This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Since its inception in the thirteenth century, the sonnet has proven to be one of the most enduring poetic forms in western literary history and beyond. Associated, since Petrarch, in particular with love poetry, more recent transformations of the sonnet have not only explored new thematic ground but have continued a constant process of experimentation and innovation within the formal constraints of the genre. In this module, the poetic form of the sonnet will be explored from its very beginnings to the present day. Moreover, sonnet cycles, such as Shakespeare's or Rilke’s, will be studied as examples of the thematically guided expansion of the form. In addition to the printed poetic texts, attention will also be given (where applicable) to their artistic transformation in the visual arts, performance, and music. Sonnets to be studied will include samples by poets such as Petrarch, Ronsard, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Gryphius, Lermontov, Borges, and Rilke as well as lesser known and more unconventional poems.
One weekly two-hour seminar for ten weeks
100% coursework
Indicative List:
Giacomo da Lentini
Petrarch (i.e. Francesco Petrarca)
Thomas Wyatt
Pierre de Ronsard
Edmund Spenser
Michelangelo Buonarroti
William Shakespeare
John Milton
Andreas Gryphius
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Christina Rossetti
Rainer Maria Rilke
Mikhail Lermontov
Jorge Luis Borges
Seamus Heaney
Brian Clark
Cousins, A. D. and Peter Howarth. The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet. Cambridge: CUP, 2011.
John Fuller. The Sonnet. London: Methuen, 1972.
Phelan, J. P. The Nineteenth-century Sonnet. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
Spiller, Michael R. G. The Development of the Sonnet: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1992.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
Upon successful completion of the module students will have:
1. achieved a systematic and critical understanding of the stylistic, conceptual, and formal aspects of the sonnet as a specific and hugely influential poetic form in its development across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts.
2. acquired systematic knowledge, through close reading and textual analysis, of a representative corpus of sonnets from different historical and cultural contexts.
3. gained a critical understanding of the way in which the production, reception, and circulation of poetry is shaped by different historical contexts.
4. attained a critical understanding of the sonnet in comparison to other poetic forms.
5. acquired a systematic and critical understanding of key literary terms, concepts, and theories, including metre, rhetorical devices, translation, reception and the canon.
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