Overview

"Few poetic forms have found more uses than the sonnet in English, and none is now more recognizable. It is one of the longest-lived of verse forms, and one of the briefest. A mere fourteen lines, fashioned by intricate rhymes, it is, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti called it, 'a moment's monument'. From the Renaissance to the present, the sonnet has given poets a superb vehicle for private contemplation, introspection, and the expression of passionate feelings and thoughts. ""The Art of the Sonnet"" collects one hundred exemplary sonnets of the English language (and a few sonnets in translation), representing highlights in the history of the sonnet, accompanied by short commentaries on each of the poems. The commentaries by Stephen Burt and David Mikics offer new perspectives and insights, and, taken together, demonstrate the enduring as well as changing nature of the sonnet. The authors serve as guides to some of the most-celebrated sonnets in English as well as less-well-known gems by nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets. Also included is a general introductory essay, in which the authors examine the sonnet form and its long and fascinating history, from its origin in medieval Sicily to its English appropriation in the sixteenth century to sonnet writing today in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other English-speaking parts of the world."

Full Product Details

9780674048140

Table of Contents

Reviews

Burt and Mikics have written an illuminating text that promises many hours of reading pleasure and greater understanding of this poetic form. -- Susan L. Peters Library Journal 20100401 While this anthology would make a wonderful textbook for a prosody class, its best audience may be anyone who wants to delve deeply into the heart of poetry. Learned as well as passionate, this book is a delight. Publishers Weekly (starred review) 20100419 Stephen Burt and David Mikics give us a carefully selected set of 100 sonnets, spanning 1557 to 2009, each with a compact companion essay. Their aim is to present a partial history of the sonnet form. But that puts it too modestly. With their selection of poems and their (mostly) compelling essays, Burt and Mikics manage to give a vivid sense of the sonnet in English as a living, organic thing, interconnected and evolving through time...It's the essays that really distinguish this volume...Many of these essays are models of how to write about a poem, especially one centuries old. If you like to get under the hood of a poem and poke around at its inner mechanics, to see what makes it go, then the more technical parts of these essays won't disappoint. But they're not just technical: They strike an appealing balance of historical, biographical, and textual analysis, while remaining, for the most part, accessible. -- Wen Stephenson Boston Globe 20100502 Newcomers to poetry and longtime readers alike will find this a rich and rewarding volume. -- Lauren Winner Books & Culture 20100505 [A] handsome collection of 100 sonnets...It is to the credit of the compilers of this fine anthology that they manage to mount persuasive (and mercifully jargon-free) arguments that even poems as idiosyncratic as [Les Murray's] Strangler Fig reflect the venerable and seemingly inexhaustible traditions of the sonnet. -- Andrew Riemer Sydney Morning Herald 20100508

Author Information

Stephen Burt is Associate Professor of English at Harvard. David Mikics is Professor of English at the University of Houston.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available