The Sonnet its Origin Structure and Place in Poetry

By Charles Tomlinson and Charles Tomlinson

Book Overview

Why does a fourteen-line poem still command such power across centuries and languages? In this poetry criticism classic, Charles Tomlinson traces the sonnet from its Italian beginnings to its flowering in European and English poetry, revealing how strict structure can carry intense feeling and thought. The sonnet still matters today. With calm authority and exact scholarship, he offers a sonnet history overview that explains the origin of the sonnet, its evolving rhyme schemes and metres, and the distinct voices of Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets. Blending poetic form and theory, Tomlinson gives readers a clear sonnet form guide and sonnet structure analysis that illuminates why this compact shape has become a touchstone for love, devotion, argument and reflection. Ideal as a poetry students reference and for literature teachers, this study of Italian sonnets and their many descendants speaks equally to curious general readers. Tomlinson writes as a Victorian man of letters, offering 19th century poetry criticism that remains strikingly accessible, balancing close attention to technique with a lively sense of historical change and cultural context. His exploration ranges from early Italian innovators to major English practitioners, always asking how each poet bends or obeys the inherited form. Out of print for decades and now republished by Alpha Editions. Restored for today's and future generations. More than a reprint - a collector's item and a cultural treasure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 935360589X
• ISBN13: 9789353605896
• Release Date: March 2019
• Publisher: Alpha Edition
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"