{"product_id":"elizabethan-sonnet-cycles-phillis-licia-gb-18841","title":"Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles: Phillis - Licia","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eElizabethan Sonnet Cycles: Phillis - Licia\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe last decade of the sixteenth century was marked by an outburst of\r\nsonneteering. To devotees of the sonnet, who find in that poetic form\r\nthe moat perfect vehicle that has ever been devised for the expression\r\nof a single importunate emotion, it will not seem strange that at the\r\nthreshold of a literary period whose characteristic note is the most\r\nintense personality, the instinct of poets should have directed them to\r\nthe form most perfectly fitted for the expression of this inner motive.\nThe sonnet, a distinguished guest from Italy, was ushered to by those\r\ntwo \"courtly makers,\" Wyatt and Surrey, in the days of Henry VIII. But\r\nwhen, forty years later, the foreigner was to be acclimatised in\r\nEngland, her robe had to be altered to suit an English fashion. Thus\r\nthe[Pg vi] sonnet, which had been an octave of enclosed or alternate rhymes,\r\nfollowed by a sestette of interlaced tercets, was now changed to a\r\nseries of three quatrains with differing sets of alternate rhymes in\r\neach, at the close of which the insidious couplet succeeded in\r\nestablishing itself. But these changes were not made without a great\r\ndeal of experiment; and during the tentative period the name \"sonnet\"\r\nwas given, to a wide variety of forms, in the moulding of which but one\r\nrule seemed to be uniformly obeyedthat the poem should be the\r\nexpression of a single, simple emotion. This law cut the poem, to a\r\nrelative shortness and defined its dignity and clearness. Beyond this\r\nalmost every combination of rhymes might be found, verses were\r\noccasionally lengthened or shortened, and the number of lines in the\r\npoem, though generally fourteen, showed considerable variation.\nThe sonnet-sequence was also a suggestion from Italy, a literary fashion\r\nintroduced by Sir Philip Sidney, in his Astrophel and Stella, written\r\nsoon after 1580, but not published till 1591. In a sonnet-cycle Sidney\r\nrecorded his love and sorrow,[Pg vii] and Spenser took up the strain with his\r\nstory of love and joy. Grouped about these, and following in their wake,\r\na number of poets, before the decade was over, turned this Elizabethan\r\n\"toy\" to their purpose in their various self-revealings, producing a\r\ngroup of sonnet-cycles more or less Italianate in form or thought, more\r\nor less experimental, more or less poetical, more or less the expression\r\nof a real passion. For while the form of the sonnet was modified by\r\nmetrical traditions and habits, the content also was strongly\r\ninfluenced, not to say restricted, by certain conventions of thought\r\nconsidered at the time appropriate to the poetic attitude. The passion\r\nfor classic colour in the poetic world, which had inspired and\r\ndisciplined English genius in the sixties and seventies, was rather\r\nnourished than repressed when in the eighties Spenser's Shepherd's\r\nCalendar and Sidney's Arcadia made the pastoral imagery a necessity.\r\nCupid and Diana were made very much at home in the golden world of the\r\nrenaissance Arcadia, and the sonneteer singing the praises of his\r\nmistress's eyebrow was not far removed from the lovelorn shepherd of the\r\nplains.[Pg viii]\n\u003cb\u003e ......Buy Now (To Read More)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eProduct details\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEbook Number\u003c\/b\u003e: 18841 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor\u003c\/b\u003e: Fletcher, Giles \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRelease Date\u003c\/b\u003e: Jul 16, 2006 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat\u003c\/b\u003e: eBook \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage\u003c\/b\u003e: English \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eContributors\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eContributor (Author)\u003c\/b\u003e: Lodge, Thomas, 1558?-1625 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEditor\u003c\/b\u003e: Crow, Martha Foote, 1854-1924 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Fletcher, Giles,1549?-1611 \/ eBook \/ English","offer_id":43217564631197,"sku":"gb-18841-ebook","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/products\/18841.jpg?v=1671438201","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/elizabethan-sonnet-cycles-phillis-licia-gb-18841","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}