Cover art for Considering the Sonnet: An Argumentum ad Antiquitatem by Jeeho

Considering the Sonnet: An Argumentum ad Antiquitatem

Considering the Sonnet: An Argumentum ad Antiquitatem Lyrics

       An analytic mind approaching poetry will inevitably encounter the sonnet form and ask, “Why?” The sonnet is limiting in that it demands a particular meter, rhyme scheme and most importantly, fourteen lines, so it might seem odd that a poet would choose to restrict herself in that way. But the sonnet also carries a tradition that creates wonderful opportunities. Sonnets have existed for around 750 years and have been written in English for about 450. Not many traditions have such popular longevity, much less cohere around such a strict form. And the sonnet is just that: Tradition.

       The Tradition began with Dante’s Vita Nuova and Petrarch’s Canzoniere in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Petrarch is especially famous for pining after his muse, Laura, thereby establishing love as the traditional subject for sonnets. No poet can write a sonnet today without being aware of that Tradition, whether they conform to it and write about their long lost love or write about their love of nature with the same intensity.

       One early example of a poet who opted for the traditional love sonnet is sixteenth century Scottish sonneteer Alexander Montgomerie. His poem “To His Maistress” embodies the traditional English sonnet in every way: its rhyme scheme is ababcdcdefefgg, it’s in iambic pentameter, it deals with love, and its lyrical sounds convey Montgomerie’s admiration—“That evin my lyfe within thy lippis I left.”

       But with time, poets began using the sonnet to consider topics other than love, like the passage of time and death. Take Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73.” The obvious subject is still love— the poem’s purpose is to convince someone “to love that well which thou must leave ere long.” Yet even in that line explicitly about love, we find ourselves considering not only love, but its relation to death. In fact, most of the lines are devoted to describing the speaker’s age and not his love at all.

       If Shakespeare snuck other topics into traditional romance, Donne snuck romance into other topics with his sonnets in the early seventeenth century. “Batter my heart, three personed God” is a great example because Donne begs God to affect his life using interesting sexual language, saying he would not “be ever chaste, except you ravish me.” Notice that while Donne dealt with a religious topic, he recognized the sonnet tradition by including diction that would normally be reserved for romantic love.

       But the sonnet Tradition isn’t always so apparent. In the nineteenth century, Romantic poets like Wordsworth used sonnets to discuss just about anything. In “The world is too much with us,” Wordsworth laments people’s disconnect with nature with all the passion of a lover: “It moves us not. — Great God!” This sonnet’s relationship with the Tradition moves beyond the subject matter. Although Wordsworth doesn’t consider romance, he takes the sonnet’s passion and stateliness and directs it toward an outcry about nature. And it works.

       By the twentieth century, it’s impossible to trace trends in the sonnet due to how variously the form is used. Although Wordsworth’s shift from the subject of love was radical for his time, he still kept the sonnet’s rhyme scheme and meter. But this is often not the case after the nineteenth century. Consider Bishop’s “Sonnet.” Every poem considered thus far has maintained iambic pentameter lines with some set rhyme scheme— not so with this poem. In fact, it comprises short lines and only two rhymes. One line has only one word: “undecided.” But Bishop wouldn’t have written a sonnet if she didn’t want to enter a relationship with the Tradition. And we see the connection with tradition in her subject matter in that she considers sexual orientation. Further, the sonnet is lyrical by the end of it, proclaiming, “gay!” This is not to say that the twentieth century ended the traditional sonnet. Robert Frost’s “The Silken Tent,” for example, complies with just about every characteristic of a traditional sonnet, even throwing in an intricate conceit as a nod to metaphysical poets like Donne.

       The point is that the sonnet offers poets the opportunity to enter a relationship with a Tradition that no other form can offer. As soon as a reader sees those fourteen lines, countless tiny associations with the Tradition start blazing in her mind. And that’s why people write and read sonnets. Although I think the form is justified both aesthetically as well as historically (Traditionally), the aesthetics of it are often reduced to different preferences— tomāto, tomato. But the Tradition is undeniable.

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Genius Annotation

On the grand tradition of lyric poetry’s most famous form.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Comments