Italian sonnet tradition

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Akash Kumar (Columbia University)

Ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo, Columbia University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.6.1: Italian Writing and Culture, 453-present.
Vol. editors: Carla Bregman (Independent Scholar - North America), Jo Ann Cavallo (Columbia University)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1230-

Places

Italy (Location)

Genres and Modes

Sonnet

Resources

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The sonnet is a quintessential form of Italian poetry. It was invented at the court of Frederick II in the early thirteenth century and forms an essential part of the birth of the vernacular poetic tradition. Its impact was immediate and long-lasting, and it is a form that continues to be used and adapted to this day. A traditional history of the development of the sonnet into a popular poetic form tends to begin with Petrarch’s extensive use of it in his collection of vernacular poetry

Rerum vulgarium fragmenta

[

Fragments of Vernacular Things

], followed by Shakespeare’s adaptation of it, and then on to various European and extra-European poets—from Joachim du Bellay to Pushkin to Rabindranath Tagore—who have experimented with the form through the centuries. While speaking to the…

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2930 words

Citation: Kumar, Akash. "Italian sonnet tradition". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 September 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19371, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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