If there is one poetic form that even non-specialists have heard of, it is the sonnet. This may be in part due to the ubiquity of Shakespeare’s 154–long sequence of them, lines from which have passed into common cultural parlance. However, he is far from the only exponent. The list of practitioners is long and distinguished and, in English verse at least, it would be quicker to name those major who poets who haven’t attempted the form than those who have. Great sonnets are still being written today, and not just in ways that undermine the form’s basic rules; 14-lined, metered, rhymed, sonnets with voltas can be found in many recent collections by well-known poets.

14-lined, metered, rhymed, and fitted with a volta. These are perhaps the most recognised parameters of a formal sonnet. None, it can be argued, are totally necessary. The possession of 14 lines is the most common feature, but even this can and has been played with. The sonnet is as versatile as the writer who uses it, a fact which may in part explain its staying power. Cambridge University Press’ ‘Companion’ to the sonnet looks in depth at those writers who, since its early days in Italy and later worldwide adoption, have found in its small space room enough for every conceivable emotion and every conceivable subject.

As with all the books in Cambridge’s ‘Companion to’ series, this is a selection of essays by various academics each looking at a different aspect of the subject at hand. In this case, after an opening discussion by three poets sharing their thoughts on the form, there are some thematic essays focussing on specific aspects of the form: Marotti and Freiman examine how the  sonnet’s transmission, whether in manuscript, print or mass-media, effects the audiences response and the poet’s method; Diane E. Henderson looks at women’s place in the history of the sonnet, and Catherine Bates highlights the oxymoron at the heart of the Renaissance sonnet sequence, where the poet paradoxically does and does not seek satisfaction and despite wishing for his words to persuade he instead “creates an arena for the endless staging of his words’ failure”. These essays are followed by nine chapters taking us from Dante and Petrach through to contemporary writers such as Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney, with Shakespeare commanding a chapter to himself in between discussions of early modern love sonnets and early modern religious sonnets.

This book is not, and does not pretend to be, an introduction to the sonnet form. There are plenty of these on the market, and it may be helpful to read one before moving on to the essays here. That said, the series of chronological chapters which close the book provide a fascinating potted-history of the form’s use, with eloquent literary criticisms of example poems from each era. Instead, the Cambridge Companion is a testament to the continued fascination with the sonnet and an insight into the perennial discussions concerning its use and possible permutations.

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