The Penguin Book of the Sonnet

Levin, Phillis

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Author
Levin, Phillis
Publish Date
11/01/2001
Book Type
paperback
Publisher Name
PENGUIN
Subtitle
500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English
Number of Pages
528
ISBN-10
0140589295
ISBN-13
9780140589290
citemno
259207
Edition
Reprinted
SKU
9780140589290

Description

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.