A Sonnet Sonnet Sonnet

A Sonnet sonnet sonnet monument,--A Sonnet sonnet

sonn- eternityA Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet be,A
Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonn- portent,A Sonnet sonnet
sonnet reverent:A Sonnet sonnet sonnet ebony,A
Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet seeA Sonnet sonnet
sonnet orient.A Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonn- revealsA
Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet due:--A Sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonn- appealsA Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnretinueA Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet breath,A Sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet Death.

My deformed poem "A Sonnet Sonnet Sonnet" works as

a template for the technicalities behind writing a
sonnet. It is a deformed version of Dante Rossetti's "A
Sonnet" (NAP Pg. 1106). However, my inspiration to
choose this poem came from my original choice to do
alternate seminar task of writing a sonnet, rather than
deforming one. After doing research on the form of a
sonnet, I decided to use the Norton Anthology of Poetry
to look at some other sonnets, in order to gain some
ideas for the one I would write. I read Rossetti's sonnet
for the first time during this research period, and
considering it was a sonnet about sonnets, I felt it
would be worth paying some attention to. However,
upon analysing the poem, I no longer wanted to write a
sonnet of my own, instead I was inspired to deform this
one.
His poem beautifully describes the emotion behind the
writing of sonnets and the sentiments they can express.
In Rhian Williams' "The Poetry Toolkit" we see that
sonnets are generally written to express a variety of

emotional subjects;
"It is linked linked especially with love poetryhowever,
the sonnet has also been put to political purpose, used
for religious praise, and served to express melancholia
and despair."
All of the mentioned examples speak of sonnets
portraying strong emotions, or emotion provoking
subjects, and as Rossetti's "A Sonnet" serves almost as
a description of how a sonnet can be written, we can
see this ability to express emotion littered throughout
the poem. It is especially well emphasised, using
alliteration, the speaker describes sonnets as a
"moment's monument," as if to say a sonnet takes can
take an important moment and immortalise it, acting
like a monument to that moment. The entire first
octave describes how the sonnet can be composed
however the poet wishes; the immortalised moment
can be a long ("the Souls eternity") or short ("one dead
deathless hour") period, and it doesn't matter where it
is written ("Carve it in ivory or in ebony"). From this we
get the distinct idea that no matter what the
circumstances of the sonnet, the emotion will still
prevail. This poem is also the first in Rossetti's sonnet
sequence "The House of Life," and, as Alison Chapman
noted in "A Companion to Victorian Poetry," the entire
sonnet sequence seems to deal with the idea of duality.
As a result we can see idea portrayed at several points
throughout the poem, for example, the description of a
sonnet as being "a coin." Coins are very often
associated with the idea of duality due to the act of
flipping a coin to decide opposing decisions, so this is a
perfect metaphor to portray sonnets as being able to
portray completely opposite sentiments. We also find
this idea of duality portrayed through Rossetti's choice
to capitalise certain contrasting words, which highlights

them, such as Day and Night, or Life and Death. My

idea for deforming came from seeing Rossetti describe
this emotional impact a sonnet could have. To me it
seemed as if he was writing about how to write a
sonnet in an emotional sense, and so I was inspired to
deform it and make it about how to write a sonnet in a
technical sense.
When it comes to the technical composition of a
sonnet, "A Sonnet" seems to be a mix of both the
Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnet. At first glance it
seems to be a Petrarchan sonnet, as it is split between
an octave and a sestet. The octave also follows the
Petrarchan rhyme scheme; a b b a a b b a. However, in
the sestet the rhyme scheme departs from the
Petrarchan style and adopts the Shakespearean, as the
rhyme scheme is c d c d e e. This varying style helps to
make "A Sonnet" an even better representation of how
one would write a sonnet, as it encompasses both the
main forms of sonnet, and this further made it a perfect
candidate for my vision of deformation. In order to
preserve this valuable rhyme scheme which makes the
poem's form so interesting, I decided that the first step
in my deformation would be to remove every word from
the poem, aside from the rhyming word at the end of
each line.
A Sonnet is a moment's monument,--Memorial from
the Soul's eternityTo one dead deathless hour. Look that
it be,Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,Of its own
intricate fulness reverent:Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
As Day or Night prevail; and let Time seeIts flowering
crest impearled and orient.A Sonnet is a coin: its face
revealsThe soul,--its converse, to what Power 'tis due:-Whether for tribute to the august appealsOf Life, or
dower in Love's high retinueIt serve; or, 'mid the dark
wharf's cavernous breath,In Charon's palm it pay the

