The are three basic varieties of English sonnet, Italian/Petrarchan,
Spenserian, and English/Shakesperean.  Although all three have 14 lines
they differ in their structure and thus in the way a theme is developed.

Ignoring minor variations, the Italian sonnet has 8 lines (the 'octet')
followed by six lines (the 'sestet') with the following rhyme scheme:

     {abbaabba} {cdecde or cdcdcd}

The structure allows for a pronounced "turn" at the sestet and a marked
contrast in the way the theme is handled.

The Spenserian and Shakesperean sonnets have three quatrains and a
concluding couplet, the former having a more demanding and involuted rhyme
scheme.

Spenserian:        abab bcbc cdcd ee
Shakespearean:  abab cdcd efef gg

The theme progresses in defined stages and the concluding couplet tends to
invite aphoristic perspective or an emphatic closing statement.

I'd call the poem by Williams a 'departure' from strict English sonnet
form.  "The Lonely Street" employs a much looser variable foot (English
sonnet uses iambic pentameter) and it does not use end-rhyme. In structure,
however, it resembles the English sonnet.

I don't recall Williams inveighing against the sestina.

Tim Romano




At 04:50 AM 2/9/03, Shinji Watanabe wrote:
>I'd like to know what is the crucial point of the sonnet:
>Number of syllables? Rhyme? Fourteen lines? Or anything else?
>
>How about W.C.Williams' "The Lonely Street" in page 20
>of Selected Poems of WCW (New Direction Paperbook)?
>It has fourteen lines; is it a sonnet?
>
>And did WCW inveigh against sestina?
>
>-------------
>-------------
>Do you not see now why I have been inveighing against the sonnet all these
>years? And why it has been so violently defended?  Because it is a form
>which does not admit of the slightest structural change in its composition.
>  -- WCW, The Poem as a Field of Action
>
>Tim Romano
>
>--
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