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(1) Introduction to Sonnet:

Sonnet, lyric poem of 14 lines with a formal rhyme scheme, expressing different aspects of a single thought, mood, or feeling, sometimes resolved or summed up in the last lines of the poem. Originally short poems accompanied by mandolin or lute music, sonnets are generally composed in the standard meter of the language in which they were written—for example, iambic pentameter in English, and the Alexandrine in French (see Versification).

The two main forms of the sonnet are the Petrarchan, or Italian, and the English, or Shakespearean. The Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave, or eight-line stanza, and a sestet, or six-line stanza. The octave has two quatrains, rhyming a b b a, a b b a, but avoiding a couplet; the first quatrain presents the theme, the second develops it. The sestet is built on two or three different rhymes, arranged c d e c d e, or c d c d c d, or c d e d c e; the first three lines exemplify or reflect on the theme, and the last three lines bring the whole poem to a unified close. Excellent examples of the Petrarchan sonnet in the English language are found in the sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591) by Sir Philip Sidney, which established the form in England. There, in the Elizabethan age, it reached the peak of its popularity.

The English sonnet, exemplified by the work of William Shakespeare and by Amoretti (1595) by Edmund Spenser, developed as an adaptation to a language less rich in rhymes than Italian. This form differs from the Petrarchan sonnet in being divided into three quatrains, each rhymed differently, with a final, independently rhymed couplet that makes an effective, unifying climax to the whole. The rhyme scheme is a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g.

In the 16th century the English sonnet dealt primarily with the subject of love. In the 17th century the sonnet tradition in England continued, but with more varied subject matter. John Donne wrote a series of Holy Sonnets; and the sonnets of John Milton, written in both English and Italian, concern politics, religion, and personal matters. Milton's sonnets, based on the Petrarchan form, differ slightly in not having a break in the sense between octave and sestet. This results in an even greater cohesiveness of structure.

After Milton, however, the popularity of the sonnet form in English declined somewhat until the end of the 18th century, when the romantic poets (see Romanticism) revitalized it. William Wordsworth is regarded as the finest sonnet writer of the period, although outstanding sonnets were also written by his contemporaries Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. During the Victorian period Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850), and Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote the sonnet sequence The House of Life (1881). Other important sonneteers include Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Christina Georgina Rossetti, and Gerard Manley Hopkins in England; and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the United States. The work of Hopkins is marked by radical variations in the traditional sonnet form; for example, his 11-line sonnet “Pied Beauty” uses sprung rhythm and begins with a sestet, concluding with a quatrain and a very short final line.

The sonnet form has proved adaptable to 20th-century themes and diction. The Austro-German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote what is considered one of the greatest of modern sonnet sequences, Sonnets to Orpheus (1923; translated 1936). Edwin Arlington Robinson, Elinor Wylie, and Edna St. Vincent Millay are noted 20th-century American sonneteers. The Anglo-American W. H. Auden wrote the distinguished sequence Sonnets from China (1936-1938), as well as numerous individual sonnets. Notebook (1969) by American poet Robert Lowell comprises blank-verse sonnets on personal and historical events.

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(2) Typical example- SONNET XVIII by William Shakespeare

XVIII

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day(a)?
2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate(b):
3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May(a),
4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date(b):
5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines(c),
6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed(d),
7. And every fair from fair sometime declines(c),
8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed(d):
9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade(e),
10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st(f),
11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade(e),
12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st(f),
13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see(g),
14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee(g).

THE 1609 QUARTO VERSION

18

This is one of the most famous of all the sonnets, justifiably so. But it would be a mistake to take it entirely in isolation, for it links in with so many of the other sonnets through the themes of the descriptive power of verse; the ability of the poet to depict the fair youth adequately, or not; and the immortality conveyed through being hymned in these 'eternal lines'. It is noticeable that here the poet is full of confidence that his verse will live as long as there are people drawing breath upon the earth, whereas later he apologises for his poor wit and his humble lines which are inadequate to encompass all the youth's excellence. Now, perhaps in the early days of his love, there is no such self-doubt and the eternal summer of the youth is preserved forever in the poet's lines. The poem also works at a rather curious level of achieving its objective through dispraise. The summer's day is found to be lacking in so many respects (too short, too hot, too rough, sometimes too dingy), but curiously enough one is left with the abiding impression that 'the lovely boy' is in fact like a summer's day at its best, fair, warm, sunny, temperate, one of the darling buds of May, and that all his beauty has been wonderfully highlighted by the comparison.

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

1. This is taken usually to mean ,What if I were to compare thee etc? The stock comparisons of the loved one to all the beauteous things in nature hover in the background throughout. One also remembers Wordsworth's lines:
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days when we were young,
Sweet childish days which were as long
As twenty days are now.
Such reminiscences are indeed anachronistic, but with the recurrence of words such as 'summer', 'days', 'song', 'sweet', it is not difficult to see the permeating influence of the Sonnets on Wordsworth's verse.

2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

2. The youth's beauty is more perfect than the beauty of a summer day. more temperate - more gentle, more restrained, whereas the summer's day might have violent excesses in store, such as are about to be described.

