"Diana hunts alone, it's said, at night":

“Diana hunts alone it's said, at night” is an original Petrarchan sonnet which attempts to accurately portray the form, content, vocabulary, grammar, and devices of the Elizabethan era of poetry. In this documentation is an analysis of the poem and how research supports each poetic choice in the sonnet. This piece is presented in both a modernized spelling and grammar version (for clarity of language and images), as well as an informed attempt at early Modern English spelling and grammar.

The sonnet form was very popular in period, “in either Shakespearean or Petrarchan sequence”. The most well-known poet of the time period, Shakespeare, wrote over one hundred sonnets during his life time, and other popular writers throughout our Society’s period, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and John Donne all wrote sonnets (Packard 181-182). However, during the Elizabethan era in particular, “the sonnet…[was] the major lyric form” (Grace 1).

According to The Poet’s Dictionary, the sonnet is “a fourteen-line poem usually with octet/sestet separation of eight- and six- line formations” (181). Normally, the octet would introduce or establish a problem, situation, or image which the sestet (beginning with the volta for Petrarch or the “turn” in the English mold) would twist or revisit in a new light. Most often, this subject was of “various aspects of love – delight, loneliness, jealousy, praise of the beloved, and so on” (Grace 2). The Britannica Online Encyclopedia supports this common theme of “Petrarchan world of proud beauty and despairing lover” (8). Other than the octet/sestet organizational structure, sonnets in English are most commonly written in iambic pentameter, or 5 sets of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables, indicated below with u and / respectively with the first line of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:

Finally, the standard rhyme for the Petrarchan sonnet is noted by The Poet’s Dictionary as “a/b/b/a/a/b/b/a/c/e/f/g/e/f”, though as multiple sources note, the rhyme scheme in the sestet can vary across multiple two-rhyme and three-rhyme patterns (Packard 182, Grace 2). In conclusion, the following are considered the expectations for a correct Petrarchan sonnet:

• In English, iambic pentameter is a common meter for fixed poetic forms.

• An opening octet and then a “turn” or volta, in which the situation established in the opening octet is twisted or revisited in a new light in the sestet, which uses a different rhyme scheme to emphasize this difference.

• An a/b/b/a/a/b/b/a c/e/f/g/e/f rhyme scheme (or other sestet variations).

• Major theme of love, whether unrequited or passionately consummated.

Period Example of Petrarchan Sonnet

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) "Was I never yet of your love grieved"

Was I never yet of your love grieved

Nor never shall while that my life doth last.

But of hating myself that date is past

And tears continual sore have me wearied.

I will not yet in my grave be buried 5

Nor on my tomb your name yfixed fast

As cruel cause that did the spirit soon haste

From th'unhappy bones by great sighs stirred.

Then if an heart of amorous faith and will

May content you without doing grief, 10

Please it you so to this to do relief.

If otherwise ye seek for to fulfill

Your disdain, ye err and shall not as ye ween,

And ye yourself the cause thereof hath been.

Notice in Wyatt’s example the choice of c/d/d/c/e/e for the sestet in this poem – one of many variations. Also note the clearly tragic topic of “an heart of amorous faith” (9), in unrequited love which is sadly causing “tears continual sore” (4). The rhythm falters from the iambic pentameter standard, which still shines though in line like “Then if an heart of amorous faith and will” (9) – amorous would likely have been pronounced am’rous to maintain the stressed syllable pattern. Finally, Wyatt introduces his heartbreak in the first 8 lines of the poem, suggesting that a woman’s name would be on his tomb for his cause of death due to “great sighs” blowing his spirit from his body. He begins in a more positive vein in the volta, suggesting that she might relieve his pain by simple accepting his “amorous faith”.

During the Elizabethan Era, poets were “especially concerned with harmonious effects and with complex and ornate rhetorical styles modelled on classical style” (Grace 2). Therefore, euphonic devices such as alliteration, consonance, assonance, and internal rhyme were used by poets to demonstrate their artistry. Further, the imitation of classical works included lots of classical allusions, as Shakespeare does in the balcony scene of Romeo & Juliet, when Romeo alludes to Diana and Juliet to Jove in the span of one scene. Finally, self-aware poets were keenly interested in demonstrating their skill and craft, and therefore poems might “pun complexly” in order to show the “self-reflexive (and self-praising) metapoetic aspect of much sonneteering” (Grace 2).

Period Example of Poetic Devices:

William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet (dated to approximately 1595, according to the British Library):

JULIET

Hist, Romeo, hist! O, for a falc’ner’s voice

To lure this tassel-gentle back again!

Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud,

Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies

And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine

With repetition of “My Romeo!” (II.ii.168-174)

In this quote from Juliet, we see examples of the classical allusion (in this case to “the cave where Echo Lies”), as well as the use of assonance (“more hoarse”), alliterative consonance (“make…more… mine”), and internal rhyme (“tear” and “where”). In this excerpt “tassel-gentle” means both a breed of hawk (tiercel) and another word for a gentleman (sometimes written in period as a “gent” or “gentle”. Finally, Juliet uses the word “hoarse” both to mean “silent” (as in she has to be quiet and cannot shout her lover’s name) as well as literally “worn out voice from shouting” in her reference to Echo.

Sonnet Form and Poetic Devices in “Diana hunts alone, it's said, at night”

“Diana hunts alone, it's said, at night" correctly follows all of these period expectations for a Petrarchan Sonnet:

Meter

The entire piece is written in iambic pentameter.

