THE ENGLISH SONNET FORM IN THE XVITH – XVIITH CENTURIES (CANONS AND MODIFICATIONS)

The first part of the work is devoted to the language peculiarities of the sonnets, in England of the XVI –XVII centuries. Vocabulary, orthography, pronunciation and grammar were analyzed in detail. Much attention is given to the comparison of the EME forms with the modern ones. The second part of the work is devoted to the architectonic models of English sonnets of the XVI th – XVII th centuries, which were developed by Wyatt, Surrey and Spenser. The peculiarities of rhyming and the main metric – rhythmic configurations of lines are considered thoroughly. The ways of adapting the Petrarchist models of verse to the peculiarities of the English language were also singled out and described. The system of images of the English sonnets is in the focus of the third part of the chapter. The traditional images of Petrarch and his followers are compared to those modified by famous English sonneteers, including Shakespeare. The influence of Neoplatonism and Protestantism on the work of E. Spenser is analysed in detail.


Introduction
This work is devoted to the analysis of language peculiarities, architectonic models and imagery systems of sonnets in the love lyrics by English poets of the XVI th -XVII th centuries.
The structure and content of sonnets of different English poets of the time under discussion was considered in various works of many scientists (Volodarskaya, Lukyanov, Lewis, Spiller, etc.), however, the traditions and innovation of English sonneteers were not described in them consistently and in detail.
The tasks set in this work are as follows: -to describe the main language features of the sonnets of the XVI -XVII centuries; -to determine the specifics of traditional and innovative approaches to the sonnet form and its architectonics in the English poetry of the XVI -XVII centuries; -to identify the main ways of creating images in the poems of the leading English poets -lyricists of the XVI -XVII centuries.
In the course of the study, methods of direct observation, and the comparative method were used. There was also carried out a component analysis of the architectonic models of the English-language sonnet of the XVI -XVII centuries.
The texts of the leading English sonneteers of the XVI -XVII centuries were used as the material for the study (Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, Howard Surrey, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare and John Donne).

The language peculiarities of the English sonnets in XVI -XVII centuries Vocabulary
The sonneteers of the XVI -XVII c. created their lyrics in the Early Modern or Early New English period. It is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, that is from the transition from Middle English in the late XV th century, to the transition to Modern English in the mid-to late XVII c.
The English Reformation brought about a secularization of teaching which removed it from the exclusive domain of a Latin -speaking clergy and put it into the hands of wider groups in the community.
The movement for secular instruction had already become strong in the XVth century. The secular teaching weakened the exclusive position of Latin as a medium of instruction.
Moreover, the movement for translation of the Bible into English brought a heightened prestige to the English language.
More commended Biblical translations into English provided only that they were made with careful accuracy. There was a great enthusiasm as to the dissemination of the Bible in English.
Tyndale declared that every boy should know the Scriptures. He noted that Greek and Hebrew are closer to English than to Latin in word order and sentence structure.
The writer of an anonymous tract (1539) claimed with satisfaction that the reading of the Bible in English had supplanted the earlier vogue for romances of chivalry.
Differences of opinion arose concerning the vocabulary and style to be employed.
Throughout the early Tudor period the primary purpose of language teaching was and remained the achievement of a good Latin or Greek style.
Though the English language was not taught as a separate subject in the grammar schools, it was cultivated in the sphere of translation.
Roger Ascham's system of 'double translation' suggested translation Latin texts into English and then back again into Latin. This system encouraged the students to achieve progress in their knowledge of English.
Some exercises in translation called attention to the phraseology of informal, colloquial English, for instance, in the rendering of Latin comedies into the English language.
The Tudor handbooks of rhetoric published in English were not used only in the schools. They reached wide circles of readers outside the institutions of education. Thus they provided a broad basis for the shaping of literary English and helped to establish its value and dignity as an artistic medium of expression.
There are appeared a number of books on English Rhetoric art: Thomas Wilson's " Arte of Rhetorique"(1560), Richard Sherry's two books on rhetoric -"A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes"(1550) and "A Treatise of the Figures of Grammar and Rhetorike"(1555). Richard Sherry stated that students should practice eloquence in English, that eloquence should be realized in the native language.
The achievements of creative writers in verse and prose indicated the dignity and value of the English language in the last decades of the XVI th century.
But the English language of this time was considered rude and even barbarous. Some scholars such as Richard Mulcaster, the teacher of E. Spenser, wrote books to aid in the establishment of a standard orthography. He is known for his textbook " The First Part of the Elementaric"(1582) which he wrote in defence of English.
There were many influences outside of rhetorical studies which affected the English language during the XVI century. They concerned vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and usage in relation to the accepted standard.
The standard form of the English language was being definitely established. The atmosphere was favorable to extensive literary expression centred in the national capital with theatres, court shows and above all the printing presses stimulating the use of language arts for entertainment.
The noble and wealthy courtiers, the professional writers wished to improve their mastery of English as a tool of expression.
Edward Coote in his book " The English Schoolmasters"(1596) appealed the different social groups with an exhortation to improve their mastery of the language for practical reasons.
It was necessary of the representatives of different circles of people for understanding, for example, the poems of the authors of the time.
Thomas Wilson in his "Art of Rhetorike", tells about half-educated townsmen and majors who tried to imitate the artificially cultured style of certain courtiers and scholars with the result that they fell into comic distortions and malapropisms. Later Shakespeare used malapropisms in the speech of his characters -Bully Bottom, Launcelot Gobbo and Dogberry. Their mistakes being laughed at indicated the breadth of interest in matters of language.
The mobility of English workers in the XVI th century was the chief social factor, besides the expansion of education, which affected the language.
The discovery of the New World, the increased trade and cultural exchange with neighboring countries and with those of the Mediterranean area, enriched the language with new words and expressions.
The achievements of navigation, the enormous advances in geographical knowledge, brought about a lot of books and reports of discoveries composed for various types of readers. While the most technical works, designed for specialists, were still done in Latin, the popular demand led to more and more writing in English.
Interest in the English language was reinforced by cultivation of Old English studies. Old English texts were read by polemicists debating the issue of Protestantism versus Catholicism, and later by literary critics debating the relative worth of ancient and modern languages. These issues were not primarily concerned with language for its own sake, but they enhanced interest in it and helped to deepen the current knowledge of English and to add to its prestige.
The English language received loan words from many sources. The newer elements were absorbed by direct contact with foreign countries, through trade, colonization and travel for pleasure, more often than through purely learned channels. Words adopted in the Tudor age usually underwent the subsequent sound changes of English.
Among typical classes of French words taken over in the 16th century were military terms such a trophy, pioneer (originally meaning a foot soldier). The latter word is a lengthened form of pawn, first recorded in 1369, which comes from Latin pedo. Here also belong such words as pilot, corsair, volley, colonel and rendez-vous ( recorded in the military sense in 1591).
Italian loans like the French ones represented several spheres of activity, but especially interesting are the ones connected with music and architecture. The cultural influence is reflected in some architectural terms, such as cupola, cornice, fresco, frieze, pedestal, citadel, piazza, stucco, belvedere; musical terms like fugue, canto, canzone, madrigal, viol de gamba, etc.
A miscellaneous group of words indicated contact with Italian social life. These include: artisan, podesta, magnifico, signor, gondola, carnival, cavalcade, bandit.
Spanish loans include a number of words which have to do with relations in polite society, such as don, infant, senora, grandee, punctilio and hidalgo.
Holland and Belgium supplied English with nautical and military terms. The word -stock was enriched by such words as dock, rove (to be a pirate), yacht, smuggler, stoker, freebooter, filibuster, wagon, uproar, etc.
The addition of so many loan words from various sources, ancient and modern, evoked sentiments of alarm among certain writers. The attitude towards neologisms was in fact connected with literary problems such as the choice of a proper vocabulary for Biblical translations and for the composition of origin verse. The proponents of an elaborate, decorative style continued the tradition of aureate English from the XV th century and often combined Latin derivatives with archaic native words kept in limited circulation by the vogue for Chaucer's poetry.
