The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English - Softcover

Levin, Phillis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140589295 ISBN 13: 9780140589290

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2001

Synopsis

A unique anthology celebrating that most vigorous of literary forms--the sonnet

The sonnet is one of the oldest and most enduring literary forms of the post-classical world, a meeting place of image and voice, passion and reason, elegy and ode. It is a form that both challenges and liberates the poet.

For this anthology, poet and scholar Phillis Levin has gathered more than 600 sonnets to tell the full story of the sonnet tradition in the English language. She begins with its Italian origins; takes the reader through its multifaceted development from the Elizabethan era to the Romantic and Victorian; demonstrates its popularity as a vehicle of protest among writers of the Harlem Renaissance and poets who served in the First World War; and explores its revival among modern and contemporary poets. In her vibrant introduction, Levin traces this history, discussing characteristic structures and shifting themes and providing illuminating readings of individual sonnets. She includes an appendix on structure, biographical notes, and valuable explanatory notes and indexes. And, through her narrative and wide-ranging selection of sonnets and sonnet sequences, she portrays not only the evolution of the form over half a millennium but also its dynamic possibilities.

About this title

About the Author

Phillis Levin's poems have appeared in many publications and anthologies. She is author of the Norma Farber First Book Award-winning Temples and Fields, as well as The Afterimage. Phillis Levin is also the recipient of an Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, an Ingram Merrill Grant, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Slovenia, and has been a fellow at The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. She lives in New York City and currently teaches in the M.A. program in Creative Writing at Hofstra University.

Review

Of The Moon by Charles Best
Fra Banc To Banc, Fra Wod To Wod, I Rin by Mark Alexander Boyd
Muses That Sing Love's Sensual Empery by George Chapman
Needs Must I Leave And Yet Needs Must I Love by Henry Constable
Care-charmer Sleepe, Sonne Of The Sable Night by Samuel Daniel
Let Others Sing Knights And Palladines by Samuel Daniel
Looke, Delia, How Wee Steeme The Half-blowne Rose by Samuel Daniel
Although We Do Not All The Good We Love by John (1565-1618) Davies
The Author Loving These Homely Meats Specially, Viz.: Cream, Pancakes, by John (1565-1618) Davies
Some Blaze The Precious Beauties Of Their Loves by John (1565-1618) Davies
How Many Paltry, Foolish, Painted Things by Michael Drayton
Love, In A Humor, Play'd The Prodigall by Michael Drayton
Nothing But No And I, And I And No by Michael Drayton
Since Ther's No Helpe, Come Let Us Kisse And Part by Michael Drayton
Since To Obtaine Thee Nothing Me Will Sted by Michael Drayton
Sitting Alone. Love Bids Me Goe And Write by Michael Drayton
First Did I Fear, When First My Love Began, by Giles, The Elder Fletcher
That Self-same Tongue Which First Did The Entreat by George Gascoigne
The Thriftles Thred Which Pampred Beauty Spinnes, by George Gascoigne
Caelica, I Overnight Was Finely Used, by Fulke Greville
In Night When Colours All To Black Are Cast, by Fulke Greville
The Nurse-life Wheat, Within His Green Husk Growing, by Fulke Greville
Alas, So All Thinges Nowe Doe Holde Their Peace by Henry Howard
I Never Saw You, Madam, Lay Apart by Henry Howard
Love That Liveth And Reigneth In My Thought by Henry Howard
The Soote Season, That Bud And Blome Furth Bringes by Henry Howard
But Render Me My Wonted Joyes Againe by Anne Vaughan Locke
Loe Prostrate, Lorde, Before Thy Face I Lye by Anne Vaughan Locke
I Hope And Feare, I Pray And Hould My Peace by Thomas Lodge
A Secret Murder Hath Been Done Of Late by Walter Raleigh
To His Son by Walter Raleigh
A Vision Upon This Conceipt Of The Faery Queene by Walter Raleigh
Because I Breathe Not Love To Everie One by Philip Sidney
Come Sleepe, O Sleepe, The Certaine Knot Of Peace by Philip Sidney
Having This Day My Horse, My Hand, My Launce by Philip Sidney
I On My Horse, And Love On Me Doth Trie by Philip Sidney
It Is Most True That Eyes Form's To Serve by Philip Sidney
Leave Me, O Love, Which Reachest But To Dust by Philip Sidney
Let Daintie Wits Crie On The Sisters Nine by Philip Sidney
Love Still A Boy, And Oft A Wanton Is by Philip Sidney
Loving In Truth, And Faine In Verse My Love To Show, by Philip Sidney
My Mouth Doth Water, And My Breast Doth Swell by Philip Sidney
My True Love Hath My Hart, And I Have His by Philip Sidney
O Grammer Rules, O Now Your Vertues Show; by Philip Sidney
Stella, Thinke Not That I By Verse Seeke Fame by Philip Sidney
What, Have I Thus Betrayed My Libertie? by Philip Sidney
Who Will In Fairest Booke Of Nature Know by Philip Sidney
With How Sad Steps, O Moone, Thou Climb'st The Skies by Philip Sidney
Fayre Is My Love, When Her Fayre Golden Heares by Edmund Spenser
Happy Ye Leaves When As Those Lilly Hands, by Edmund Spenser
I Joy To See How In Your Drawen Work, by Edmund Spenser
Lacking My Love I Go From Place To Place, by Edmund Spenser
Leave, Lady, In Your Glasse Of Christall Clene by Edmund Spenser
Lyke As A Huntsman After Weary Chace, by Edmund Spenser
Man Call You Fayre, And You Doe Credit It, by Edmund Spenser
More Then Most Faire, Full Of The Living Fire, by Edmund Spenser
Most Glorious Lord Of Lyfe That On This Day by Edmund Spenser
My Love Is Lyke To Yse, And I To Fyre: by Edmund Spenser
One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand, by Edmund Spenser
Penelope For Her Ulisses' Sake, by Edmund Spenser
The Rolling Wheele That Runneth Often Round, by Edmund Spenser
This Holy Season Fit To Fast And Pray, by Edmund Spenser
What Guyle Is This, That Those Her Golden Tresses, by Edmund Spenser
Farwell, Love, And All Thy Lawes For Ever by Thomas Wyatt
I Find No Peace, And All My War Is Done by Thomas Wyatt
The Longer Love, That In My Thought Doeth Harbar by Thomas Wyatt
My Galy Charged With Forgetfulnes by Thomas Wyatt
Who So List To Hounte I Know Where Is An Hynde by Thomas Wyatt
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0140589295
• ISBN 13: 9780140589290
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 528