Editing Sonnet (section)

====Tudor and Stuart period====

[[Sir Thomas Wyatt]] and [[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]], have been described as "the first English Petrarchans" from their pioneering the sonnet form in English. In addition, some 25 of Wyatt's poems are dependent on Petrarch, either as translations or imitations, while, of Surrey's five, three of them are translations and two imitations.<ref>Patricia Thomson, ''Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Background'', Routledge, 1964, pp. 166–208.</ref> In one instance, both poets translated the same poem, ''Rime'' 140.<ref>Bruce A. McMenomy, [https://www.dorthonion.com/drmcm/english_lit/supplementary/petrarch.html "Petrarch, Rime 140: Two translations by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey".]</ref> From these examples, as elsewhere in their prosodic practice, a difference between their style can be observed. Wyatt's verse metre, though in general decasyllabic, is irregular and proceeds by way of significantly stressed phrasal units.<ref>Peter Groves, [https://www.academia.edu/11950890/Finding_his_Feet_Wyatt_and_the_Founding_of_English_Pentameter "Finding his Feet: Wyatt and the Founding of English Pentameter"], ''Versification: An Electronic Journal of Literary Prosody'' 4 (2005).</ref> But, in addition, Wyatt's sonnets are generally closer in construction to those of Petrarch.

Prosodically, Surrey is more adept at composing in [[iambic pentameter]] and his sonnets are written in what has come to be known anachronistically as [[Shakespeare's sonnets#Form and structure of the sonnets|Shakespearean measure]].<ref>Thomson 1964, pp. 174–79.</ref> This version of the sonnet form, characterised by three alternately rhymed quatrains terminating in a final couplet (ABAB CDCD, EFEF, GG), became the favourite during [[Elizabethan literature|Elizabethan times]], when it was widely used. It was particularly so in whole series of [[Sonnet sequence#List of English sonnet sequences|amatory sequences]], beginning with Sir [[Philip Sidney]]'s ''[[Astrophel and Stella]]'' (1591) and continuing over a period of two decades. About four thousand sonnets were composed during this time.<ref>''The Art of the Sonnet'', 2010, p. 12.</ref> However, with such a volume, much there that was conventional and repetitious came to be viewed with a sceptical eye. [[Sir John Davies]] mocked these in a series of nine "gulling sonnets"<ref>[https://www.pseudopodium.org/repress/parody/davies-gulling-sonnets.html Gulling Sonnets] by Mr Davyes.</ref> and [[William Shakespeare]] was also to dismiss some of them in his [[Sonnet 130]], "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun".

[[File:Sonnets1609titlepage.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|The title page of the first edition of [[Shakespeare]]'s ''Sonnets'']]
[[Shakespeare's sonnets|Shakespeare's sequence of 154 sonnets]] departs from the norm in addressing more than one person in its course, male as well as female. In addition, other sonnets by him were incorporated into some of his plays. Another exception at this time was the form used in [[Spenserian sonnet|Edmund Spenser's ''Amoretti'']], which has the interlaced rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. And soon after, in the following century, [[John Donne]] adapted the emerging Baroque style to the new subject matter of his series of ''[[Holy Sonnets]]''.

[[John Milton]]'s sonnets constitute a special case and demonstrate another stylistic transition. Two youthful examples in English and five in Italian are Petrarchan in spirit. But the seventeen sonnets of his maturity address personal and political themes. It has been observed of their intimate tone, and the way the sense overrides the volta within the poem in some cases, that Milton is here adapting the sonnet form to that of the [[Odes (Horace)|Horatian ode]].<ref>John H. Finley, Jr., "Milton and Horace: A Study of Milton's Sonnets", ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', Vol. 48 (1937), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/310690?refreqid=excelsior%3A55b1e11b22c4e368c0ac5f49332ef7c3&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contentsnow=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A18772fefad4336e1c8f88b1f635de51a&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents pp. 29–73.]</ref> He also seems to have been the first to introduce an Italian variation of the form, the [[caudate sonnet]], into English in his prolongation of "On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament".<ref>"Caudate sonnet", ''The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics'', ed. Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, Princeton University Press, 1993.</ref>