On the Sonnet / Sonnet Outline

Thesis: Both John Keats and Billy Collins emphasize the structure of sonnets into two similar viewpoints. Keats questions the effective sonnet form that it may lose sight of the beauty of poetry if an attempt is made to meet formal expectations whereas Collins playfully mocks the form of a sonnet, thus emphasizing the ridiculousness of it to criticize the effectiveness of sonnets. However, both poets take into account the necessity and accessibility of poetic form while incorporated in sonnets.

I.                   Keats emphasizes on analogies to effectively express the speaker’s attachment to his lover. On the contrary note, Collins merely and playfully mocks the effectiveness of sonnets to suggest a rather different and modern meaning to a traditionally formed sonnet.

A.     “If by dull rhymes our English must be chained, / And like Andromeda, the sonnet sweet / Fettered” (Keats 1-2). He starts the poem with an allusion to “Andromeda” who, according to Greek mythology, was chained to a rock so that she would be devoured by a sea monster. He uses this image to represent the fate of poetry, if it follows the unsatisfactory form of either Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnets.

B.     “How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan / and insist the iambic bongos must be played” (Collins 5-6). Similarly, Collins agrees with unsatisfactory form of sonnets by playfully mocking it. Sonnets are traditionally written to express one’s gratification or expression of love to a significant other, but Collins takes this sonnet to a different level by introducing a comical standpoint: he exposes the veins of a sonnet and suggests the fact that it is crucial for sonnets to be written traditionally correctly in order to express love. In Collins’ poem, the poet deliberately incorporates prose-based passages to wholeheartedly suggest that specific poetic forms yield specific emotions.

C.     “But hang on here while we make the turn / into the final six where all will be resolved, / where longing and heartache will find an end, / where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen” (Collins 9-12). Both poets allude to some event or specific people as a means of support in their argument that poetic form is evident in poetic meaning. Collins’ poem alludes to the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch, who wrote a sequence of sonnets to his love, Laura. Collins deliberately and contrastingly emphasizes how these poems differ greatly in language and emotion. The first poem eradicates on how traditional sonnet form expresses love while Collins’ poem emphasizes on questionability of sonnets. However, both poems criticize the structure of sonnets and how it ultimately provokes a love-based emotion. As a whole both poets emphasize on the essential idea that poetic form is directly proportional to the emotion that comes out of poems.