[Julie Steiner]

Who's going to rap that loser Shelley's knuckles for going off-piste in "Ozymandias"?

[Roger Slater]

Did he, Julie? I never noticed. But if he did, my next question is whether he insisted it was a sonnet.

By the way, did you notice? My first paragraph is a modified pantoum.

[Kevin Rainbow]

A good sonnet that only slightly varies the tradition of a sonnet is something I don't think anyone has any issues with. It is when a "sonnet" has more nonsonnet than sonnet in it, and only vaguely resembles a sonnet, instead of certainly fulfilling it, that it probably shouldn't be called a sonnet.

.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Kevin Rainbow

Do you really think you can come up with something better than the traditions established by the best poets of the past?

Does it have to be better to be worthwhile?

That's the sort of argument that turns readers away from formalism. It can be interpreted (maybe fallaciously) as a claim that it's a mistake to do anything other than repeat what's already been successfully done.

One of the beauties of the 14-line form is that it can be broken into any number of intriguing patterns. There may be some combinations of ideas that are better supported by less-familiar patterns. Whether the result is labeled a "sonnet" probably doesn't matter much.

Originally Posted by Kevin Rainbow

I would say any poem that lives up to any of the traditions of Sonnets established by the great poets of the past, "Petrarchan" "Shakespearean" "Spenserian", etc.. is a sonnet. In other words, it needs to have a meter, line-length, and rhyme-scheme and volta according to the tradition it follows. You can't write a "Shakespearean Sonnet" if you don't follow the form that makes it "Shakespearean".

The best options for the sonnet are already, for the most part, established. Do you really think you can come up with something better than the traditions established by the best poets of the past? If you don't follow the established forms, you will most likely come up with something that looks like unintentional ignorance about them or failure to follow the traditions well, or else an intentional, lazy disregard, or gimmicky freeversy, fiddling-around.

Of course many people may accept anything that vaguely resembles any form of the sonnet as a sonnet. But what kind of achievement is that? Your sonnet gets to be a sonnet because it vaguely resembles a sonnet. Great. That's not much better than any 15 syllable threeliner winning the label "Haiku", or any example of prose with line breaks being "free verse".

[Aaron Novick]

My impulse is to be snarky, but I'll squelch it. Instead, I'll ask a serious question: what possible function does conservatism about form like Kevin's serve? (What follows doesn't address this immediately, but I'll get back around to it.)

As I see it, if you truly believe that the possibilities of the sonnet form were exhausted by the existing masters, and that you cannot do better, then you simply have no reason to write sonnets. If the form is dead, let it be, stop exhuming it for pointless exercises that waste everyone's time.

Only poets who believe the form is not exhausted—whether they are writing within the strict confines of the tradition or stretching it—have any business writing sonnets. Now, to believe that you can do better than the tradition is hubris, absolutely, and 99% of the people who believe that will be wrong. (And many will, as both Roger and Kevin have noted, write things that claim sonnethood without earning it.) But it's the 1% who aren't wrong who will write the sonnets of today that are worthy of becoming an enduring part of that tradition. And, speaking for myself, I care about that 1%.

So, to return to the question: what function can Kevin's conservatism serve? (It's not just Kevin's, of course; we can be grateful to him for voicing a view held by many.) It seems obvious to me that it's function is purely negative: to call out the 99% of folks whose belief that they can do better is mere hubris. It can pick out the failures. Can it identify the successes, the extensions to the form that help keep the sonnet alive and vibrant? I don't think it can do that at all—it's far more likely to dismiss them for violating arcane and arbitrary rules than to see them for what they are.

As so often, then, the conservatism that pledges fealty to a given tradition works primarily to ensure that it become a moribund thing—the conservative pledges fealty to a carcass.

The true lover of the sonnet must not seek to conserve it.

[Kevin Rainbow]

Does it have to be better to be worthwhile?

For the most part, I think so. Why would you want to make something worse? Making something worse is not a healthy way of something being "worthwhile".

That's the sort of argument that turns readers away from formalism. It can be interpreted (maybe fallaciously) as a claim that it's a mistake to do anything other than repeat what's already been successfully done.

