Mark Schoenfield: “Love, Death, and Form in the Modern Sonnet”

https://youtu.be/ChzmG4NscNk

Watch video from the May 4 Thinking Out of the Lunchbox event.

Mark Schoenfield, professor of English, spoke on “Love, Death, and Form in the Modern Sonnet.”

Since the Renaissance, the sonnet has been an especially beloved form for the writers and readers of English poetry, and if these 14 lines monuments to a moment often seem light and playful, they equally have a dark side, as poets have stretched the form and experimented with new content. Seduction, death, political oppression all make their way into this remarkably versatile form, and today, we will look at some famous, and infamous, sonnet, enriching our understanding by considering both their formal features and their contexts.

Thinking Out of the Lunchbox is a series of conversations with David Wood, Centennial Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University.