10-10-2013, 12:23 AM
"Correct me if I am wrong, but Alexandrines were used by Spencer and other Elizabethan sonnet writers"
There is a Spenserian stanza that is composed of eight lines of pentameter, and one line Alexandrine, but it was not a sonnet. I think there have been some modern attempts to compose a sonnet entirely of Alexandrines, but it is completely composed of them, it does not alternate. As far as I know, by the middle Elizabethan period the use of Alexandrines had mostly fallen out of use. They may be or have been used in French poetry, even in Sonnets, but that is French and this is English.
But as I said, Leanne is the resident sonnet guru, so she could be more definitive than I.
Dale
There is a Spenserian stanza that is composed of eight lines of pentameter, and one line Alexandrine, but it was not a sonnet. I think there have been some modern attempts to compose a sonnet entirely of Alexandrines, but it is completely composed of them, it does not alternate. As far as I know, by the middle Elizabethan period the use of Alexandrines had mostly fallen out of use. They may be or have been used in French poetry, even in Sonnets, but that is French and this is English.
But as I said, Leanne is the resident sonnet guru, so she could be more definitive than I.
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.