It is probably important at this point to recall what we said in about genre conventions being a matter of reader’s expectations. If the expected place for a volta in such English sonnets is the end of line twelve, then clearly this sonnet meets those expectations. The volta is “delayed” only if the reader expects it to come at the end of line eight. Our statement that the volta is “delayed” in this sonnet certainly begs the question of how one chooses to apply the Italian term to the English sonnet. Here’s what Furniss and Bath have to say about the poem: This leads to a fascinating reading of Sonnet 130. And this definition is important: even though one might be used to hearing about how the Italian/Petrarchan sonnet turns after the octave while the English/Shakespearean sonnet turns after line twelve, heading into the final couplet, for Furniss and Bath, the place to look for a sonnet’s major turn really is after the octave, whether the sonnet one is reading is Italian or English. So, Furniss and Bath define the sonnet as “a short poem in iambic pentameters, fourteen lines long, which can often be divided into two parts known as the ‘octave’, the first eight lines, and the ‘sestet’, the last six” (281).

This is the first sonnet discussed in the “Finding the Volta” section, and it turns out that Furniss and Bath have what I consider to be a fairly unique take on sonnet’s turning, and I want to think a little about it here, sharing some ideas of my own that I think are distinctive, as well–at least, I don’t recall this being talked about in regard to this particular sonnet. I’m going to forgo this discussion, though–again, for now–for another one, one focused on the turning of one sonnet: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”). And, so, yet again, there’s another example of the structure/form distinction, with structural turning coming out on top! Needless to say, they are not” (282–I’m citing the first edition, from 1996). I plan to write about this book’s treatment of the volta more in another post, but for now, I’ll just note that its chapter on the sonnet begins with a section called “The Sonnet as Fixed Form” and then the next section turns to highlighting the volta–the second section is called “Finding the Volta: Form and Meaning,” and it begins, “If things were this simple, we could end this chapter here.

It’s just a darn solid introduction to poetry, AND it really foregrounds the volta. So, I’m having a blast reading Reading Poetry: An Introduction, by Tom Furniss and Michael Bath.