ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most famous, certainly one of the oldest, and definitely one of the most widely used poetic forms in English, the sonnet features such a thematic variability that – instead of looking at it through the lens of themes and topics – the present chapter focuses on the more abstract aspect of the form’s bipartite structure, its ability to balance competing views, its desire to work towards closure, and its speaker’s agency in effecting said closure. Examples discussed range from the Renaissance (Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser) via the Poetry of Sensibility and the Romantics (Smith and Keats respectively) to the Harlem Renaissance (McKay).
