Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
From Chaucer and (100-plus years later) Wyatt and Surrey to John Ashbery, June Jordan and Louise Glock, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English shows just how compelling 14 lines with varying (or no) rhyme scheme have been to poets working in the English language. Phillis Levin (Mercury; Forecasts, Mar. 12) has picked more than 600 poems for the collection, and while many of them are from the 20th century, most of those here don't hold a candle (or a florescent tube) to their forebears. Notes on the poets help further distinguish Dick Allen (b. 1939) from Matthew Arnold. ( July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This compact text is a biography of the sonnet as composed in English. In an introductory essay, Levin (Temples and Fields; creative writing, Hofstra Univ.) discusses the sonnet's origins, history, traditions, and possibilities, including its use by poets of the Harlem Renaissance and veterans of World War I as a form of protest. Interwoven with the history are approaches to interpreting and criticizing this poetic form. The bulk of the text is an anthology of over 600 sonnets composed by more than 230 poets. Over 150 of the poets represented wrote during the 20th century. The text is enriched with an appendix covering sonnet patterns and variations, brief biographies of the poets, a list of additional readings, and indexes of authors, titles, and first lines. No recent publication on sonnets has included such a broad spectrum of sonnet writers or attempted to present so complete a history of the sonnet. Recommended for all public and academic libraries. Shana C. Fair, Ohio Univ., Zanesville (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
