Elizabethan sonnets were popular during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign in England and were used in many of Shakespeare’s works. They have 14 lines and two main rhyming schemes. The Italian form has an octave and a sextet, while the English version has three quatrains and a couplet. Over 300,000 Elizabethan sonnets were written in Europe during the 16th century, mostly about romance. The origin of the sonnet can be traced back to Petrarch in Italy. The extreme nature of the representation of human behavior in sonnets led to their eventual disappearance from fashion as society changed. Shakespeare used sonnets to express passion and infatuation between the sexes.
An Elizabethan sonnet is a form of poetry that was popular during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in England, from 1558 to 1603. The period is commonly thought of in terms of William Shakespeare, who lived from 1564 to 1616, so a poem used in a of his many popular works it was referred to as the Elizabethan sonnet or Shakespearean sonnet. Poem types have 14 lines written in iambic pentameter and are designed to rhyme in one of two main ways. The Italian form distinguishes the first eight lines of the poem as a major theme or octave, and the last six lines as a supporting sextet to conclude it. In the English version of an Elizabethan sonnet, there are three sets of four alternating lines known as quatrains, followed by a set of two lines known as a couplet.
Poetry of this type was so popular in Shakespeare’s day that it is estimated that over 300,000 Elizabethan sonnets were written in Europe during the 16th century. Their main theme was romance, although many early versions of the literature are now considered to lack craftsmanship or attention to artistic detail. Instead, they seem to have been a more conventional and common method of expressing one’s emotions during the time period. The dominant theme of the poets of the time who wrote romantic sonnets was the unceasing devotion of a male lover to the object of her affections and the female tendency to be idealized and unattainable.
The origin of the Elizabethan sonnet took place in Italy and can be traced back to Petrarch, a well-known Italian scholar and poet of the 14th century. Printed versions of the Elizabethan sonnet began to proliferate in Europe after the 14th. The tradition, however, had already taken root verbally, much earlier, in Italy, Spain and France.
The idealism and self-torment of the obsessed lovers portrayed in sonnets of the time were central to their rise in popularity as a form of creative use of language and expression of emotion. This extreme nature of their representation of human behavior probably also led to their eventual disappearance from fashion as the practical processes of mechanization and industrialization took hold in society. The Elizabethan sonnet focused poetically largely on unmarried women, and as the role of women changed in society into one of the more equal partnerships in economic growth, the passion of the sonnets grew to be more gender-neutral in nature. . Shakespeare used his works to preserve the intention of the sonnet as an expression of passion and infatuation between the sexes, undimmed by the mundane demands of the day.
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