Sonnets were the most popular verse form of the Renaissance. If a poet wanted to prove himself, he wrote sonnets. It is a rigid form, only 14 lines with set rhyming patterns. Almost all sonnets are love poems. Why this strict form for love poetry? It is the recognition that the nature of love must be disciplined. The emotions may be sincere but they need discipline. Poets did not just write one love sonnet, they wrote dozens, even hundreds to show the different forms of their love. Shakespeare wrote 153 sonnets: the first 126 are about platonic love, and sonnets 127 – 151 were addressed to “the dark lady.” He wrote his sonnets early in his career, from 1592-1595. The English form is known as the Shakespearean sonnet. Sonnet 18 Shall I compare these to a summer’s day? is one of his best-known. He begins expressing doubt that he can adequately do justice. He compares his love to the beauty of nature; but everything in nature fades. Beauty can change. But his love is outside of nature, outside of time. As long as men have breath and eyes to read this poem, your beauty will live on. Beauty is eternal.
In the first of the Broadstairs 2015 series, Dr. White covers the early life of T. S. Eliot, addressing who he was, why he is an important figure in modern literature, explaining his family roots in England and the United States. He chronicles his journey from the shallowness of Unitarianism and notes his taking refuge in literature during his childhood. Taught by his Irish nanny that God is the first cause of all things, blessed with a mother who loved and wrote poetry and parents who didn’t make the mistake of forcing him into a vocation that didn’t suit, Eliot grew up in a world where rhythm predominated, even before he could speak. Indeed, Dr. White notes, Scott Joplin was just a few miles away from his house, and popular “rhythm” was everywhere around him, an equal influence to the classic works of literature. Eliot’s first poem as a young boy, as well as his early and later education are also explored. Browsing stacks at Harvard, he was acquainted with French symbolism, and learned that a poet could write from his own experience, beyond conventional limitations. For this reason Eliot shows a tendency of sticking with an image that he burns into his hearer’s minds throughout a poem; indeed, the doctor observes, Eliot used choice images throughout his career.
Dr. White also takes his auditors through an analysis of The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock. Supporting this analysis, the doctor defines poetry, with its union of sound and sense, and explores relevant bits of its history. One learns poetry by recitation, memorization, repetition. Rather than having the meaning of a poem “explained,” one must hear in it the music that communicates a message when intertwined with the structure and sound that becomes apparent in the hearing. Also examined is Eliot’s approach to the role of the poetic persona – he strongly believed that poet should not intrude into poem. In reading his work, we think about the modern world which Eliot’s poetic personae are relating & portraying, and about not the poet himself.
