Character Sketch Sonnets
 

I've been doing some research on character sketches in sonnets, and am wondering if anyone here has a good idea of when some of the first character sketches were produced in sonnet form. By character sketch, I essentially mean a sonnet that is written on or about a fictional person, such as E. A. Robinson's "Reuben Bright." I'd even consider Shelley's "Ozymandias" to fall under that category, in a way. Any thoughts on character sketch sonnets from, say, the 18th century? Any pockets of proliferation in the mid-19th? I don't expect to find the very first poet who wrote one, of course, but I'm trying to discover a point where they started to enter poetic consciousness (i.e., after the shift away from the predominant themes of love and faith).

Italian and Spanish burlesque sonnets may fit the bill:
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpresse...&brand=ucpress

These caricatures were often based on real people, but not always. (Sometimes they came in sonnet series--I don't know if that disqualifies them for your purposes.)

That's really interesting, Julie -- thanks! I wasn't actually thinking about pre-Petrarch character sketch sonnets, but you're absolutely right. There's just no way to discount these.

I think I'm going to buy that book, too. It looks right up my alley.

Shaun, I have four character sonnets coming out in the next Raintown Review. I'm hoping to write more at some point.

Dante on Beatrice?

I googled "character sketch" sonnets and got lots of hits, (your's being top of the list) my computer is very slow at the moment (waiting today for a phone technician to fix it) so could not do more research but it may give you some leads. I would think most character sketches are of real people not fictional characters and as others have mentioned satire comes to mind ( Chaucer?) also I know Graves in The White Goddess talks about cursing poems which could contain damning character analysis. Revenge poems also come to mind. I did read (within the google search) a short poem Grey wrote about his own character but it's not a sonnet.

Longellow's Book of Sonnets includes a bunch. Also check out his complete works.

Check out Sonnet Central, which has some excellent narrative character sketch sonnet sequences from early 20th century.

For early Spanish ones, check out my dad's book, Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet, where the Quevedo in particular has many with wonderful parodic sketches. http://www.amazon.com/Six-Masters-Sp.../dp/0809321270

Would you consider "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun" to be a character sketch? If so, there is the long blason tradition in France to consider.

Good luck! I'd love to see a list when you get it all together. I collected what I could on this when researching the sonnet narrative sequence tradition, but didn't go all the way back....