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Drayton's Sonnet 130 And The Petrarchan Sonnet

Decent Essays

The Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet was a literary importation introduced by Sir Thomas Wyatt during the 16th century English Renaissance (Sarker, 39). The Petrarchan sonnet follows an Italian rhyme scheme. As Wyatt soon discovered, the rhyme schemes used in the Italian sonnet are difficult to find when writing in English (Sarker, 40). Due to this discrepancy, adaptations of the Italian form led to the development of the English or Shakespearean sonnet.
Despite structural alterations, the English sonnet upholds Petrarchan conventions of praise in which the poet addresses the romantic object (Wilcke, Romantic lit. conventions). Within the Petrarchan tradition, the blazon is a convention used to structure the poet’s romantic praise of the beloved. Within its origins, the French Heralid meaning of the term “blazon” means “coat of arms”, or the idea of a prominent display. The translation of the blazon into poetry uses literary devices such as metaphors to endearingly catalogue and describe the beloved. It was from the blazon in which the anti-blazon sonnet developed. The anti-blazon structure inverts both the typical blazon and Petrarchan tradition by depicting the beloved in a seemingly unconventional way. William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” and Michael Drayton’s “Sonnet 8” are representations of the anti-blazon in English literature. Sonnet 130 depicts Shakespeare’s parody of traditional Petrarchan descriptions of beauty through the anti-blazon. Drayton uses the anti-blazon to overturn the Petrarchan convention of youthfulness.

Within the Petrarchan tradition, a poet would praise the beloved’s superlative qualities using elaborate descriptions of beauty such as “golden hair” or “starry eyes”. Using the blazon, the beloved’s attributes would be depicted through metaphorical comparison or conceits, often to elements of nature. Such comparisons demonstrate that the beloved’s attributes are so sublime that they elevate her to metaphysical proportions – she would seem divine and metaphysical. In “Sonnet 130”, Shakespeare mocks common Petrarchan conceits and rejects describing his beloved using conventional blazon imagery. Instead, Shakespeare portrays his lover in contrast to Petrarchan images of beauty within

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