Write a short note on The English Sonnet.
The English sonnet began with another
lovelorn poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542). In the 1530s, Wyatt translated
some of Petrarch’s love sonnets and wrote a few of his own in a slight
modification of the Italian form. Another English poet who deserves credit for
popularizing the sonnet in England is Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547).
Building on Wyatt’s modifications to the form, Surrey changed the rhyme scheme
of the sonnet to make it more suitable to the English language. Surrey’s
innovations distinguished the English sonnet from the Italian sonnet, and
eventually became known as the Shakespeareansonnet because of Shakespeare’s mastery of the
form.