A vigorous resistance developed in the XVI c. against aureate diction or ink-horn terms, as they were called. These were condemned by the purists, who believed that English should resist the intrusion of foreign expressions. In translating the Bible into English, Sir John Cheke (1550) went very far in order to avoid the Greek or Latin words which Wycliffe (1380) and Tyndale (1534) had carried over into English. For 'centurion' Cheke used 'hundreder'; for 'parables' he used 'biwords', for apostle the word ' frosent', and so on.
The main linguoconcept of the lyrical sonnets devoted to beloved women is the notion-word 'Love'. It is the nucleus of the lexicosemantic field of the same name.
The nouns love, lust, desire, passion are frequently used as well as the verb to love.
The beloved was often called mistress, goddess, my love, my sweet, etc. The secondary nominative units having a metaphoric ringing were also widely used. In his sonnet C XXXI Shakespeare wrote: Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel [ Sh., p. 761].
Here the author likens the beloved to the precious stone. But this metaphor is not original, it goes back to Petrarchism.
There is also a frequent use of the words 'heart' and 'soul' which are metonymic denominations of the lyrical hero or his lover: <….> thy heart torments me with disdain [ Sh., CXXXII, p.762].
As in most cases the lyrical hero is suffering from his love, the key words of the semantic group 'sorrow' are widely used in the sonnets. Sometimes love is associated with death. The poets in this case used hyperbole to heighten the expressive power of their emotions: Desire is death Past cure I am, now reason is past care [ Sh., CXLVII, p. 769].
As we see, neither doctor is able to cure the loving person nor reason.
As the love of the lyrical hero in most cases remains unrequited, the author describes the cruelty of the beloved woman using such words of this semantic group as adjectives: hard, cruel, steal, covetous, tyrannous, blind (in the figurative sense); nouns: unkindness, evil, enemy, foe, verbs: to hate, to disdain, to despise, etc.
As the love is not happy, the poets of the time called it a blind fool; false plague, a sin, a fever, that is they used the words and expressions with the pejorative axiology: O The Reason is likened to a doctor, to a physician whose prescriptions the lyrical hero is not able to follow. In this way the poet emphasizes the force of love which is invincible.
Thus, the words of the lexico -semantic field 'Love' make up the thematic nucleus of the lyrical sonnets involving the lexemes of different semantic groups which actualize not only their primary meanings but also secondary ones when they are engaged in the formation of metaphors and other stylistic devices.
Orthography and pronunciation One of the most authoritative editions which gives reliable information about the orthography in the XVI -XVII centuries is the collection of Songs and Sonnets called "Tottel's Miscellany" (1557). It included the lyrics of many poets, sometimes anonymous. Among its well-known authors are H. Surrey and Thomas Wyatt. The volume consists of 271 poems, none of which had ever been printed before. This first poetic anthology made a great contribution to English letters. It was also the last large collection of sonnets for several decades until the appearance of Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence " Astrophel and Stella" (159). There are in total 54 actual sonnets in the anthology. They include 9 from unknown authors, three from Nicholas Grimald, 15 from Surrey and 27 from Wyatt.
By the later part of the XVI th century, pronunciation had deviated still further from spelling than in Caxton's day, but people still wrote more or less according to medieval norms.
Some enthusiasts tried to improve the orthography of many words. The ME words 'debte' and ' doubte', both taken from the French, were provided with the silent 'b's and became ' debt' and ' doubt', though the pronunciation remained unchanged; 'vittles' was transformed into 'victuals' and 'rime'into 'rhyme' under Greek influence. The word 'saume' turned into 'psalm', and ME 'ilond' was changed to look like 'isle'.
These pseudo -learned spellings actually became the basis of new pronunciations. For example, the French -derived 'autor' was spelled with an unhistorical h -'author', ( which it was not), and was pronounced with the interdental sound [ θ] for the original [t]. Detailed studies have shown that the evolving standard English of about 1600 was not just a regular, consistent development from the heritage of Chaucer's standard court language as modified by the incipient vowel and consonant shifts of the XV th century.
The types of orthography and pronunciation current in educated circles were more varied than they are today.
Detailed research on Shakespeare's rimes and puns has aided in the reconstruction of a typical London pronunciation of the time. So far as Shakespeare's own speech is concerned, it must be remembered that part of the evidence for it is debatable. Shakespeare may well have carried over idiosyncrasies of the Warwickshire dialect into his literary works. Moreover, the cultured speech of his day was less unified, less subject to strict standards than it was to become later on. In the period about the year 1600 there were still a number of possibilities of choice among equally correct forms. Conservative and advanced pronunciations could be heard side by side as well as different orthographic variants which can be found in the lyrics of the XVI th century poets, including the authors of sonnets.
It is generally assumed that the i had the value of [I] despite rimes in which this vowel is paired with words apparently having [I:].
Not only did more conservative and more advanced pronunciations existed side by side, but there were also alternate forms of the same word due to currency of more than one dialect form in London.
The London English of Shakespeare's time must have had pronunciation doublets for many words.
There were some instances of shortening, probably due to the neighborhood of certain consonants. Under conditions that are not entirely clear, the originally long vowels of certain one -syllable words ending in consonants were at this time being shortened, e.g. deaf, head; [ I:] -> [E]. Shakespeare rimed east: breast with the sound [E], as well as deal: knell.
As to the consonants appearing in Shakespeare's language, they are not strikingly different from those of London English in the preceding century.
Most consonant sounds of EME have survived into present -day English. However, there are a few notable differences in pronunciation.
Today' silent' consonants found in the consonant clusters of such words as ' knot', 'gnat', 'sword' were fully pronounced up until the midto -late XVI th c. but they were fully reduced by the early XVII c.
Much variation existed for many of the words with the digraph <ght> in words like 'night', 'thought', and 'daughter', originally pronounced [ The letter i between vowels and in the initial position was pronounced as [dʒ]: ialous (jealous). Wyatt wrote in one of his sonnets the word 'iudge' which corresponds to the modern word 'judge'.
Some words with double oo in Mod E were written as loke (look), fote (foot) and were often pronounced with [ɔ]. At the same time one could find the forms with double oo: boote, roote. The word 'foot' had two variants of spelling: 'foote' and 'fote': They blee from me, that fomtime did me feke With naked fote ftalking within my chamber [Wyatt,p. 40].
The word 'look' had the variant 'loke': One beame of ruth is in her cloudy loke Wyatt, p. 45].
Fluctuations of the spelling were typical of the word 'heart', so often used in the sonnets of the XVI c. The variants were 'hert, 'hart' and 'heart'. One and the same poet could use the variant 'hart', 'hert' in one of his lyrics and the variant ' heart' in the other ones. Comp: ( Many words which now are written with y at the end were spelt with ie (ie->y): pitie (pity), crueltie (cruelty), etc: My loue to ʃkorne, my feruice to retayne, Therin (me thought) you vfed crueltie.
Since with good will I loft my libertie [Wyatt,p. 55]. But at the same time the letter y was also employed, e.g. beauty.
The adjectives with the formant ful in Mod E were written with the double ll: fearfull (fearful), ioyfull (joyful), etc: Go burning ʃighes vnto the frofen hart, Go breake the yfe which pities painfull dart [Wyatt,p. 73]. The modern digraph ai was represented in EME by the digraph ay: chayne (chain); in vayne (in vain); rayne (rain); payne (pain), though the forms with the ai were also noticed, e.g. paine (pain): I fede me in forow, and laugh in all my paine [Wyatt,p. 39].
Instead of modern double ee there was often used the single letter e : ben/ bene (been): (1) That hath always bene enmy to mune eafe [Surrey, p. 32]. A silent e was often appended to verbs and nouns 'speake' and 'cowarde'. The last consonant was sometimes doubled when the e was added: hence manne (for man) and runne ( for run). E.g. In the sonnet "The louer compareth his ʃtate to a ʃhippe" Wyatt used such words as: forgetfulneʃʃe; paʃʃe; cruelneʃʃe; readineʃʃe; fearfulneʃʃe, etc.
