In the following century, it became an established poetical form, and, in the master hands of Petrarch, Cavalcanti, and Dante, it attained the pinnacle of perfection. The sonnet was first written, in about 1230 or 1240, by Giacomo de Lentino, a Sicilian lawyer at the court of Frederick II. The term ‘sonnet has come from the Italian ‘sonnetto’ (‘suono’ sound, a song).
(2) The English sonnet comprising four quatrains and a couplet has two major versions, the Spenserian form in which the quatrains are linked by rhyme, thus preserving the Italian restriction to five rhymes (ababbcbccdcdee), and the Shakespearian scheme of seven rhymes in which the quatrains remain unlinked (ababcdcdefefgg). English practitioners of this form, notably John Milton and William Wordsworth, have sometimes adapted it to allow a third rhyme in the octave (abbaacca) and a ‘turn’ in a later position around the tenth line. (1) The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet begins with an octave using two rhymes (abbaabba), followed by a sestet with two or three further rhymes (either cdeded or cdecde), with a pause or redirection in the thought (called the ‘turn’ or volta) after the octave. The rhyme schemes of the sonnet have also varied, but fall into two basic patterns. The term may be applied to poems of different lengths ranging from ten-and-a-half lines in some sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins to sixteen in those of George Meredith and Tony Harrison and some sonnets by Philip Sidney and others have been composed in alexandrines, but the widely accepted standard is fourteen pentameters. Some have succeed others have not quite captured the true meaning of the word.Sonnet is a short rhyming lyric poem, usually of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. Other poets like Shakespeare have attempted to define love. It is invaluable in the differentiation between love and lust. Shakespeare Sonnet 116 can be used as a standard for love, and how we understand the term itself. The same evaluation can be made for Paris and Helen or for any love ever written about. You could argue that Gatsby was in love with what he couldn’t have, but he loved her until the edge of doom. His love didn’t sway in the tempest it was never shaken. When Daisy hits the other woman with Gatsby’s car, he takes the blame and continues to love her. He doesn’t alter when he finds alteration in her. He doesn’t change from girl to girl he is always trying to get Daisy’s attention. Looking back at the examples discussed previously, compare the love of Gatsby and Daisy with the requirements Shakespeare gives. It last until the very last breath you …show more content… Shakespeare defines love in a clear and easily understood way. Shakespeare tells us love “bears it out even to the edge of doom.” What he means by this is that true love endures all the way until the end. Love isn’t true if it ends when you face a hard time or difficulty in the relationship. Love faces difficulties and isn’t shaken. He helps us understand what love is when he says that it “looks on tempests and is never shaken.” This means that love isn’t true love until it faces challenges. Similarly Shakespeare compares love to the North Star when he says, “It is the star to every wandering bark.” It doesn’t move it is constant.
Donne makes the same point in his Valediction: A Forbidding Mourning, comparing his love to a compass with a fixed point, necessary for making a circle. You don’t fall out of love with people, not if its true love. They both sacrifice …show more content… Shakespeare says, “It is an ever-fixed mark.” Again saying it doesn’t change with the physical stuff. He loved another man’s wife and wanted her badly. Did Paris really love Helen, or did he just want her? Gatsby is in almost the same situation. A lot of time the relationships can be described as purely lustful. The relationships between men and women have taken many forms.
From the Great Gatsby, and Daisy and Gatsby tragic love to Paris and Helen in the Iliad, we see the attempts of great writers to emulate the least understood word in all of history. Many have struggled to capture the true meaning of the word. (A discussion of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 and the definition of love it provides) Love and lust has been the muse for writers throughout history.