Self-Reference

I started to write a post on Sidney's sonnet, but I realized I really wanted to talk about the Collins' one. I am a huge fan of postmodernism and Collins' style appeals to me as such. There is something so wonderful about being self-referential towards tradition.

Sidney does it as well, but in a less obvious way. Namely, he opens the poem with the idea of the "front" or the facade of the opening. At the fifth line, the second quatrain, he also leads in with a door, opening it and allowing the reader into the poem. Further, at the turn of the poem, or the ninth line, the beginning of the sestet, he discusses finally the windows opening, acknowledging that the reader is now inside the poem. Though subtle, these important tricks reference his skill as a poet.

Shakespeare does this in his sonnet, as well as in Olivia's speech in Twelfth Night. Namely, he goes against convention, subverting each and every stereotype. In this way, also acknowledges tradition.

Collins' is able to build on this to create his sonnet and it is only the traditions that give his sonnet the power that it has. Though he is not traditional in the form of his sonnet, he nods to what tradition dictates a sonnet should be: fourteen lines, iambic, with rhymes and a turn at line 9. Though he does have fourteen lines, he ironically counts down through the entire first quatrain. Additionally, though he does not use iambic, most lines are near enough to 10 syllables and though eh doe snot use rhyme, he does employ some slant rhyme. He plays with the sonnet in other ways too, falling back on clichés. His line "to launch a little ship" seems reminiscent of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, particularly the emblematic line "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" Though this was not in a sonnet, it again draws on convention.

Further he goes with his literary references to convention. While the first quatrain introduces both the idea of structure with the discussion of the number of lines and the image of "rows of beams," the second quatrain discusses rhythm and meter, ironically without either of them. The octave also introduces two themes typically present in sonnets - religion and love.

In the sestet though, Collins seems to finally come into his own in the poem. Rather, though he begins the sestet with discusses the turn, he seems to finally loose himself for a moment. Where poets will typically try to tighten and wrap things up in the last two lines, he chooses instead to get away from his purpose into one of pure image. He does this by putting a rhymed couplet in lines 11 and 12, lines that both begin with "where," speeding up the poem. In fact, line 11 is the closet to iambic pentameter we have seen - with only a few deviations. This again allows it to roll off the tongue and prepare for the image of Laura and Petrarch at the culminate of the poem. Here, at last, Collins is able to abandon talking about the formal elements and use the reference to Petrarch's beloved and the fulfillment of their union to close the discussion of the sonnet. It's highly moving, and funny, using the image of "medieval tights" juxtaposed with a woman blowing out a candle. It works though, partly because he does succumb to conventions, here again, he uses rhyme, inserting cleverly in the middle of the line a perfect rhyme - tights/lights. He also is juxtaposing something extremely modern (lights) with something medieval (the tights as well as the candle). You don't blow out lights, you turn them off. This confusion then of symbols underscores how odd it is that Laura will tell Petrarch to do anything, yet make it incredibly reasonable at the same time.