Contemporary Sonnets

[Nyyark]

Nyyark shuffles through some papers and smiles as he pulls one out.

 

“Hello. The first Class in the SSCC will be about Contemporary Sonnets. The Contemporary Sonnet is what over the centuries the sonnet has evolved into. It is essentially a distillation of all the things that every other kind of sonnet has in common, thus making a great start for learning about sonnets.”

 

“The word sonnet is accepted to have derived from the Italian sonetto, a short strain. A sonetto was a short poem sung to the accompaniment of the lute or mandolin. The word from which it is derived hints greatly about the nature of the sonnet it. It is a poem whose structure is dictated by musical flow.”

 

“The musical feeling of the sonnet has bred true through its many generations, and when writing a sonnet it is something to keep in mind. By musical feeling I mean that each line of the sonnet flows into the next, so when reading the reader doesn’t ever feel the sonnet is choppy, or stumbles over a particular word arrangement.”

 

“The technical characteristic shared by all sonnets is that they all have 14 lines. Some even go as far as defining a contemporary sonnet as “a 14 line poem”.”

 

“Most Sonnets also share a thematic characteristic, which is a shift in their mode of description, such as describing what something is in the first part of the sonnet, and then describing what it does later in the sonnet.”

 

“A Contemporary Sonnet should contain all three of these aspects, but all that is truly required is 14 lines. However I would suggest familiarizing oneself with the other two aspects of sonnet writing, as it will be greatly helpful in the future contests.”

 

“If anyone has any questions about this lesson please PM me or post it, and I will update my lesson, thank you.”

 

Contests of this type of Sonnet:

 

The Contemporary Sonnet Contest - A group contest where working together gets you geld

 

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Edited July 5, 2004 by Nyyark