The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English

by Phillis Levin and Various

Book Overview

A unique anthology celebrating that most vigorous of literary forms--the sonnet The sonnet is one of the oldest and most enduring literary forms of the post-classical world, a meeting place of image and voice, passion and reason, elegy and ode. It is a form that both challenges and liberates the poet. For this anthology, poet and scholar Phillis Levin has gathered more than 600 sonnets to tell the full story of the sonnet tradition in the English...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140589295
• ISBN13: 9780140589290
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A worthy collection of sonnets in English

The sonnet begins when a fine man of law devised the structure of a little song; a genre that, while definitely not long, could say a lot -- indeed entirely more than any ballad sung by troubadour. Journeys to far lands have made it strong, and many fine companies it has been among; its makers are the ones who know the score. Shakespeare and Milton, Wordsworth and Millay, Longfellow, Whittier, that transcendental lot, a host of other poets have used the form; it's a surprising, yet quite lovely way to take some flowers, fit them in tiny pot, and in this way create a wondrous norm.

Sonnets great and less so

THE SONNET IN OLD AGE If to the sessions of sweet silent thought one summons memories of sonnets long reread in mind unsprings the blasted lyrics Time has left unpaged dreams of other nights and other days in quiet places long since lost in youth where little lines embodied- Glory, Beauty, Truth. Then Shakespeare Donne Keats, Hopkins Milton Wordsworth Yeats obscuring lesser names and smaller shades inspire with dearer dearer life tranquillity's reflection in old age Consoling our last moments in God's praise.