If the truth turns people away, so be it. It is a mistake to think it's not repetition. If you want to play baseball you need to repeat the same old things that go into making the game. You can't very well perfect your skills if the rules of how to play it change all the time, or if every player can do his own thing. Anyway, playing the game by the same old rules still gives plenty of room for surprises and different results. Otherwise it would be so boring no one would play the game. Likewise for the established traditions of the sonnet.

One of the beauties of the 14-line form is that it can be broken into any number of intriguing patterns. There may be some combinations of ideas that are better supported by less-familiar patterns. Whether the result is labeled a "sonnet" probably doesn't matter much.

It doesn't matter. The function of the sonnet isn't to morph into different things, even though it can occasionally. If you want to use a different form from the established sonnet forms, you are free to do so without trying to pass it off as a sonnet. Why would you do so under the name of a sonnet instead?

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Kevin Rainbow

For the most part, I think so. Why would you want to make something worse? Making something worse is not a healthy way of something being "worthwhile".

Viewing everything on a continuum of better and worse is what's not healthy. Are the poems of Larkin and Frost better than those of Shakespeare? No? Then they're worse? And not worthwhile?

Aaron has been more eloquent about this than I have.

[Mark McDonnell]

I think we're now getting confused by arguing about two different things: categorisation and poetic quality or “worth”. I think Kevin and Jayne's view rests on the former being much more fixed (while others disagree), while we would all presumably agree that the latter is ultimately subjective. Imagine a poet writes something which they label a sonnet even though it significantly diverges from the form. Aaron might defend its sonnet status and Kevin would argue it doesn't deserve the name. But surely its possible that Aaron could maintain said poem is a sonnet while thinking it a poor poem and Kevin could think the poem brilliant while still maintaining it isn't a sonnet (once he got over his annoyance at it being called one).

As to your conclusion, Aaron, that "The true lover of the sonnet must not seek to conserve it", this seems a bit hyperbolic in its manifesto-like assertion to me and again is confusing form with content and effect. I don't know that adherence to a set of rules, like the rules of chess for instance, is necessarily conservative, or if it is that that's necessarily a bad thing in this case. It's how one plays the game. In the case of the sonnet one could simply, genuinely, be in love with the endless possibilities for new content/voices/contemporary relevance/personal expression that the Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnet still affords. The form is just a structure and many find that structure to be inexhaustible, in the way that one doesn't get bored playing chess and feel the need to change the rules. Does the true lover of chess actively seek to change the rules by which it's played?

Conversely, writing a traditional sonnet, simply sticking to the rules, is absolutely no guarantee that it's going to be any good. There's a sonnet "mystique" at the root of this discussion, that I think is a little undeserved. A good sonnet is good because it's a good poem. As a form, the sonnet (whisper it) is fairly easy, isn't it? I probably write more sonnets than any other fixed form because I love the way they feel when I think I've made a half-decent one. But also, because they come more naturally to me than other fixed forms. When I write I'm trying to write a good poem, not a good sonnet.

Basically, while I'm with Aaron in hoping that the 1% of the future will write incredible poems, I don't really care if they call them sonnets or not. The traditional sonnet will still exist. Both positions, when one becomes too entrenched in them – insisting that the definitional category of the sonnet needs to be opened out and deconstructed or vociferously defending the traditional sonnet against change – seem like fairly dull academic exercises to me, in their own way. Poetry is what matters.

I like what John said about the feel of a good sonnet, and that non-sonnets, even free verse, can give that same feel that can be sometimes missing from poems that do follow the sonnet form. I tried to say something similar in post #20, but he said it better.

There. I think I've said my piece.

[John Riley]

If you want to play baseball you need to repeat the same old things that go into making the game. You can't very well perfect your skills if the rules of how to play it change all the time, or if every player can do his own thing.

That is the point exactly. Poetry is not baseball.

[Mark McDonnell]

If (little ‘s’) sonnet (not Shakespearean Sonnet, or Spenserian Sonnet, or Petrarchan Sonnet) simply means a “little song”, then of course one can call any little song a sonnet and laugh at the sight of people foaming at the mouth at your sheer nerve and ignorance of tradition. It would be, at worst, a bit cheeky. If you call the thing you write a Shakespearean Sonnet (for example) and it just isn’t, then you’re either wrong or joking. Doesn't really matter. Have you written a good poem or not? Or at least a sincere and truthful one that pleases you.

Simples.