Syllabic
Sonnet Day for 2013
Greetings:
Today
is Syllabic Sonnet Day; a day put aside to celebrate English language sonnets
that are syllabically constructed and shaped.
The shift from a metrical to a syllabic sonnet is a subtle one. When reading a syllabic sonnet it might not
feel all that different from reading a metrical sonnet. This is because, I think, the two different
approaches can produce overlapping results.
I mean by this that a sonnet which the poet constructed syllabically
might also be metrically consistent. By
that I mean a line of ten syllables can also be a line of iambic pentameter.
The
shift has more to do with the focus of the poet when shaping the sonnet. For the syllabic sonneteer it is the syllable
count of the line which is the primary factor shaping the poem; plus other
factors such a rhyme scheme and grammatical structure. For the metrical sonneteer it is the steady
rhythm of the iambs that is the primary focus.
An
interesting consequence of this shift of focus is that the tendency for the
syllabic sonneteer will be to have a line count that is determined by the
syllables and will rarely deviate from that ten syllable count. There will, naturally, be exceptions, but the
weight will be on the ten count. The
syllabic sonneteer has the option, through using various types of feet
substituting for the iambs, to vary the line length in terms of the syllable
count as long as the metrical count remains the same. Again, this is a subtle difference, one that
might not be apparent at first.
Personally,
I have found a syllabic approach to the sonnet to be rewarding. It creates a flow that is more
conversational. When this is combined
with a traditional rhyme scheme the effect is, to my ear, musical in the way a
recitative is musical.
So
let’s take a moment to honor the Queen of English language poetry forms; the
sonnet in all its permutations.
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