The sonnet as a genre represents the development in the cultural in Elizabethan time spanning from ranging from Sidney to Shakespeare.
(Daiches, 1960, 150) Although the English Literary Renaissance developed further after the Elizabethan period, we feel that the sonnet is representative of Renaissance. The sonnet form met this need for English poets in the sixteenth century”. “There are periods in the history of any literature when what poets need most is a formal convention which will enable them to study the demands of the medium quite objectively, with a craftsman’s eye, and prevent them from merely splashing about in a language that has not been tempered to meet the precise curve of the meaning. Using sonnets from Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne and Spenser, we aim to provide a clear rationale as to why the love sonnet really was representative of the Elizabethan era and of the English Literary Renaissance on a broader scale.Īlong with the advancement of Renaissance Italian poetry came the introduction of the love sonnet, a genre which developed through the English Literary Renaissance from Sidney’s time and reached its peak with Shakespeare. Under the parameters of the theme of the love sonnet we have chosen to concentrate on love as a tool for courtship, the poet’s attempt to immortalise his beloved through verse, love conquering depression and the link between love, sex and sexuality which is obvious in the Renaissance period.
Furthermore, we have focused on the theme of love as a dominant trend through the sonnets of this time as it will provide a familiar yet central introduction to the Renaissance period for first year college students. Our anthology of Renaissance poetry focuses on the Elizabethan period and in particular the sonnet as a genre.
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