Many spellings as we have already mentioned, had not been standardized, e.g. he was spelled as both he and hee even in the same sentence in Shakespeare's sonnets and elsewhere.
I and j were not considered as two destined letters, but as different forms of the same letter: hence 'ioy' for 'joy' and 'iust' for 'just'.The custom of using i as a vowel and j as a consonant began only in the 1630s.: Ye that in loue finde luck and fwete abundance, And lyue in luft of ioyfull iolitie [Wyatt,p. 35].
U and V were not considered two distinct letters but as different forms of the same letter. Typographically, v was frequent at the start of a word u and elsewhere: hence vnmoued ( modern unmoved) and loue (for love). The modern convention of using u for the vowel sounds and v for the consonants was introduced only in the 1630s.
W was frequently represented by vv. The final syllable of words like modern 'public' was variously spelt but more frequently as ' publick', that is with the formant ick.
The letter S had two distinct forms: short s and ʃ (long s). The long s could appear anywhere except at the end of a word. The double s was written variously ʃʃ, ʃs: kiʃʃe (kiss); amiʃʃe (amiss) and so on, e.g.: How to be iuft: and flee from doubleneʃʃe [Wyatt,p. 53].
The accentuation of polysyllables in Shakespeare's time differed partly from that of Mod E. A strong secondary stress was kept on some syllables which nowadays lack it. This is revealed by the scansion of verse and also by the rimes indicating diphthongs where there are short lowered vowels today. Many suffixes were stressed, especially when the words were rhymed. As a result, the suffix ity could be rimed with 'eye'.
French loan -words often showed a fluctuation of accentual usage. E.g. the word chaŕacter with the stress on the first syllable alternated with charcteŕ with the stress on the second. Often it depended on the needs of rhythm.
Many disyllabic words, borrowed from the French language, kept their accent constantly on the final syllable under the influence of the pronunciation rules of the French language, e.g. 'surveý', 'rebeĺ', no matter whether these words were nouns or verbs. As we know, in Mod E the nouns presented have the stress on the first syllable.
Sometimes the accentuation of the final syllables was stipulated by the iambic verb -forms, which is characterized by the stress on the second syllable in the foot.
Grammar Grammar of lyrics in the XVI -XVII centuries did not have stable strict rules. It was only in the process of codification and admitted a lot of variations. All parts of speech had their own peculiarities which will be discussed further.
Nouns. One of the noun peculiarities of the time under discussion was the regular use of the plural with many abstract nouns: wisdoms, informations, etc.
The ending es was used not only the words having with the final fricatives in the singular but with words having different final sounds, e.g.: Under craggy rockes they haue barren plaines [Wyatt,p. 70]. The ending -s was used not frequently giving place to the universal -es.
In some cases the old forms of the plural were also used as an alternative for s/es: comp. 'eyes' and 'eyen'. The variant eies was also used: Some fowles there be, that haue fo perfit fight Against the funne their eues for to defend [Wyatt,p.38].
Adjectives and adverbs Adjectives and adverbs were less consistently distinguished than today. Shakespeare and his contemporaries quite freely used Romance and Germanic adverbs lacking the typical suffix ly: 'wondrous strange'instead of ' wonderously strange' or 'seeming virtuous queen' instead of 'seemingly virtuous queen',etc.
The use of more and most in the degrees of comparison was not yet fixed according to precise rules. Analytical comparison forms could appear instead of synthetical ones with monosyllables ('most vile' instead of 'viler'; 'most brave' instead of 'braver'). Polysyllables, on the contrary, could employ the suffixes er and est, which is typical of monosyllables.
The choice between analytical and synthetic forms in verse was , no doubt, sometimes conditioned by rhythm. The same factors may have determined the choice of double comparative and double superlative forms, e.g. 'the most unkindest cut of all' (Sh).
Regularizing of the degrees usages occurred only in the later XVII c. and the XVII c.
Thus, there was coexistence of the three alternative forms for the comparative degrees: earlier, more easy and more easier. All of them were acceptable in this period. The rules by which er and est are preferred in monosyllabic words and analytical forms with more and most for the polysyllabic ones with variation in disyllabic words, was established only by the late XVII century but in regional dialects er continued to be preferred in all words, however long. The double comparative was generally used for emphasis. Shakespeare also used different variants of the adjectives in the comparative degrees some of which coincide with modern forms and some do not: what is most dear; newer proof; an older friend; next my heaven the best; most loving breast [Sh., CX, p. 751].
Pronouns The pronoun forms were not in the XVI -XVII centuries completely settled. For example, hit alongside it still appeared in the XVI c. for the neuter gender, with genitive his and dative him.
In the second person, by 1600 the personal pronoun ye was the alternative to you. In the earlier English ye was the subjective case and you the objective. By 1600 no case distinction remained.
By 1600 thou and its objective case thee were restricted to affective both positive and negative uses so as to be intimate or disparaging. By the late XVII century you had become normal in almost all contexts but thou and thee were very stable in the language of lyrical poets. Moreover, they retained in the poetry of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and other poets of the XIX c. The forms thou and thee are widely used by Shakespeare: (1)In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note [Sh., CXLI, p. 766].
(2) So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee [Sh., CXLIII, p. 767]. As to the possessive pronouns, the possessive of the 3 rd person neuter it was his until around 1600. The form its first appeared in print in the 1590s and was rapidly accepted into the standard language.
The form your coexisted with the absolute form thine and the conjoint form thy, especially when the lyrical hero addressed his beloved woman. Thy usually was in preposition to the nouns, the inifial sound of which was consonant and thine was used in combination with nouns the initial sound of which was a vowel or it was at the beginning of the sentence. In this case the author managed to preserve harmony of sounds which was so important for the verse. The forms thy and thine can be found in the sonnets by Shakespeare: (1) Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside [Sh., CXXXIX, p. 765].
(2) O, let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace [Sh., CXLIII, p. 762]. Relative pronouns The relative pronoun 'which' was inherited from Middle English but become rare by the mid-seventeenth century. Which could be used for both persons and things but became rare for persons after 1611.
Who as a relative pronoun was rare in the XV c. and gradually became commoner in the period of the XVI c.
The use of the so -called zero relative (no pronoun at all) arose in ME but was rare in the XVI c.: Life itself is a burden [zero relative] cannot be -born under the lasting pressure of such an uneasiness [ John Lock, 1694].
Nevertheless, these structures can be found in EME lyrics.
Notably common was the sequence of demonstrative possessive + noun (this your mother), which is prohibited in Modern English Grammar.
The interrogative and relative pronoun forms like the personal ones, were also handled with considerable freedom. The oblique case could be either who or whom ( Between who? and Between whom?) Not only who and which, but also other relative pronouns were loosely expressed with duplication of forms. Thus, relative pronouns were frequently omitted, thus producing asyndetic contact clauses, as it happens in Mod E. Verbs The verbs in the XVI -XVII centuries still were divided into the weak and strong ones. But it has been estimated that about 30 verbs were lost to the strong conjugation in the XVI -XVII centuries. Among the surviving strong verbs, there was a perceptible tendency to level preterite and past participle forms into one: break -> broke and are broke; speak -> spoke and have spoke; choose -> chose and have chose instead of 'are broken'; have spoken; have chosen.
The en-ending of strong past participles in some instances was lost: 'forgot' instead of 'forgotten', 'writ' instead of 'written', etc.: In many's looks the false heart's history The ending -(e)th was the normal third person singular ending. It came from Southern England where it alternated with the ending (e)s which came from Northern dialects. Thus, the forms doth, hath, askth were a common thing in the lyrical texts including sonnets.
The past tense and past participle. The class of 'strong' verbs, that is those which indicate tense by a vowel change, included a number of verbs which are now only weakones; help -> holp, holpen while today the only form for it is helped; melt-> molt, molten, though today the only form is melted.
The formation of the past tense and past participle of strong verbs showed more variation in early modern English than today: creep -> crope, cropen and crept.
