that sounds revolta
On 10/14/07, TheOldMole <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> An Upper or Lower Volta?
>
> Robin Hamilton wrote:
> > Janet:
> >
> >>> I have a book somewhere that claims sonnets should have
> >>> a "volta", a twist at about line 9, but I don't see that
> >>> in this one.
> >
> > That's a bit like the sonnet equivalent of the veriform appendix.
> > When sonnets were real (written in Italian or French as English didn't
> > have sufficient rhyming words) the metrical structure was:
> >
> > abbaabba cde cde
> >
> > There, the volta after the eighth line was built-in, virtually
> > demanded by the rhyming structure.
> >
> > When the form became corrupted, not a real sonnet, initiated in this
> > variety by Henry Howard Earl of Surrey (except he failed to register
> > the tradmark so it became known as the English Sonnet, sometimes the
> > Shakespearean Sonnt -- le vice anglais) the rhyming pattern changed to:
> >
> > abab cdcd efef gg
> >
> > Now, you *can (obviously) have a volta after line eight in this form,
> > but it's no longer structurally necessary.
> >
> > Except, of course, Nice People Don't Do Things Like That (write
> > sonnets without a volta between the octave and sestet, as bad as not
> > putting on a tie while dressing for dinner).
> >
> > Which leaves the question of the exact status of a fourteen line poem
> > based on an octave/sestet structure vs. a rhymed fourteen line poem
> > without a volta.
> >
> > Oo la la!
> >
> > Rodent
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
Roman Proverb
|