Showing results for "The Sonnet" in Arts & Entertainment

30 sonnets by the English poet and cleric the Reverend William Lisle Bowles "written chiefly during various journeys". Published in 1789 they were received with favour, not only by the general public, but by other poets such as Coleridge and Wordsworth. The text includes other poems, but these sonnets were most suitable for the project. (Summary by Alan Mapstone)

It has been observed that within the narrow confines of a sonnet the mind can turn around but cannot take flight. Some of Millay’s sonnets, though, resemble the narrow confines of a loaded pistol (with a silencer), at the end of which the reader feels propelled to a higher emotional plane. Nevertheless, the predominant mood is melancholy, regret for the brevity of life and especially for the death of her husband. Today’s world can accept more readily than her own the feminism of her poetry and her casual but touching references to love outside of marriage. Millay’s syntax can become ...

Universally admired and quoted, Shakespeare’s Sonnets have love, beauty and the passing of time at their heart. Featuring some of the best-known and best-loved lines in the history of poetry (‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’, ‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds’), these evocative sonnets explore passion, the fleeting nature of beauty and the essence of true and everlasting love.

Shakespeare's sequence of 154 sonnets deals with such themes as love, time, death, immortality, lust, and sex. The poems follow but also depart from the Petrarchan tradition of sonnets written by a frustrated male lover to an unattainable idealized female beloved. Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to both male and female lovers: the androgynous "young man" and the alluring yet dangerously sexual "dark lady." (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)

This is a book of sonnets by George G. Currie. Currie was a Canadian-born lawyer and business man, but also an accomplished author and poet. While he traveled the United States and Europe extensively throughout his life, he settled in Florida. Both the theme of traveling as well as Florida occur frequently in his poetry. - Summary by Carolin

Readings of William Shakespeare’s “The Sonnets”

47 poems, most of them sonnets, most on the subjects of beauty and death, touching the mystery just beyond the known. - Summary by Josh Mitteldorf

Arthur Upson's insightful and sensitive poetic art is grandly displayed in this selection of some of his best work. As a tribute to Upson, Ruth Shepard Phelps proclaims in the introductory poem of this volume, "And all the rare and lovely things that are / Bloom newly now to celebrate thy name." Indeed "rare and lovely" are apt concepts to describe the nature of Upson's work, his poems being conceived by a man with a quest, with a passion for meaning, a man "fain to know / What are humanity and human fate". Upson is a grand poet, an "explorer of a star / Where all is strange", and although his...

The superb poetic skill and exquisite sensitivity of John Keats is brilliantly illustrated in this collection of meticulously selected sonnets. Keats had a passion for poetry as he had for life itself. His own life, although cut short at an early age, was one of creativity, productivity and one ornamented with immense poetic skill. His was a life that left an indelible mark of wonder on the world, an enduring legacy, a mark of greatness. Keats would write of his heroes, "How many bards gild the lapses of time!" - other poets and writers whose plight he often lamented, whose talent he always ...

Sonnets from the Portuguese chronicles the deeply personal stages of courtship. (Summary by Newgatenovelist)

The history of Britain up to the Norman Conquest in the form of 100 prose commentaries, each followed by a sonnet. The commentaries set the historical scene, quoting from Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and noted historians of the times, Hawkshaws sonnets are both imaginative and reflective, often casting new light on historical figures and events. Born in Yorkshire, Ann Hawkshaw spent much of her creative life in Manchester, where her husband John Hawkshaw was elected to Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society and, as a friend of Elizabeth Gaskell, she was drawn into the intellectual ...

Clark Ashton Smith, nicknamed one of the "big three" of Weird Tales (the famous pulp fiction magazine), was also a romantic-style poet, contributor to the Cthulhu Mythos and a literary friend of H.P Lovecraft. As a poet, he was considered one of the last great West Coast Romantics. Published in 1918, prefaced by his mentor George Sterling and illustrated with Decadent movement-inspired embellishments by Florence Lundborg, this volume contains material republished from his 1912 collection and later included in his 1922 poetry compilation. (Summary by Mary Kay)

This is a book of poetry by Myrtle Reed. Ms. Reed is most famous for her love stories such as A Spinner in the Sun and Old Rose and Silver, and these sonnets are an exploration of the same theme through a different medium. - Summary by Carolin

Sonnets from the Portuguese chronicles one of the most famous romances in history. The renowned Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett wrote the sonnet sequence during her courtship by Robert Browning, and later presented them to him as a wedding gift. Robert was astounded by the quality of the poetry, and encouraged her to publish, but Elizabeth objected on the grounds that the content was too personal. At last, Robert prevailed, and Elizabeth published her sonnets. The title of the book comes from a joke between Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Elizabeth was too embarrassed to publish the sonnets as...

This comprehensive anthology of English sonnets of the Nineteenth Century, edited and arranged by William Sharp, was published in 1887. It contains 270 poems by 126 different authors, ranging from the most celebrated poets, like Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth to some who are extremely obscure. Sharp outlines the purpose of the collection as follows: "For the concise expression of an isolated poetic thought an intellectual or sensuous wave keenly felt, emotionally and rhythmically the sonnet would seem to be the best medium. To bring this more clearly home to the mind of the reader unacquainted ...

While Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa is internationally now known mostly for his masterpiece The Book of Disquiet, he was also an outstanding poet. 35 of his sonnets are collected in this volume. - Summary by Carolin

A delightful calendar of sonnets celebrating wildflowers. A charming and fanciful collection of poems for every month of the year. - Summary by Patrick Randall

Elizabeth Bridges (at the time of this book's publication--later Elizabeth Bridges Dayrush) was a turn-of-the-century English poet who married a Persian government official. Hafez was a 14th-century Persian mystic and poet. Some of the poems in this collection are based on and inspired by Hafez' ardent and unorthodox religious verse, and some are Bridges' original writings, many with similar themes. She clarifies that "The last fifteen pieces in this book, which are founded on odes of Hafez, are not translations. Their aim is rather to convey if possible something of the original spirit than ...

Shakespeare's Sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, comprise a collection of 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. The poems were probably written over a period of several years. (Summary from wikipedia)

Grace Constant Lounsbery was an American poet, playwright, and author. It is said that she was 'mannish' in her dress and behavior and these poems may very well be expressions of love for female partners. (Summary by KevinS)