The verb ' write' had the regular past tense 'wrote' but also there were used the form 'writ' and even 'wrote' ( patterned on 'gave' and 'brake'); the corresponding participle was 'written' or 'writ' ( with loss of the -en) and even 'wrote' (based on the past tense).
Owing to the Great Vowel Shift the past forms 'bare' from ' bear', 'brake' from 'break'' 'speake' from ' speak' alternated with the forms 'bore, broke, spoke'. The o -forms later ousted the a-forms but in the sonnets of the time under discussion there were widely used both forms. The choice of the suitable variant in many cases depended on the requirements of rhyme.
Regular 'weak' verbs in Middle English formed their past tense and past participles in -ed, pronounced as a separate syllable, which can be found nowadays in such fossilized forms as beloved or blessed.
But in Early Modern English both variants of pronunciation with the preserved and the lost vowel were used. The sign of apostrophe did not show distinctly whether the vowel is lost or not. In many cases it depended on the rhythm and rhyme of the poem and necessity to preserve the metric and rhythmic pattern of the sonnets which, as a rule, were written in the style of iambic pentameter. The breach of the rhythm was a sign of lack of virtuosity.
For a long time the Perfect forms were used as synonyms of the Simple Past. The perfective meaning, as well as that of priority, could be expressed both by the simple form of the Past tense (Past Indefinite) and by the Perfect forms. The Present and Past Perfect commonly alternated with Past Indefinite.
Towards the age of Shakespeare the contrast between the Perfect and non-Perfect forms became more obvious. In most cases Shakespeare and his contemporaries employed the Perfect forms in the same way as they are employed in present-day English: Than think that we before have heard them told [Sh., CXXIII, p. 757].
The earliest instances of analytical forms of the Gerund are found in the sonnets of the XVII c. Shakespeare wrote: To let him spend his time no more at home, Which would be great impeachment to his age In having known no travel in his youth [Sh., CXVI, p. 769].
Modal and auxiliary verbs The system of verbal auxiliaries was also diversified and unsettled as compared with today's.
In the period under discussion there was a marked expansion in the use of the auxiliary verb to do. It was used not only in interrogative or negative constructions, but also in the affirmative ones; e.g.: I do betray My nobler part to my gross body's treason [Sh., CLI, p. 771].
The choice of a construction with do or without it was often dictated by the CLI needs of verse rhythm. The do -constructions were favoured to obtain a desired cadence of speech.
But after the do -constructions had completely displaced the socalled non-periphrastic forms in questions and negative sentences: (1) Love(d) you not? -> Do (did) you love?; (2) I love(d) not -> I don't (didn't) love),-their use in affirmative declaratives was gradually displaced and by the XVIII c. became a marker of emphasis.
In the sonnets of the XVI c. the verb to do is used both in emphatic and non-emphatic cases, though the old forms without the auxiliary do were also employed.
The use of the affirmative doth can be illustrated by the following fragment from one of the sonnets by Wyatt: And fome (fowles), becaufe the light doth them offend, Neuer appeare [ Wyatt., p.38].
The present tense of the verb to be has be -forms alongside the forms am, are, used in current English: I be; thou beest; we be; you be; they be. These forms were quite common in the XVI c.; If it be not, then love doth well denote Love's eye is not so true as all men's no [Sh., CXLVIII, p. 770].
The perfect of intransitive verbs, especially verbs of motion, continued ( as in Middle English) to be frequently formed with to be rather than to have. Shakespeare normally used to be with creep, enter, flee, go, meet, retire, ride, run, etc.: I am not thought To large lengths of miles when thou art gone [Sh., XLIV, p. 718].
The auxiliary verbs may, can and ought, which are widely employed in Mod E, had a rather restricted currency in the XVI -XVII centuries.
The Continuous forms were used rarely. Instead of them there were employed the so -called gerundial constructions. The verb in the ingform had a prefix a which was usually hyphenated, e.g. 'He is a -praying'.
Many scholars believed that the Continuous forms are a direct continuation of the prepositional phases ben+ on /at + Participle I. The preposition was eventually weakened to -a. The most popular these prepositional phrases with the reduced preposition were in the XVI-XVII c. These a-forms were also used with the other verbs besides to be: Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting [Sh., XX, p. 706]. The Continuous Forms without prepositional elements were also employed in the age of Shakespeare.
But the semantic difference between Continuous and non-Continuous forms was not always apparent. In many cases they were interchangeable.
The non-Continuous simple forms could indicate an action in progress which took place before the eyes of the speaker as it is typical of Modern Continuous forms.
It was not until the XVIII c. that Continuous forms acquired a specific meaning of their own, that of incomplete concrete process of limited duration.
As the narration is not inherent in the sonnet these forms of process and development were restricted in their use.
For many hundred years the Continuous forms were not used in the Passive Voice. The Active Voice of the Continuous form was sometimes used with the passive meaning. The earliest written evidence of the Passive Continuous was found only in the writings of the XVIII c.
Thus, the to be + present participle constructions had no passive. For example, "The castle was being built" in Mod E was expressed by the active voice in EME: " The castle was building" or by the gerundial constructions: " The castle was in building" or " The castle was a -building".
In the age of Shakespeare the phrases with 'shall' and 'will' occurred in free variation. They could express pure futurity and different shades of modal meanings.
In the 2 nd singular these forms looked like wilt and shalt. Phrases with shall and will outnumbered all other ways of indicating futurity. They were used in the sonnets of Shakespeare: (1) Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love? [Sh., X, p. 701].
In this fragment shall and will are used both in their pure future function and future with the meanings of desire and certainty, prediction.
The rule of their usuage for the first time was formulated only in 1653 by John Wallis. He pointed to the regular interchange of 'shall' and 'will' depending on the person: the form 'shall' was attached to the first person. But the distribution of these two auxiliaries -shall for the 1 st person and will for the 2 nd and 3 rd -became a mark of the British Standard only in the XIX c.
With other persons 'shall' was used in more official forms: in documents, in religious writings and in high poetry.
In the Elizabethan times the Present tense continued to be employed in the function of future indication. But the ration of Future to Present in expressing futurity increased to 10:1. But in general the forms were used in free variation, which is contrary to modern usage. They were widely used in the conditional clauses while in Mod E the present forms of futurity are employed; If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, When other petty griefs have done their spite [Sh., XC,p.741].
Eventually the Future tense went out of use in some syntactical structures, namely clauses of time, condition and concession.
The other forms of the futurity also developed. The construction to be going to was first recorded in the XVII c.
By the age of Shakespeare the change of the ME 'should' and 'would' losts their lexical meanings and their turn into auxiliaries was complete. The forms 'should' and 'would' -originally Past Subjunctive of 'shall' and 'will' -became formal markers of the new, analytical forms of the Subjunctive Mood. In the sonnets of Shakespeare they did not differ in meaning: If all were minded so, the times should cease, And threescore year would make the world away [Sh., XI,p.701].
The use of 'should' and 'would' as mood auxiliaries was supported by the paralled development of 'shall' and 'will' as the auxiliaries of the Future Tense. The rules prescribing the distribution of 'shall' and 'will' according to person applied also to 'should' and 'would'.
But only by the XVIII c. 'should' became the dominant auxiliary for the 1 st person and 'would'-for the 2 nd and 3 rd . Agreement There were not any strict rules of agreement between the nouns and corresponding pronouns. The plural noun men could be later referred to as his or him instead of their or them.
This shift from plural to singular may be accounted for by the ambiguity of the verb form in -eth, which in the South might have been either singular or plural.
The reverse processes also were fixed in the sonnets of the XVI c. The plural nouns habitually slipped over to a generic singular pronoun: the fellows -> he.
The pleonastic constructions were widely spread. The anticipatory pronouns doubled following nouns in the same sentence and forming the so -called reprise construction, e.g. "My lord, she and that friar, I saw them at the prison" (Sh.).
There are examples of the unorthodox agreement in the poems of the XVI -XVII centuries, e.g. 'the posture are'. Some scholars believe that these unexpected, unusual forms are to be regarded as individual poets' slips and idiosyncrasies, rather than testimony to a widespread habit of speech.
