Mayne writes that, “To modern eyes some of these love poems seem to depict private and personal emotional experience, but in the Renaissance people did not only write poetry to express their ‘true’ feelings about love to a ‘real’ love-object. Love poems could have social and political intentions as much as ‘romantic’ ones, and express desire not only for a person but for personal and financial advancement, or even political discontent or aspiration.” 

Invented in 13th-century Sicily, the sonnet has become the most popular way of writing love poetry. Petrarch, a 14th-century Italian poet, popularized the sonnet — he writes about the “speaker-lover’s experience of desire and inner struggle also made them amenable to articulating other aspects of courtiers’ social and political experiences and frustrations,” as seen in his expressions of love for Laura (who may or may not have truly existed). The sonnet was introduced to England in the 1530s, catching the eye of a certain Shakespeare. Mayne gives the reader a clue as to the existence of homoerotic poetry, as seen in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. In her words, it “challenges and subverts these [society’s] conventions.”

Speaking of which, there is a strong socio-political undercurrent in the writings of Renaissance love poetry. While at times, as earlier stated, sexuality is challenged, poems were also used as a tool, almost, to attract the attention of queen Elizabeth I. It is this “desire for social advancement and political influence than it is about any modern notion of ‘romantic’ feeling.” Through the medium of poetry, people are able to woo the queen — to gently persuade her — into doing certain things of interest to the poet. 

Mayne eloquently summarizes that, “For modern readers… Renaissance love poetry is at once familiar and surprising – for the variety of loves and desires, romantic and otherwise, celebrated and lamented in the poems, as well as for the diversity of their forms and settings.’ 

Though it is true that he wasn’t the first English poet to use the sonnet form, Shakespeare turned it on its head — reinvented it. In a sense, it is this reinvention that made his sonnets differ from his counterparts. In fact, his style was so distinctive that it became known as the ‘Shakespearean Sonnet.’ For instance, where other poets would have closely followed the Petrarchan way of utilising a very strong volta, Shakespeare altered it in hopes of making it more subtle. In this way, he had more space to articulate a vast array of ideas. Another distinctive quality entailed in the Shakespearean sonnet is the resounding final couplet. I like to see it as the culmination of the contents of the poem — the final point, the conclusion, the string that ties it all together.

It’s interesting how the persona that so often narrates the Sonnets is not Shakespeare himself — not in the literal sense at least. The poet steps into the vantage point of these characters, as to, in a sense, try to understand their inner workings. A love triangle is prevalent between the speaker and two elusive figures called the ‘Young Man’ and the ‘Dark Lady.’ But what intrigues readers the most is that the ‘poet’ doesn’t fall prey to the allure of these figures, instead writes about how they don’t live up to society’s standards. Speaking of which, many turn to the Sonnets as a reference point for unpacking Shakespeare’s sexuality. The receiver of his love poems are both male and female. He subverts the conventions of love in the 16th century, presenting not a predictable heterosexual romance, but a complex and even forbidden one. (Oscar Wilde used Shakespeare’s Sonnets to defend his love for a man in trial in 1895.)

While one may be tempted to merge the narrator’s first-person perspective to that of Shakespeare’s, there is a difference between ‘emotional authenticity and literal truth,’ as said in the article. As a result of that, it leads me to my questions: should Shakespeare’s Sonnets be used to search for auto biographical clues on his sexuality? And, how can one tell the difference between the true voice of the poet and that of a persona the poet had created? 

 

‘How Do I Love Thee’ illustrates the many ways in which the speaker loves her partner. Whilst it doesn’t use the Shakespearean Sonnet, the Petrarchan Sonnet offers much more space for a sort of sporadic, passionate xpression, given that the former’s structure is quite divided in the aspects of rhyme. In the first line, Browning poses the question ‘how do I love thee?’ with an answer, ‘let me count the ways’ following after it. This use of hypophora evokes a childlike curiosity that opens up into a sea of very much adult passion. A juxtaposition as such presents a dynamic of love, and will be used throughout her poem. But, it also suggests that it is, in fact, easy for the speaker to express love in words — so easy that she can ‘count the ways.’ In the following line, Browning brings in a spatial metaphor by stating that she loves her lover ‘to the depth and breadth and height…’ She is trying to physicalise the abundance of her love for him — trying to force the emotion of love to be tangible to the touch and eye. Her repetition of ‘and’ suggests an outpour, which is further enhanced in the enjambment that follows. This polysyndeton goes against the notion that love is difficult to express in words because it gives the reader the sense that she can keep going without effort, thus implying that she finds it easy to pour her love out into words. 

‘Syntax’ takes a much more playful look at loving through the use of wordplay. Duffy uses the sonnet form loosely, deviating from it greatly, albeit that be through metre or rhyme. This contrasts to Browning’s much more traditional approach, but works because her way of loving is far from traditional. She want stocall her lover ‘thou’, which carries archaic undertones, and suggests that she wants to love through language. On the other hand, Browning loves much more through her actions. It is ‘the shape of the start of a kiss’ and in line 3, she invites the reader to almost say it — repeat it after her. This translation and invitation of the reader acting is similar to how Browning does so in her poem’s 12th line, in which a caesura invites the reader to take a pause — an end of a string of thoughts. She ‘loves thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life.’ After ‘breath’, there is a comma and the text continues in the next line. This invites the reader to literally take a breath as Browning’s thoughts flow — to pause, and process just how much she loves. In this aspect, the poets share a penchant for making the reader physicalise the words in their poems, stressing that love can’t only be expressed through language, but also through actions. 

2) C. 
3) D.