3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,



3. May was a summer month in Shakespeare's time, because the calendar in use lagged behind the true sidereal calendar by at least a fortnight.
darling buds of May - the beautiful, much loved buds of the early summer; favourite flowers.

4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

4. Legal terminology. The summer holds a lease on part of the year, but the lease is too short, and has an early termination (date).

5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

5. Sometime = on occasion, sometimes;
the eye of heaven = the sun. This links forward to a comparison in a later sonnet:

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass
And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye, 49

The sun of heaven, and the beloved's sun could both scorch and hide itself from the lover. (See the next line).

6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

6. his gold complexion = his (the sun's) golden face. It would be dimmed by clouds and on overcast days generally.

7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,


7. All beautiful things (every fair) occasionally become inferior in comparison with their essential previous state of beauty (from fair). They all decline from perfection. See the use of fair in Sonnet 1.

8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

8. By chance accidents, or by the fluctuating tides of nature, which are not subject to control, nature's changing course untrimmed.
untrimmed - this can refer to the ballast (trimming) on a ship which keeps it stable; or to a lack of ornament and decoration. The greater difficulty however is to decide which noun this adjectival participle should modify. Does it refer to nature, or chance, or every fair in the line above, or to the effect of nature's changing course? KDJ adds a comma after course, which probably has the effect of directing the word towards all possible antecedents. She points out that nature's changing course could refer to women's monthly courses, or menstruation, in which case every fair in the previous line would refer to every fair woman, with the implication that the youth is free of this cyclical curse, and is therefore more perfect.

9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

9. Referring forwards to the eternity promised by the ever living poet in the next few lines, through his verse.

10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

10. Nor shall it (your eternal summer) lose its hold on that beauty which you so richly possess. ow'st = ownest, possess.
By metonymy we understand 'nor shall you lose any of your beauty'.

11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

11. Several half echoes here. The biblical ones are probably 'Oh death where is thy sting? Or grave thy victory?' implying that death normally boasts of his conquests over life. And Psalms 23.3.: 'Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil ' In classical literature the shades flitted helplessly in the underworld like gibbering ghosts. Shakespeare would have been familiar with this through Virgil's account of Aeneas' descent into the underworld in Aeneid Bk. VI. Death was depicted as a blustering braggart in Euripides' play Alcestis.

12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

12. in eternal lines = in the undying lines of my verse. Perhaps with a reference to progeny, and lines of descent, but it seems that the procreation theme has already been abandoned.
to time thou grow'st - you keep pace with time, you grow as time grows.

13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

13. For as long as humans live and breathe upon the earth, for as long as there are seeing eyes on the earth.

14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

14. That is how long these verses will live, celebrating you, and continually renewing your life. But one is left with a slight residual feeling that perhaps the youth's beauty will last no longer than a summer's day, despite the poet's proud boast.