Order of the words The order of the words was greatly stipulated by the requirements of rhythm of the sentences, that is why inversion was often used as an emphatic means and the medium of regulation and organization of the sentence. Thus, the metric and rhythmic pattern of the lyric was the main factor which determined the choice of the word order in the sonnets.
The double negation which is prohibited today could be found in the times of Shakespeare and was not qualified as a non-standard form of negation, especially when some additional words were necessary for the preservation of iambic pentameter schemes.: Yet can I not hide me in no dark place [Wyatt., p. 38].
Correlation of parts of speech The same words were often used performing the functions of the different parts of speech.
A shifting back and forth from verbal use to nominal, from nominal to adjectival, and so on, reflects a stylistic and morphological freedom of the time, the lack of morphological stability.
Similar to it was the freedom manifested in word formation. There appeared original compounds (heaven -kissing hill (Sh.)) and the words formed by unconventional addition of prefixes and suffixes (unpeopled for depopulate or enskied for exalted (Sh)).
The shifting of grammatical categories was facilitated by the loss of many inflections in late ME.
Shakespeare transferred parts of speech easily, he did it boldly while some poets did it with caution. He used a noun as a verb or vice versa: he pageants, the grief violenteth, -or a noun as an adjective: 'my salad days'.
Moreover, normally intransitive verbs could appear in the lyrics as transitive ones, e.g. She dances my rapt heart.
Thus, parts of speech were often unconventially handled in the Elizabethan period.
Different peculiarities of orthography and grammar described can be found in the following fragment from the sonnet of Wyatt: Behold, Loue, thy power how she defpifeth; My grievous payn how little fhe regardeth: The folemne oathe, whereof fhe takes no cure, Broken fhe hath: and yet, fhe bydeth fure, Right at her eafe, and little thee fhe dreadeth: Weaponed thou art, and fhe vnarmed fitteth: To the difdainful, all her life fhe leadeth; To me spitefull, without iust caufe or meafure: I am in hold, but if thee pitie meueth, Go, bend thy bow, that ftony hartes breaketh, And with fome ftroke revenge thegreat difpleafure Of thee, and him that forow doth endure, And, as his Lord thee lowly here entreateth [ Wyatt., p. 53].
As we see, the letter u in the word ' loue' denotes the sound [v], as it was common when this sound was placed between two vowels.
The letter f was used both for presenting the sound [f] and the sound [s]. Wyatt uses the digraph ay which later turned into the digraph ai: payn (pain). According to the tradition Wyatt used the ending e in such words as folemne (solemn) and oathe (oath). The formant ful in the XVI c. was written with double l and Wyatt followed this rule: Spitfull (spiteful).
Through all the text he uses the personal and possessive pronouns thou, thee, thy which were regularly employed in that period.
Wyatt also used the ending th in the 3rd singular of the verbs: fitteth (fits); leadeth (leads), which was a common spelling in the XVI c.
The letter i in the initial position according to the convention represented the sound [dʒ]: iust (just).
The author used the combination ie which later turned into y: pitie (pity). The letter v at the beginning of the words gave the sound [ʌ], as in the little of the Wyatt's sonnet: vnkinde (unkind).
Thus, there were different orthographic and grammar peculiarities in the XVI -XVII centuries which were represented in the sonnets of the lyrical poets. The great variety of forms testifies to the lack of strict codification of rules in that period. At the same time it left a great space for maneuvering and experiments with rhyme, metric and rhythmic models of the sonnets providing them with flexibility and subtlety. Due to the freedom of forms the sonneteers could display their virtuosity and talent.

Architectonic models of English sonnets of the XVI-XVII centuries
The sonnet originated at the dawn of the Renaissance in Sicily, then spread rapidly in Italy, becoming the hallmark of the Bologna poetry school and the "a new sweet style" -a trend in Florentine literature which the young Dante belonged.
Dante's sonnets are loaded with medieval allegorism and theological metaphors. They told about his arduous and full of trials platonic love for Beatrice (suffering and spiritual perfection).
The image of an inaccessible lover and unrequited love passion was inherited by Francesco Petrarca, whose work heralded the onset of the Renaissance. The object of his passion, the beautiful Laura, was beyond the reach of Petrarch. Besides, Laura was a married woman. After the death of his beloved in 1548, Petrarch continued to write poems about Laura, full of grief and eternal love.
By the 16th century, sonnets dedicated to unapproachable lovers and the torments of unrequited passion were created in large numbers in French, Spanish, Portuguese and even German.
Chaucer was the first to translate the sonnet into English. He included Petrarch's 88th sonnet entitled "The Complaint of Troilus" in his poem "Troilus and Cressida", without reducing its form.
English nobles Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in the early XVII th century. visited Italy on behalf of King Henry VIII and, returning to the court, became translators and imitators of Petrarch's sonnets.
As J. Putnam notes in his famous book "The Art of English Poetry" (1589), Wyatt and Surrey learned the "sweetness of meter" and the style of Italian poetry, and, taking Dante, Ariosto and Petrarch as models, polished the crude and naive manner of the English poem.
However, the sonnets of Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey were limited only to certain themes from the legacy of Petrarch, including themes of love.
Wyatt moved away from the Petrarchist tradition of yearning for the ideal. The lyrical hero of the sonnet is as down to earth as possible, and the object of his passion is an ordinary woman. Wyatt's intonation is close to colloquial speech, and quite often there are deviations from the metre and interruption of the rhythm. This ordinary woman, Wyatt's muse, according to many testimonies, was the lover, and later the wife of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, which gave a special drama to the relationship between Wyatt and Anne.
Thomas Wyatt initially retained the structure of a Petrarchist sonnet with rhymes abba abba cdd cee, and the model -two quatrains and two tercets Here Wyatt reflected his personal experiences. The doe hunted by the lyrical hero is Anne Boleyn, who already belongs to King Henry VIII and who later became his wife. Under the name of Caesar, Henry VIII appears here. Borrowing images from Petrarch, Wyatt endowed them with personal content.
However, this is not the only architectonic model of the Petrarchist character, since tercets could be built freely and gave various configurations. The scheme of the two initial quatrains was rigid and could not be changed.
After the quatrains, it was required to move abruptly to another topic, i.e. introduce the so-called turn or volta (sometimes called fulcrum).
Another architectonic model of Petrarch provided for a different order of rhyming in tercets: abba abba cdc cde, which Wyatt also used in his work: The It should be noted that in the first quatrain, the rhyme (b) is approximate: honored -rendered. In all other cases, the scheme invented by Wyatt is exactly followed, -abba abba cdcd ee.
However, Wyatt himself, who formed his architectonic model, did not always apply it consistently. For example, in the sonnet "My heart I gave thee, not to do it pain", generally observing his own rules of construction, Wyatt in line 7 did not use rhyme (b), -'fashion' and 'reason' do not rhyme in any way: My heart I gave thee, not to do it pain;(a) But to preserve, it was to thee taken. (b) I served thee, not to be forsaken,(b) But that I should be rewarded again. Rigid sonnet forms demanded special skill and virtuosity from the authors, therefore, it was not always possible to achieve an impeccably executed architectural model that met all the requirements. In this regard, the authors allowed themselves some deviations, if these deviations did not violate the overall harmony of the work.
The experiments of his older contemporary were continued by Count Surrey, who rejected the Italian form of the sonnet in favour of his onethree quatrains with the final couplet: 4-4-4-2.
Simplifying the rhyming in Wyatt's sonnet, Surrey created the socalled English sonnet with alternating rhymes abab cdcd efef gg, which is also called Shakespeare's, although this formula was proposed by Surrey, not by Shakespeare: Love that doth reign and live within my thought To my close heart, where while some firebrands he did lay, (e) He burnt unwares his wings, and cannot fly away (e) [ Sidney,Astr. 8].
It was Philip Sidney who wrote the first English sonnet cycle going back to the European tradition. His collection of sonnets "Astrophel and Stella" was born in 1591.
