Form or Fascism? Exploring Genre and Innovation in Three Nontraditional Sonnet Sequences

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Zamsky, Robert

Keywords

Sonnet, Poetic Form, Berryman, John, Trethewey, Natasha, Smith, Charlotte, Nontraditional

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

This thesis explores and examines various ways that poets can subvert reader expectation through unconventional use of the sonnet claim, or the strategy of giving the designation "sonnet" to poems that deviate from the form's classical definition. The large number of such poetic projects alone seems to demand this kind of investigation, as do the extreme and varied critical and artistic opinions about what sonnet writing means. I chose to analyze the sonnet sequences of Charlotte Smith, John Berryman, and Natasha Trethewey, utilizing Formalist, New Historicist, and literary race studies approaches among others. I found that in each case, the tension between the sonnet's formal or thematic conventions and the author's innovation within the genre related directly to a specific project of the poetics � that the use of the sonnet claim or designation was itself a poetic strategy, especially in cases where the "right" to this designation was in question. This poetic strategy of naming can lead us to ask useful questions about the nature of this "right," who bestows it and on what grounds, and what hidden strings come attached to the designation of "sonnet" in the first place.

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