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Unread 05-09-2002, 05:45 AM
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Athens, Greece
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It seems to me that testing the rules of the sonnet is almost part of the tradition of the sonnet in English (otherwise we'd only have Petrarchan sonnets for one)--and there is practically a whole separate genre of nonce-rimed sonnets, and plenty of sonnets in other meters, as this Shakespeare tet. sonnet (not one of his best though--assuming it is indeed his):

CXLV

Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',
To me that languished for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
'I hate' she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
'I hate', from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying 'not you'.


Dick's guidelines describe the norm, of course. And it wouldn't be much fun to play with the rules if the rules weren't so well established in the first place.
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