The cycle "Astrophe and Stella" can be called autobiographical, because it tells in a veiled form about his unhappy love for Penelope Devereaux, to whom the poet was engaged, but whom he was forced to leave because of court intrigues. The influence of Petrarch here is undeniable.
This book was the impetus for the emergence of a whole stream of sonnets and sonnet cycles in English society. Sonnet 'disease' infected many courtiers and poets.
The following sonnet cycles can be noted: "Delia" (1592) by Samuel Daniel, "Traces of the Imagination" (1593) by Thomas Watson, "Parthenophile and Parthenophilus" (1593) by Barneby Barnes, "Eusia" (1593) by Thomas Lodge, "Mirror of Idea" ( 1594) by Michael Drayton, "The Family" by William Percy, "Jana" (1594) by Henry Constable and others. Edmund Spenser, inspired by the title of "the first poet of England", decided to participate in the competition of sonneteers at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I.
Spenser was an experimenter in poetic form. In his collection "Amoretti" he used a new form of the classic sonnet.
Considering all the previous options, Spenser, apparently, decided that for a greater interconnection of elements, it is necessary to create a new order of rhymes -abab bcbc cdcd ee.
Spenser's rhymes seem to cling to each other, giving the verse more flexibility.
Michael Spiller calls Spenser's sonnet form "chained quatrains" Shakespeare's sonnets were considered the peak of sonnet art of the XVI -XVII centuries. Shakespeare did not invent a new architectonic model for the sonnet. In fact, he used the sheme that Surrey suggested, perfecting it. Obviously, this is why it was named not in honor of Surrey, but is known as Shakespeare's. This model looks like : abab cdcd efef gg.
The structure of Shakespeare's sonnet also affects the content: the third quatrain is the culmination, and the final couplet is a denouement, often unexpected.
Shakespeare used Petrarchist motives and techniques, however, he significantly departed from Petrarchism with its stereotyped images.
The Surrey-Shakespearean architectural model can be illustrated by Sonnet CII: My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming, (a) I love not less, though less the show appear, (b) That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming,(a) The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere.(b) Our love was new, and then but in the spring,(c) When I was wont to greet it with my lays,(d) As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,(c) And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:(d) Not that the summer is less pleasant now (e) Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,(f) But that wild music burthens every bough,(e) And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.(f) Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:(g) Because I would not dull you with my song(g) [Shakespeare., CII, p. 754].
As for the construction of lines and metre, the leading place among English-speaking poets -lyricists of the XVI -XVII centuries occupied iambic pentameter: U_/ U_ / U_ / U_ / U_ / Iambic is usually associated with the clarity and ease of design of the poet's meditations, at the same time it is less "aggressive" than trochee, which provides stress on the first syllable of the foot. It also differs from the three-syllabic metres, known for their slower pace. The iambic pentameter allowed English-language poets -lyricists in a clear and precise form to convey their love experiences and aspirations with a sufficient degree of expression.
In general, the English language was considered poor in rhymes, which forced many poets to abandon Spenser's 'shuttle' scheme as requiring special sophistication and virtuosity. Sometimes these poets resorted to the Alexandrine verse.

The imagery system of the English love sonnets
of the XVI th -XVII th centuries Petrarchism played an important role in the formation of the sonnet form in the English poetry of the XVI -XVII centuries.
The imagery canon of Petrarch, in particular, provided for suffering and an exaggerated image of the passion of a lover, i.e. lyrical hero.
An example of exaggeration of feelings for a beloved one is the poem "A Nocturnal" by John Donne.
The lyrical hero of Donne says that the death of his beloved turned him into nothing. Love brings death both to soul and body. Donne compares Love to the alchemist who destroyed the loving hero with his black magic: For I am every dead thing, In whom Love wrought new alchemy. He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not [ Donne, Nocturnal]. But Donne brings to the Petrarchist hyperbole the features of a metaphysical approach, which was characterized by an appeal to science and pseudoscience, including alchemy. Developing this theme, Donne writes: I, by Love's limbec, am the grave Of all that's nothing[ ibid]. Donne repeats over and over the words of the destructive power of love: "But I am none" [ibid].
One of the favourite images of Petrarch and the Petrarchists is a lonely ship fighting in a stormy sea not to drown.
This image of a lover is insistently repeated in the works of various English poets of the Elizabethan period, including Spenser. Sonnets 59, 63 and 34 from his cycle "Amoretti" are indicative in this respect: Lyke as a ship that through the Ocean wyde, by conduct of some star doth make her way, whenas a storme hath dimd her trusty guyde, out of her course doth wander far astray. So I whose star, that wont with her bright ray, me to direct, with cloudes is outercast, doe wander now in darknesse and dismay, through hidden perils round about me plast [ Spenser,Am.34].
Petrarch uses this expanded metaphor in many sonnets. But he sees no salvation ("The boat cannot overcome the evil squall"). Spenser hopes to overcome all vicissitude of life. He is confident that he will cope with the storm: Yet hope I well, that when this storm is past My Helice the lodestar of my lyfe Will shine again, and looke on me at last, With louely light to cleare my cloudy grief [ Spenser,Am. 34].
In sonnet 63, the lyrical hero "saw the shore of Happiness" after a fierce storm. Instead of feeling the despair of Petrarch and Wyatt, who closely followed the Italian model, Spenser feels the support and growing loe of his future wife.
The canon of Petrarchism also required a stereotyped description of the beloved's appearance, where radiant light eyes and golden hair were a sign of ideal beauty. At the same time, "mineralogical" (comparison with precious stones) and floristic images were used as well.
An excerpt from Sonnet 81 by E. Spenser can serve as a vivid example of an aestheticized stereotyped description of a beloved: Fayre is my loue, when her fayre golden heares, With the loose wynd ye wauing chance to marke: Fayre when the rose in her red cheekes appeares, Or in her eyes the fyre of loue does sparke [Spenser,Am. 81].
The image of the beloved in most cases was devoid of individualized characteristics. This was a description not of a concrete, but of virtual woman, whose image was to correspond to the standard of beauty of that time. The poet, and with him the lyrical hero, admired not a real woman, but a certain collective ideal image.
If the poets talked about some living prototype of the beloved, then the characteristic of the object of love should invariably be laudatory, positive, and its description should correspond to the stereotyped qualities, even if the prototype did not possess them at all.
When the merits of a real woman were very dubious, the author tried not to mention them, and nonexistent positive qualities were attributed to the prototype in the text of the sonnet. It is not accidentally that many lyric works during this period were called compliments. They presented the idealized image of the lady to whom the poem was dedicated.
The look of the beloved was embellished and it was not always possible to "identify" the prototype. But this was not particularly required of lyric works. Much more important was the graceful style and virtuosity of the author in the search of the means for rendering his feelings of love and admiration.
In XVI-XVII centuries a beloved is often compared to an innocent, weak and beautiful flower. Florality is one of the qualities of the metaphorical female image of this time.
Along with visual images of flowers and other plants, olfactory images were also used. Comparison of the fragrance of the female body with floral fragrances was an inherent part of the lady's description in the verses of the English Petrarchists.
At the same time, the comparison of flower smells with the aromas emanating from the beloved was not in favour of flower smells, although, as you know, human smells are not as fragrant as the smells of flowers. Thus, in the sonnets, there is a clear exaggeration of the 'fragrance' of the female body.
An illustration of the fact that a woman should smell from head to toe with floral aromas is a fragment of Sonnet 64 by E. Spencer: Her lips did smell lyke unto Gillyflowers, her ruddy cheekes lyke unto The description of the beloved ends with a generalizing hyperbole (Such fragrant flowres doe giue most odorous smell,// but her sweet odour did them all excell).
The mention of some parts of the body, usually hidden behind the cover of clothing, makes one assume that the lyrical hero is contemplating a naked body (perhaps only in his imagination). But even Spenser, for all his courage, did not dare to describe the taboo "body parts".
