented, the third represents a sort of resolution with the final couplet that comes to a conclusion. In the final couplet, of presents a general situation, which vs beyond the story narrated and gives a valid epilogue as a moral.

Per ulteriori approfondimenti sui sonetti vedi anche qua.