英语作为拼音文字，其音韵美是显而易见的，但英韵美的形成，在很大程度上得益于三大利器：头韵（Alliteration），辅韵（Consonance）和类音，类韵（Assonance）。英语绕口令中亦常常可见它们的身影，如下面的一则绕口令：Please put plenty of paper in Peter’s pocket and throw all the waste paper into the waste-paper basket. 请把许多纸放到被得口袋里并把所有的废纸丢到废纸篓里去。句子中相邻的几个词please, put, plenty, paper, Peter, pocket 押头韵（Alliteration）[ p ]，几个相邻的词paper, and, all, waste, basket 押元韵（此处重复相似的元音），美语里有一句诙谐的用于告别的俚语，一方说：“See you later, alligator! ”另一方则回答：“In a while，crocodile!”玩的就是辅韵（Consonance），类韵（Assonance）。头韵，辅韵，类韵在英语中的运用可谓举不胜举，下面将对三者作简要分析：
一 ．Alliteration:
据Oxfard Advanced Learner's Dictionary对头韵（Alliteration）的解释,Alliteration指"occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of two or more words in succession."即头韵是若干相邻词的开头或重读音节中对相同字母，辅音或不同元音的重复。 值得注意的是这里的辅音通常为几个相邻词的开端辅音（initial consonant sound），但又不仅限于此。下面举例进行说明：
1) 对开端辅音的重复。如：
a) A misty morning may have a fine day. --Kelly
一个多雾的早晨能可能有一个晴朗的白昼。--寄里
（句中的misty, morning, may在开头重复相同的辅音[m]/字母m。）
b) He remained loyal to me through thick and thin.
他历尽艰辛始终都忠实于我。
（句子中的through, thick, thin在开头重复相同的辅音[ B ]。）
c) The railroad tracks ran right through the center of town.
铁轨直接从城镇中心穿过。
（句中的railroad, ran, right在开头重复相同的辅音[r]/字母r。）
2) 对相同的辅音音丛的重复。如：
A strong man struggling with the storm of fate. 句中对辅音丛/str/ 进行重复。
3) 在几个相邻词的开头不同元音的重复。如：
By apt alliteration's artful aid.
至于在重读音节中对不同元音的重复限于篇幅则不在此赘叙了。事实上头韵虽源于英文诗歌，但在散文、谚语、文章标题中也很常见。试看下面的一段英文中有名的"Susan sells sea shells"：
She sells sea-shells by the sea-shore,
And the shells she sells are sea-shells, I'm sure,
So if she sells shells by the sea-shore,
The shells she sells are sea-shells, for sure.
-------Phyllis Flowerdew
她在海滨卖海类贝壳，我相信她所卖的贝壳是海贝。要是她在海滨卖海贝．那我相信她卖的是海滩上的贝壳。
二．Consonance:
据Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 对辅韵（Consonance）的解释,Consonance指"recurrence or repetition of consonant sounds especially at the end of stressed syllables without the similar correspondence of vowels"即辅韵是指辅音重复（尤指位于词尾的），但前面无相同或相似的元音。譬如 "her brown curly hair"中的辅音[r] 。具体又可分为：
1）在几个相邻词的同一位置（多为词尾）对辅音重复；如：
She tipped her loyal big dog a big hug.
她给了她忠实的狗一个长长的拥抱以示奖励。
（句子中的big, dog, hug在词尾对辅音[g]进行了重复。）
2）在几个相邻词的不同位置对辅音重复；如：
a) They left half a loaf in the safe.
他们把半条面包放在了菜橱里。
（句子中left, half, loaf, s- afe 在不同位置对辅音[f]进行了重复。）
b) Much more man came home that day than we ever expected.
那天来的人数远超出了我们的预料
（句中的much, more, man, came, home在不同位置对辅音[m]进行了重复。）
请读者注意将此处的例b)与前面头韵（Alliteration）的例a)进行比较，两者有相像之处——都主要是基于对辅音的重复，但不同之处在于：1）当重复的辅音为几个相邻词的第一个词的开端辅音时，对辅韵（Consonance）而言，其余相邻词重复的并不都为开端辅音，而头韵（Alliteration）则要求几个相邻词重复的均为开端辅音；2）辅韵（Consonance） 重复的辅音一般位于词尾，头韵（Alliteration）则不能，这是与头韵（Alliteration）的一大不同！
同头韵一样，辅韵亦是英文诗歌中常用的一种文学手法(literary technique)，试看下面的一段，体会辅韵在诗歌中的运用：
Instead of watching the world go round,
Participate in it's sound, it's life
And expound it's wonders.
When will you stop to pose
Upon the red of the rose?
第1，2，3行的round, sound, expound构成尾韵,第4，5行的pose, rose构成辅韵。
三．Assonance:

据Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 对类音，类韵（Assonance）的解释，Assonance是指"relatively close juxtaposition of similar sounds especially of vowels or repetition of vowels without repetition of consonants"即类韵是指几个相邻词的元音相似或元音相同但是前后辅音不同,
1）若干相邻词的音节中对相似元音的重复，也可表现为同一字母在不同单词中所发元音的重复；如：The large black cat jumped onto the table.一只大黑猫跳上了桌子。（字母a在large, black, cat，table中分 别读作[a: ]、[A ]、[A ] 、[ei ],构成了对同一字母a所发元音的重复。）
2）若干相邻词的音节中对相同元音的重复（前后辅音不同）；如：
a) Thanks to the hurricane, the plane was made late to reach Wuhan. 由于受飓风影响，飞机晚抵达武汉。（句中的plane, made, late在重读音节中重复相同的双元音[ei ]。）
b) The glass hardly fell off the table when Jack grasped it. 玻璃杯刚掉下桌就被杰克一把抓住。（句中的glass, hardly，grasped在重读音节中重复相同的后元音[a:]。）
c) The kind guide said aside he would chop the way for us.好心的导游在一旁说他将替我们开路。（句中的kind，guide，aside在重读音节中重复相同的双元音[ai]。）
试看下面孟浩然《春晓》的英译,体会类韵在诗歌中的运用：
Spring mornings
One slumbers late in the morning in spring.
Everywhere, one hears birds warble or sing.
As the night advance, rain spatters; winds
moan.
How many flowers have dropped? Can that be
known?
从以上的例子中读者可能已经注意到实际运用中头韵，辅韵，类韵往往是结合在一起使用的，它们的作用在于进一步加强了句子的语气，使句子显得更加抑扬顿挫，琅琅上口，曲尽英韵之美。读者不妨再从以下几个翻译例子中体会头韵，辅韵，类韵在汉英翻译中的运用：
傲慢与偏见 Pride and Prejudice
在任何情况下 thick and thin
遍体鳞伤 black and blue
勿失良机，机不可失now or never
当场 then and there
使精炼 cut and carve
食宿 bed and board
听任沉浮，不论好歹 sink or swim
吃一堑，长一智。 A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit .
不改则废 mend or end
整体看来，总的来说 first and last
不教不成材 Spare the rod , and spoil the child.
千方百计 by hook or crook
适者生存 Fit most, and survive at last.
不劳无获。 No pains, no gains.
谋事在人，成事在天。Man proposes , God disposes.
少壮不努力，老大徒伤悲。A lazy youth , a lousy age .
三个臭皮匠，顶个诸葛亮。Three cobblers combined, makes a genius mind