In describing the appearance of a beloved, a special place is occupied by the description of bright, radiant eyes. Spenser writes about the eyes of his beloved many times. Their light attracts the poet, but at the same time there is danger in them, hence the double effect of the young lady's gaze: Fayre eyes, the myrrour of my mazed hart For, when ye mildly looke with louely hew, Then is my soule with life and loue inspired: But when ye lowre, or look on me askew Then doe I die, as one with lightning fyred [Spenser,Am.7]. Another traditional image is the white deer, which Petrarch associates with Laura while hunting is associated with persistent courtship of a lover.
Thomas Wyatt actually translated Petrarch's sonnet, meaning by "Caesar's doe" Anne Boleyn, whom he courted, but who became the wife of Henry VIII. E. Spenser modified this sonnet (Am. 67). The poet expresses not the sadness of a short-term vision of his beloved, but the happiness and joy of return love afford after the long days of patient courtship. Unlike Petrarchist love, Spenser's love is optimistic. He sees a calm, tamed doe: There she beholding me with mylder looke, Sought not to fly, but fearlesse still did bide: Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke, And with her own goodwill hir fyrmely tyde [Spenser,Am.67]. These changes in the tonality of the Petrarch sonnet Spenser borrowed from Torquato Tasso, who also used the theme of Petrarch, but in a more joyful, even sensual way (literal translation: "You can now see how, standing next to you, she turns her heavenly smile to you, and the rays of beautiful eyes envelop you sweetly "). For Petrarch, the white doe is the unattainable Laura, for Wyatt it is Anne Boleyn, whose love is associated with a risk to her life, since she is the wife of King Henry VIII, and for Spenser, the white doe is Elizabeth Boyle, whose courtship (hunt) ended in a happy marriage.
As you can see, the original Petrarchist images are modified depending on the personal attitude to love and some autobiographical facts.
Following Petrarch and the Petrarchists, English lyricists of the XVI -XVII centuries, when describing the beloved, also used the images of predatory animals in order, on the one hand, to show the cruelty of the beloved, and on the other, her beauty and power. Spenser did not abandon this tradition either. However, he expanded his bestiary.
First, the poet created images of a lion and a lioness, designed to metaphorically reflect the cruel pride of his beloved: But she more cruell and more saluage wylde, Then either Lyon or the Lyonesse [Spenser,Am.20].
In another sonnet, his beloved appears as a basilisk with a piercing look: <…>and kill with looks as Cockatrices doo [Spenser,Am.49].
In Sonnet 53, the beloved appears in the image of a panther, attracting other animals with her beautiful skin: The Panther knowing that his spotted hyde Doth please all beasts but that his looks them fray: within a bush his dreadfull head doth hide, to let them gaze whylest he on them may pray. Right so my cruell fayre with me doth play, for with the goodly semblant of her hew, she doth allure me to mine owne decay, and then no mercy will vuto me shew [ Spenser,Am.53]. And finally, in Sonnet 56, the beloved looks and behaves like a real tigress: Fayre ye be sure, but cruell and vnkind, As is a Tygre, that with greedinesse hunts after bloud; when he by chance doth find a feeble beast [ Spenser,Am.56].
Spenser's beloved is not just an ethereal angel, but often a 'femme fatale' who, like a predatory beast, tortures her victim -a lyrical hero.
However, it should be noted that, in general, adhering to the canon when enumerating the merits of the beloved, some poets allowed themselves a rather free description of the delicate, "forbidden" parts of the female body.
On the verge of the permissible there were some descriptions of the poet Carew. For example, in the poem "Mole on the Chest of Celia" Carew compares the breast of his beloved with "the paired tents of two hives." More than once, Spenser also drew attention to the bust of his beloved, resorting to various, rather down-to-earth metaphors: Fayre (is my loue) when her brest lyke a rich laden barke, With pretious merchandize she forth doth lay [Spenser,Am. 81]. However, there were also poets who crossed the red line. They described not only the "taboo parts of body", but also the act of love itself, giving physiological details. Here eroticism in fact grew, into pornographic platitude.
Such lovers of obscene descriptions included John Wilmot (Earl of Rochester). He was unscrupulous in the choice of expressions and used words that were taboo not only in the XVI -XVII centuries, but remain such even today, for example, the word 'cunt', which means 'female genitalia'.
Wilmot's most explicit poems were banned by the censorship, as were some of Ben Johnson's "free poems." One of the more "innocent" passages from Wilmot's poem "Naked she lay" is the first fragment, which reads like this: Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms, I filled with love, and she all over charms; Both equally inspired with eager fire, Melting through kindness, flaming in desire. With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace, She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face. Her nimble tongue, love's lesser lightning, played Within my mouth [Wilmot, Son.' Nacked she lay'].
The poet describes the scene of intimacy with his beloved and her behavior in a fit of passion, which gradually develops into a description of some physiological details of the act of love. But it was incompatible with the aesthetics of a refined sonnet.
Shakespeare did not completely abandon Petrarchism, but treated it with a certain amount of irony.
An open anti-Petrarchism can be found in some of Shakespeare's sonnets.
Sonnets 127 -154 from the general collection of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to the mysterious Dark Lady, whose image does not correspond to the canons of the image of a beloved. Shakespeare In addition to Petrarchism love lyrics of the XVI -XVII centuries were also influenced by Neoplatonism. However, none of the poets of this time was a sufficiently consistent Neoplatonist. The work of Edmund Spenser is a vivid example of such eclecticism.
Petrarchist motives in Spenser's cycle "Amoretti" were inspired not only by the author of the "Canzonere". Some themes are taken from the French poet F. Deport, who glorified the royal favourites in his sonnets.
Petrarchism with elements of Neoplatonist, Deport learned from Italy, traveling around it with the future king.
Ronsard and Deport were the main French mentors of the English poets -sonneteers at the end of the XVI century.
The ideas of Neoplatonism passed from Deport to Spenser along with Petrarchism.
In Platonism, Eros is defined as "love for the beautiful" (Plato). Following Plato, the Italian Neoplatonist Ficino divided love into three types: 1) divine love, whose goal is divine knowledge; 2) human love, without eroticism; 3) carnal love and sensual life. Neoplatonism does not completely deny sensual love -it is not sinful if it is illuminated by marriage. In this case, earthly love can lead to God and to divine love.
Spenser's neo-Platonic concept of Love and Beauty in his sonnets from the collection "Amoretti" is best viewed from the angle of the poet's progress up the famous "Platonic ladder", that is his ascent from earthly love to heavenly love. These steps were mentioned by B. Castiglione in the book "On the courtier" [1].
The first stage of ascent involves the 'saturation' of the soul with the help of hearing and sight. A lover is even allowed to kiss his lady, since a kiss is "a union of souls, not bodies." At the second stage, the lover must, with his mind, direct his desire from the body to "pure beauty in itself." At the third stage, the lover contemplates not the individual beauty of a lady, but general, universal beauty.
At the fourth stage, the lover attained the contemplation of beauty with the "eye of the mind," and not with the eyes of the body.
The fifth step suggests that the soul of the lover is now contemplating divine beauty.
The sixth step means that the soul admires the "sea of pure divine beauty." The seventh, highest, degree means that the soul, having enjoyed the heavenly beauty, rests next to God, the creator of this beauty.
Spenser first tried to climb this neo-Platonic ladder. But when the change happened Spenser's courtship of the real woman Elizabeth Boyle and the young lady responded to the poet's feelings, the poet's soul sank down.
After such a happy turn in the real life of the poet, the motives of sensuality and eroticism begin to make themselves felt more obviously. In Sonnet 72, Spenser finally abandons the idea of further climbing up the "platonic ladder", declaring that his spirit, soaring to Heaven, is falling down.
In Sonnet 76, he admires the bodily beauty of a young lady and even allows himself to describe the "forbidden area" -the breast of his beloved, where "a wonderful treasure of merits is hidden": Fayre bosome fraught with vertues richest treasure [ Spenser,Am. 76].
