Quote:
Originally Posted by Catherine Chandler
"Mower's Song" is a sonnet. And so is Elizabeth Bishop's "Sonnet" as well as a sequence in James Merrill's "The Broken Home". I could list others as well. I would refer readers to The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet for more insights into the sonnet, its variations, and its continually evolving nature.
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Sure, different sources will list different standards for what constitutes a sonnet...and there has to be the expectation of evolution in
any form. The sonnet has been around for 700 years or so, after all. Nevertheless, with the exception of rhyme scheme, the form remained largely the same for 600 of those 700 years, then faced numerous mutations throughout the 20th Century. So I guess the
real question is this: in a sonnet "competition," is more deference given to sonnets that adhere to the older standard, or to sonnets that are far less tethered to the traditional definition?
This is probably a discussion better suited for a non-poem thread, but it's likely a discussion worth having either way.
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