G. Thompson
Scansion exercises back: yellow marks are points of disagreement. Foot division; mark unstressed syllables.
Fads (fidget spinners)
Poetic forms also go through fads.
Petrarch, sonnet sequence in Italian; English caught the fad
English doesn't have many rhymes, so adaptation.
Italian form--octave + sestet. Often a problem + solution format; line 9 usually the turn.
envelope rhymes most common, with variations in sestet
English form--Shakespearean. Organization follows three quatrains + closing couplet. Might be three short images and conclusion.
Love themes in early use; with Romantics, a) return to Italian format, and b) used to register a moment's observation. See Keats, Wordsworth.
More of an exercise now than a live form. Some cummings poems are odd sorts of sonnets.
Length is amenable to similar forms--Hayden, Kinnell