In Sonnet 77, Spenser, taking as a model "Song of Songs" from the Bible and one of Tasso's sonnets, again focuses his attention on this delicate part of the body. He resorts to a rather down-to-earth metaphor, comparing the bust of his beloved with two apples that "no one has tried until now" and which "Love itself from paradise has transferred to its garden ...": two golden apples of vnualewd price <…> sweet fruit of pleasure brought from paradice: By loue himselfe and in his garden plaste [Spenser,Am. 77].
Here and in other sonnets of similar openness, the author descends to the level of sensual love. There is no longer any talk of the ascent to God.
Some researchers state that Spenser portrayed in "Amoretti" a lover who, in his struggle to achieve spiritual love, from time to time successfully rises to the third or fourth stage, and then falls down, finding himself on a lower stage, which corresponds to bodily love.
It should be admitted that Spenser never allowed himself, to describe the forbidden "parts of body", he did not cross the line of what is permissible. The description of a lady's breast perhaps, remains, the most frivolous and daring step towards eroticism. The Protestant faith did not allow for greater openness in describing the merits of the beloved.
It should be noted that other English poets also sought to combine the literary principles of the sensibility of the Renaissance with Protestantism. Sydney, Drayton, Daniel, Spencer, and then Shakespeare wrote in a manner that combined Petrarchist models with Protestant morality, which corresponded to the ideology of the Elizabethan court, as well as the foreign and domestic policies of the queen herself. The main difference between the Protestant view of the relationship between a man and a woman from the Petrarchist one was that Petrarchist love is sinful, since it is addressed to a woman who is not free, often married.
Spenser solves the dilemma of Petrarchism, removing the contradiction between platonic and sensual love, since these two loves here united for in him into a single whole by the sacred marriage under the auspices of a common Protestant faith.
In With his work, Spenser advanced, as a counterbalance to the selfish narcissism of petrarchism, the Protestant concept of marriage, in which spiritual and sensual love acquire complete harmony.
Taking the creation of Petrarch as a model, Spenser filled his sonnets with new contents. We can say that Spenser created his concept of Love and Beauty, which combined in "Amoretti" the secular Renaissance theories of love and the Protestant faith. This is primarily: 1. Petrarchism and antipetrarchism 2. Protestant concept of marriage 3. The theory of the "neoplatonic ladder" 4. Christian morality and liturgical calendar. 5. Emotional development of courtly love [7]. In his cycle "Amoretti" (1595), which includes 89 sonnets, E. Spenser described not the torment of unrequited love, but the story of his matchmaking, which ended in marriage, but happy love was not a topic of the Petrarchists.
Another canon of Petrarchism is the use of the antithesis, which underlies the imagery system (light -darkness; fire -ice, etc.) of the Petrarchists.
The antithesis "ice -fire" is, for example, the main topic of Spencer's sonnet (Am.30), which is based on the corresponding sonnet of Petrarch.
But if Petrarch seeks this opposition to convey only the pain of his heart, Spenser endows his beloved with such mixed feelings which show that she has her own desires and emotions. She is no longer the lifeless heroine of the Petrarchists: My loue is lyke to yse, and I to fyre: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolu'd through my so hot desyre, But harder growes the more I her intreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not delayed by her hart frozen cold [ Spenser,Am. 30].
The love of the lyrical hero in the various sonnets of "Amoretti" is fire (fyre); exceeding heat; boyling sweat; flames.
He associates the feelings of a haughty lover with the cold ( her cold; her hart frozen cold; congeald with sencelesse cold).
The lyrical hero is surprised and disappointed: the more ardent his courtship becomes, the more adamant his beloved is.
Figurative means are also widely used when revealing the very meaning of the concept "Love".
In English poetry, "Love" is identified with the masculine qualities, which is supported, by the use of the pronouns he, his. This tendency remained in the subsequent works of Byron, Shelley, Keats and other poets of the XVIIII century.
When metaphorizing love the poets of the XVI-XVII centuries used human images in their sonnets, which led to the personification of love. For example, the metaphorical configuration "Love is a child" is repeated many times in Shakespeare's sonnets, for example: Love is a babe; then might I not say so To give full growth to what which shill doth grow? [Sh., CXVI p. 757]. Here Shakespeare emphasizes that the nascent love more and more captures the thoughts of a person.
Sydney's love is not just a child, but Amur, Cupid, the god of love, who pierces the hearts of lovers with his arrows.
In Sonnet 8 of Sidney Cupid, who was misled by the friendly expression on the face of Stella, the beloved of the lyrical hero, realized that he was mistaken -Stella did not succumb to the charm of love -and he was forced to leave her. The author uses here personification.
Cupid is endowed with human qualities, he is cold and uncomfortable, like a person accustomed to the warmth of Greece, where he was born: Love, born in Greece <…>// But finding these north clymes too coldly him embrace,// Not used to frozen clips, he strave to find some part// Where with most ease and warmth he might employ his art [Sidney,№ 8].
In Stella's heart, he did not find such a desired warmth, -she did not manage to warm him: At length he perch'd himself in Stella's joyful face <…>// But she most faire, most cold, made him thence take his flight [ibid]. However, Cupid scorched his wings with the flame of the lyrical hero's passion, which he himself ignited. The love of the lyrical hero, despite Stella's refusal to respond to his feelings, still lives in him: To my close heart, where while some firebrands he [ Love] did lay,// He burnt unawares his wings, and cannot fly away [ibid]. Comparison of love with a flame is a traditional image in love lyrics, but Sydney managed to play this image in his own way, giving it a special visual character (some firebrands he did lay). Cupid here did not use his usual weapon -arrows, he lit a fire, in the heart of the lyrical hero as people light a fire in the mantelpiece.
Images of Love that occur in lyrics are often compared to various elements --of the sea, ocean, wind, storm, etc. for which there are no obstacles. All these images date back to Petrarchism, but are often modified by sonnet poets of the XVI -XVII centuries. as happened in Sydney's example above.

Conclusions
In the XVI-XVII centuries the sonnet has become the emblem of the English Renaissance lyrics, somewhat belated in comparison with continental Europe.
The main peculiarity of the grammar and orthography was fluctuation of forms and a great number of variants concerning grammar constructions, word forms, spelling, etc.
It was a period of transition when the old forms still existed in the language but the new ones began to displace them.
All these trends found their reflection in the sonnets of the XVI-XVII centuries.
Sonnets written during this period are innumerable. The predominant theme of the sonnets was unrequited, tragic or platonic love.
Among the poets of the XVI-XVII centuries there were poets who created their sonnets mainly within the framework of Petrarchism, following its canons as much as possible, although they made some modifications (Drayton, Wyatt).
Other poets combined Petrarchism with Neoplatonism and Christian ideas, mostly of the Protestant kind (Spenser).
The sonnets of E. Spenser, W. Shakespeare and other leading poets of this time cannot be placed within the framework of a certain direction. Due to their great talent, they brought into their work an original vision of love and beauty, going beyond of various canons.
The main architectonic models of the sonnet of the XVI-XVII centuries. in England were as follows: -the model of Petrarch and his followers, which provided for the presence of a rigid contour of two quatrains abba abba and a sufficient variety of configurations of the sestet, the most common of which was the configuration cdc cdc ( 4-4-3-3); -Wyatt's model: abba abba cdde ee (4-4-4-2); -Spencer's model: abab bcbc cdcd ee (4-4-4-2); -Surrey -Shakespeare model: abab cdcd efef gg (4-4-4-2). The main metric pattern was the iambic pentameter, which, to a greater extent than other metres, was suitable for the complex phonetic and morphological system of the English language with its diphthongs.
It should be noted that many poets (John Donne and others) gradually began to neglect the formal canons of the sonnet. As a result, almost any love poem from 10 to 20 lines long, with completely arbitrary patterns of alternation of rhymes and stanzas (quatrains, tercets and couplets), began to be called a sonnet. The rigid architectonic models laid down by the sonneteers of the XVI and XVII centuries can be found in the Englishpoetry today. But this issue requires further studies.
List of abbreviations EME -Early Modern English ME -Middle English Mod E -Modern English OFr -Old French