ABSTRACT
The sonnet made a late appearance in English literature. The discovery of the characteristic couplet of the English sonnet is shrouded in mystery. Shakespeare uses the sonnet’s final couplet in many different ways, of course, but the effect could in fairness be said to be typical of the English sonnet at its height. The quatrains define the situation and the ensuing dialogue as in many an ordinary English sonnet, but Spenser’s couplet links and the bountiful alliteration which accompanies them turn the whole thing into a melodious game. The sonnet, through its liberated straddling of prosodic convention, is enabled to mimic a crescendo of gloomy feeling that runs counter to a diminuendo in actual sound described in the poem. The attraction of the Italian form has been manifest even in sonnets of great freedom, carelessness or experiment, but the couplet is very strongly associated with the form.