toll to Death.
This left me with a template for the rhyme scheme of a
sonnet, which was my intended aim at this point in the
deformation process. This iteration of the poem also
emphasises a particular truth of poetry; how often
some of the most high impact words are left until the
end of the line to give them more significance, this is
especially apparent with words like "monument,"
"eternity," and "Death." Due to the significance found
in these leftover words, one can still find some feeling
of meaning through reading the poem. From the first
stanza we get the sense that there is is something
important which will last forever, almost like some sort
of god. "Monument" and "reverent" both create images
of something which is worthy of our respect, whereas
"eternity" and"portent" have implications of the future.
Then, just like in any sonnet, we still seem to have a
volta, where we go from imagery of an everlasting
entity, to a sudden death. The first word "reveals" could
be said to embody a volta, as it is revealing a sudden
change in the mood of the sonnet, thus further making
this an excellent template for the form of a sonnet.
However, if we were to assume the volta from the
Shakespearean form, it would be the final two lines,
and even in this case, it works well. The lines come
together to create a feeling of the end of a life, with
"breath" feeling like a final gasp of air, followed by a
comma acting as a caesura, holding the reader at a
suspense before the inevitable "Death." So as we can
see, by removing everything aside from the rhyming
words, I have narrowed down three of the key features
of a sonnet, the rhyme scheme, the volta, and the
emotional meaning.
At this point, in order to complete my template of a
sonnet, I needed to reinstate the metre of iambic

pentameter. I took influence from Gertrude Stein's "A

rose is a rose is a rose," where she brings new meaning
to a phrase by repeating it multiple times. Similarly, I
recreated the iambic pentameter required of the
sonnets form by bringing back the first two words of
both stanzas, "A Sonnet," and then having the word
"sonnet" repeat the required amount of times to make
the line contain five iambs.
A Sonnet sonnet sonnet monument,--A Sonnet sonnet
sonn- eternityA Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet be,A
Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonn- portent,A Sonnet sonnet
sonnet reverent:A Sonnet sonnet sonnet ebony,A
Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet seeA Sonnet sonnet
sonnet orient.A Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonn- revealsA
Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet due:--A Sonnet sonnet
sonnet sonn- appealsA Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnretinueA Sonnet sonnet sonnet sonnet breath,A Sonnet
sonnet sonnet sonnet Death.
The fact that sonnet was chosen as the repeated word
creates a layered effect on the poem as a whole, where
we now have a sonnet about how to write a sonnet, in
which the word sonnet is constantly repeated. By
repeating this word so much, it becomes omnipresent,
no matter how you read the poem its status as a sonnet
is unavoidable and must be recognised.
With this final detail I had reached my intentions of
creating a sonnet which lays out a template for how a
sonnet is be formed, as we now have the rhyme
scheme, the volta, the meter and the emotional
meaning. However, the last of these was not part of my
original intention. When I set out to make deform
Rossetti's poem, I had wanted to transform it from
being a poem about how a sonnet is formed
emotionally, to a poem about how a a sonnet is formed

technically, thus flipping the original poem's intentions

entirely. But as previously mentioned, I found that, even
when I removed them from the context of the rest of
the line, the rhyming words of the poem still seemed to
hold meaning, and thus the emotional side of the
sonnet's writing endured. So one could say that I both
succeeded and failed in my intentions. I did create what
I wanted to create; a sonnet which embodies the form
of a sonnet, which any poet could read and use the
form as a basis of their own sonnet. But, in the process,
I failed to remove the emotional writing which I had
originally intended to strip the poem of, leaving only
the technicalities and form. This, however, should not
be considered a failure; it is merely a testament to the
ability of the sonnet form of writing. The form in itself
portrays emotion so fantastically that, even in attempts
to remove it, the sentiment carries through. So upon
reflection, perhaps my original intentions were wrong to
begin with; I have found that the emotional and
technical aspects of sonnet writing are not two
contrasting features, but instead, two features which
cannot exist without one another. One of the original
themes of "A Sonnet" was that of duality, and I think I
have found that there is a duality in the formation of
sonnets, like night and day, emotion and structure are
dependant on each other and they can only exist
together, not apart.