The Art of the Sonnet [Hardcover]

Stephen Burt (Author), David Mikics (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2010

Few poetic forms have found more uses than the sonnet in English, and none is now more recognizable. It is one of the longest-lived of verse forms, and one of the briefest. A mere fourteen lines, fashioned by intricate rhymes, it is, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti called it, "a moment's monument." From the Renaissance to the present, the sonnet has given poets a superb vehicle for private contemplation, introspection, and the expression of passionate feelings and thoughts.

The Art of the Sonnet collects one hundred exemplary sonnets of the English language (and a few sonnets in translation), representing highlights in the history of the sonnet, accompanied by short commentaries on each of the poems. The commentaries by Stephen Burt and David Mikics offer new perspectives and insights, and, taken together, demonstrate the enduring as well as changing nature of the sonnet. The authors serve as guides to some of the most-celebrated sonnets in English as well as less-well-known gems by nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets. Also included is a general introductory essay, in which the authors examine the sonnet form and its long and fascinating history, from its origin in medieval Sicily to its English appropriation in the sixteenth century to sonnet writing today in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other English-speaking parts of the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The sonnet may well be the poetic form that most often comes to mind when anyone thinks of poetry. Fourteen lines long, in open and closed structures, sonnets have been prominent over the past 400 years of poetic history. In this unusual book—half anthology, half collection of essays—Burt and Mikics, both prolific critics of poetry (Burt is also a poet himself) choose 100 sonnets and for each offer a thoughtful, scholarly, though highly accessible commentary. The oldest poem is Thomas Wyatt's Whoso List to Hunt (1557), and the newest is by the contemporary poet D.A. Powell, first published last year. In between, there's everything from Shakespeare and Wordsworth to Robert Lowell and Lucie Brock-Broido. Of Redemption, George Herbert's sonnet about the Resurrection of Christ, Mikics writes, Herbert's Savior... shocks us into attention. Of one of Ted Berrigan's sonnets, Burt says, The disorientation, the wildness, is part of the point: no more organized poem would do. While this anthology would make a wonderful textbook for a prosody class, its best audience may be anyone who wants to delve deeply into the heart of poetry. Learnéd as well as passionate, this book is a delight. (Apr.)
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Review

Burt and Mikics have a ravishing breadth of taste and understanding. Their capaciousness allows the sonnet greater variety than its enemies (who think it old-fashioned, retrograde, and reactionary) would allow. A literary tour de force.
--Willard Spiegelman, author of Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness

Burt and Mikics have gathered together and composed a marvelous book. Both of them give us profound commentaries on particular sonnets and on the genre. I know of no other recent book that so steadily illuminates the riches it invokes." —Harold Bloom

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 1ST edition (April 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674048148
• ISBN-13: 978-0674048140
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,009,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write books about poetry, essays on other people's poems, books of my own poems, and shorter pieces about poems, poets, poetry, comics, science-fiction writers, political controversies, obscure pop groups, and the WNBA. My writing has appeared in the New York Times, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the Believer, the Boston Review, and as part of the Songs from Scratch experiment at Minnesota Public Radio.

I am a Professor of English at Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, I spent several years at Macalester College, first as an Assistant Professor, then as an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English. I received my Ph.D. in English from Yale University in 2000, my A.B. from Harvard in 1994.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A rich, intriguing tome to be dipped into and savored May 11, 2010

By John Wareham

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

A rich, intriguing tome to be dipped into and savored. The sonnets arrayed are all outstanding, and by themselves, well worth the price of the book. Of added value and special delight, however, are the authors' accompanying commentaries. When writing about sonnets, too many academics seem concerned to infect their work with turgid prose and convoluted so-called insights. What a relief, then, to find a 450 page work so readable, entertaining and helpful. Of interest, too, is the lovely selection of modern sonnets, which neatly shows the development and flexibility of the form. I might perhaps mention, that this anthology included several sonnets that appeared in my Sonnets for Sinners: Everything One Needs to Know About Illicit Love, so I was naturally curious to compare the analyses. The long and the short of it seemed to be that the sonnet is akin to a Rorschach inkblot, wherein literary scholars see things that pop-psychologists might not -- and vice versa, of course, as will be immediately apparent to any reader who compares our separate analyses of Yeats's Leda and the Swan, or Shakespeare's 116th. Another reason to exalt the sonnet form -- and to invest in this wonderful book.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Art of "The Art of the Sonnet" September 22, 2010

By David Mcconnaughey

Format:Hardcover

Dipping in and out of the "art of the sonnet". 100 sonnets - starting with Thomas Wyatt, 1557 and ending with D.A. Powell 2009 with terrifyingly erudite, yet literate, very well written commentaries on each. The two authors explicate each sonnet on its own, but also tie in the sometimes amazingly complex skein of allusions that each sonnet invokes. There's nothing arcane or obscure about the 2-3 page essays - but the depth of learning and understanding they display is like nothing i've read before. Unless one if far better read than I, there's material to learn on every page. Hell, i've come across numerous poets I'd not heard of before: Turnbull Stickney, Michael Field, or, for that matter, Rosanna Warren, daughter of Robt Penn Warren.