Abstract

Sonnets written in the Shakespearean or Petrarchan form are both assumed to present and then answer a problem, but they do so in different ways. The two forms have different rhyming schemes. The volta or turn is predicted to occur between lines 12 and 13 in the first and lines 8 and 9 in the second form. It is argued that sound in poetry is emotionally communicative (symbolic), especially when the predominance of Harsh (e.g., t, r) over Gentle (e.g., l, m) sounds is considered. An analysis of the sounds (phonemes) in various exemplars of the two forms (N=285 sonnets) was undertaken. Shakespeare’s sonnets represented his form and those of a variety of authors represented the Petrarchan form. Predominant Harshness was the dependent variable in a design which compared line and form. There were significant effects associated with line, form, and their interaction (p<.05). Shakespeare’s sonnets, had a lower predominant Harshness than the Petrarchan sonnets. Both Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets exhibited a major drop in predominant Harshness (a volta) between lines 8 and 9. Both began on a gentle note, increased in predominant Harshness as problems were being expounded, and returned to a gentler note for their endings. Only Shakespearean sonnets had a spike in harshness in the third quatrain, suggesting that the author was still unfolding problems rather than resolving them there.

Highlights

  • 1.1 The Sound Structure of SonnetsThis research examines sonnets in terms of their sound structure. Fuller (2011) emphasized the immediate experience of poetry and stressed the importance of both sound (p. 76) and emotional engagement (p. 16) in the reading of sonnets

  • This paper examines sound distributions in the sonnets of Shakespeare himself and those of several poets who wrote in the Petrarchan form (Donne, Milton, Petrarch’s translator MacGregor, Barrett Browning, & St Vincent Millay) in an attempt to locate voltas within the sonnets

  • The sound analysis of the poem is coherent with this analysis of its verbal contents. In this data set Shakespearean sonnets were represented by Shakespeare’s own 154 sonnets which were published in 1609. These were downloaded from Project Gutenberg. (Note 3) Petrarchan sonnets were represented by 131 sonnets written by five authors who wrote at different times and with different themes

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Summary

Introduction

1.1 The Sound Structure of SonnetsThis research examines sonnets in terms of their sound structure. Fuller (2011) emphasized the immediate experience of poetry and stressed the importance of both sound (p. 76) and emotional engagement (p. 16) in the reading of sonnets. Approaching the issue of poetic appreciation from a different perspective, Skinner (1941) took a rigorous behavioural stance to the analysis of poetry which involved an examination of its sound patterns. Combining these viewpoints, Whissell (2017) identified the location of emotional turns in Shakespeare’s sonnets on the basis of their sound patterns. This article aims to demonstrate that sounds (phonemes), which convey emotional information, are an important cue to poetic form especially for highly structured poems such as sonnets. Sonnets present a problem and resolve it. (Note 1) Of special interest within a sonnet is the volta or turn, which is assumed to occur between the presentation of the problem and its resolution, and the predicted location of this turn in Petrarchan and Shakespearean forms

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