Journal article
Form, time, and the 'First English Sonnet'
- Abstract:
- The earliest known English poem rhyming ababcdcdefefgg appears within John Metham’s 1448/9 romance Amoryus and Cleopes. However, scholarship cannot easily claim Metham’s lyric as “the first English sonnet”: contrary to past suggestions, available historical and manuscript evidence indicates that he did not intentionally create it as a sonnet, but rather composed in the form accidentally. This inset lyric’s rhyme scheme therefore represents, possibly uniquely in English, sonnet form without the sonnet tradition. Despite this isolation, however, attentive reading shows that the lyric achieves certain effects very like those produced by later English sonnets. The common features underpinning these effects even in a text not knowingly written as a sonnet might help criticism isolate factors which constitute form’s essence or quiddity.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Accepted manuscript, 373.9KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.5325/chaucerrev.56.3.0193
Authors
- Publisher:
- Penn State University Press
- Journal:
- Chaucer Review More from this journal
- Volume:
- 56
- Issue:
- 3
- Pages:
- 193-224
- Publication date:
- 2021-07-02
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-11-28
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1528-4204
- ISSN:
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0009-2002
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1147087
- Local pid:
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pubs:1147087
- Deposit date:
-
2020-11-28
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- The Pennsylvania State University.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 2021 by The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved.
- Notes:
- This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available from Penn State University Press at: https://doi.org/10.5325/chaucerrev.56.3.0193
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