Rhyme

“Diana hunts alone, it's said, at night” follows the Petrarchan rhyme scheme exactly; the octet is in a/b/b/a/a/b/b/a rhyme (mostly perfect or “masculine” rhyme with one or two grammatically necessary exceptions for the weaker “feminine” rhyme), it also uses the c/d/e/c/d/e rhyme choice for the sestet, one of many possible choices for the varying six-line “turn”.

Structure & Content

In “Diana hunts alone, it's said at night” the opening octet introduces the metaphorical image of the Classical Goddess Diana with her pack of hunting dogs. The first quatrain visualizes her running through the fields, pursuing her prey. In the second quatrain, she finds her prey, her dogs close in to immobilize the beast, and she shoots it with her bow. It is only in the volta that the metaphor is made clear: Diana is the speaker’s love interest, who spurns his advances. In fact, the speaker feels as though she is targeting his heart for a hunt: Diana’s dogs are the woman’s biting words; her arrow, the cold looks she gives the speaker. The speaker is revealed to be nothing more than game for the woman, perfectly fitting the despair which predominated Petrarchan sonnets.

Euphonia

This sonnet uses multiple sound devices to create a euphonic diction. This poem includes the internal rhyme “foe” and “doe” (2), and “haunted” and “hunted” (10). There are examples of assonance, such as “her hounds sharp howling peals” (6), and alliterative consonance in “while worrying words do dog…” (11). The mostly masculine end-rhymes throughout the poem serve the same purpose.

Punning

“Diana hunts alone, it's said, at night” includes many uses of homophonic and multiple-meaning words. Diana in line 7 hunts a “ghostly hart”, but the true prey is revealed to be a “heart” (14). The woman’s “worrying words [that] do dog and bite me” includes both meanings of “worrying” – both to cause worry and anxiety in the speaker, and to literally be gnawing or biting at his heels, in the metaphorical sense of them being Diana’s dogs, implied again by the verbs “dog” and “bite”. The “ghostly hart, a wight” in line 7 is also a homophonic allusion to the white stag, a mythological creature said to never be caught. Similarly, “shade” and “shaded” in line 9 makes reference to both the spectral and sun-blocking definitions of the word.

Both a modernized spelling and period spelling of this poem have been provided. An attempt was made in the period version to follow, as closely as we are able, the grammatical and spelling conventions of the time. A few of the rules that we know of are indicated by the Oxford English Dictionary’s deputy chief editor, Edmund Weiner, and are summarized here:

• /u/ and /v/ are functionally the same -- /v/ is only used for the beginning of a word.

• /vv/ is used instead of /w/, which didn’t quite exist yet.

• The extra /e/ ending is used with “no phonetic function”:

  • I hypothesized one possible use case: to separate the end of one word and the beginning of another if they both contain stopped consonants like /t/, /b/, or /d/, which would create cacophony. A short /e/ sound would differentiate these words when spoken, and that is the usage I followed for these mystery letters.

• The letter /y/ was used instead of /i/ in the case of possible confusion in the presence of other minim letters (like the /m/ and /n/ in minim): instead, this might be spelled mynym to avoid losing the /i/ in printing or re-writing.

• /ee/ was often used instead of /ea/ for the long /e/ sound of meet or meat.

• The long /ſ/ was often used instead of /s/ inside of words, sometimes to double the s, and can also be seen at the beginning of some words, as seen in Shakespeare’s First Folio:

  • I hypothesized one possible use case for beginning a word with ſ instead of s: it appears as though in this excerpt (similar to the use case for /y/ instead of /i/, that the long ſ was to avoid confusion if previous words ended in minim letters (the lower case /t/ is much shorter than we generally draw it today, as well as /e/, and /a/ in this example.

• The use of /eth/, /est/, apostrophes to mark out vowels to maintain iambic meter were used according to period usage for 2^nd and 3^rd person present verbs. (Crystal & Crystal)

• Effort was made to avoid modern usage of words (for example, “target”, did not mean a goal or aim in this time period, like it does today – it was replaced for words like “mark”.

Period spelling & vocabulary

Modernized spelling & vocabulary

“Diana honts alone, ‘tis ſaid, at nyght”

Diana honts alone, ‘tis ſaid, at nyght,

An racing thro’ the moonglovv-dappled fielde

VVith bovv yn hande, her pack suroundes her, heel’d

To hary foe and doe for Goddeſſe bright.

As ſiluer bovve doth bend, and shafte take flight, 5

And circling close, her hounds’ ſharpe hovvling peeles

‘Til sharpe teethe ſynk yn game, his fate is ſeeled;

Shot ſtryk’st her mark, a ghostly hart, a vvyght.

I am ſoch prey, a ſhade all shaded o’er

In haunted vvoodes, and honted by my loue 10

VVhile vvorryng vvords do dog ande bite me, prey.

Ah! Moon-lit loue, who spurn’th me from afar

Thy dark eyes’ arrovvs death to me will proue,

Myne heart thy quary: smytten, ſhot, and slayn.

“Diana hunts alone, it’s said, at night"

Diana hunts alone, it’s said, at night,

And racing through the moonglow-dappled field

With bow in hand, her pack surrounds her, heeled

To harry foe and doe for Goddess bright.

As silver bow doth bend, and shaft take flight, 5

And circling close, her hounds’ sharp howling peals

‘Til sharp teeth sink in game, his fate is sealed;

Shot strikes her mark, a ghostly hart, a wight.

I am such prey, a shade all shaded o’er

In haunted woods, and hunted by my love 10

While worrying words do dog and bite me, prey.

Ah! Moon-lit love, who spurns me from afar

Your dark eyes’ arrows death to me will prove,

My heart your quarry: smitten, shot, and slain.