THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH SONNET FROM SHAKESPEARE TO MODERN POETS
Abstract
This article provides a scholarly analysis of the historical development of the English sonnet from the Shakespearean era to contemporary poetry. The study explores the evolution of form and content, examining metrical, rhythmic, and semantic transformations within the poetic structure. It further investigates how twentieth- and twenty-first-century poets have integrated classical traditions with modern stylistic tendencies. Through the comparative analysis of works by Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, W. H. Auden, and Carol Ann Duffy, the research highlights the artistic and linguistic flexibility of the sonnet form in English literature.
References
1. Auden, W. H. (1991). Collected Poems. New York: Vintage Books.
2. Barrett Browning, E. (2002). Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Bloom, H. (2004). The Art of Reading Poetry. New York: HarperCollins.
4. Booth, S. (1977). Shakespeare’s Sonnets. New Haven: Yale University Press.
5. Brooks, C. (1968). The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
6. Duffy, C. A. (2005). Rapture. London: Picador.
7. Evans, G. B. (Ed.). (1996). The Sonnets by William Shakespeare: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8. Heaney, S. (2016). 100 Poems. London: Faber & Faber.
9. Hopkins, G. M. (1985). Poems and Prose. London: Penguin Classics.
10. Keats, J. (2001). The Complete Poems. London: Penguin Books.
11. Kerrigan, J. (1986). The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint. London: Penguin Classics.
12. Lewis, C. S. (1954). English Literature in the Sixteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
13. Paterson, D. (1999). God’s Gift to Women. London: Faber & Faber.
14. Rowse, A. L. (1964). Shakespeare the Man. London: Macmillan.
15. Terry, P. (2019). The New Sonnet: Modern Transformations of a Classic Form. London: Routledge.
16. Vendler, H. (1997). The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
17. Wordsworth, W. (2008). Selected Sonnets and Poems. London: Penguin Classics.
