A caudate sonnet is an expanded version of the

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

. It consists of 14 lines in standard sonnet forms followed by a

coda Coda or CODA may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * Movie coda, a post-credits scene * ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television *''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...

(Latin ''cauda'' meaning "tail", from which the name is derived). The invention of the form is credited to

Francesco Berni Francesco Berni Francesco Berni (1497/98 – 26 May 1535) was an Italian poet. He is credited for beginning what is now known as " Bernesque poetry", a serio-comedic type of poetry with elements of satire. Biography Life Berni was born 1497 ...

. However, Burchiello (1404–1449) used the same form with over 150 of his paradoxical (sometimes referred to as nonsensical) sonnets nearly 50 years before Berni was born. Burchiello's "popularity was not limited to Florence or the fifteenth century" and "in the sixteenth century Italian Renaissance" ... there were "several narratives about the poet-barber written by well-known figures such as Antonfrancesco Grazzini, Anton Francesco Doni, Angelo Colocci, and Tommaso Costo." Berni was not only familiar with Burchielo's work, but was an admirer of it. Berni wrote: S'i' avessi l'ingegno del Burchiello, Io vi farei volentieri un sonetto; Ché non ebbi già mai tèma e subietto Piú dolce, piú piacevol né piú bello. 1 f I had Burchiello's wit, I would willingly write you a sonnet; For never did I have a theme and subject More sweet, more pleasant, more beautiful.ref name="Francesco Berni and the Burlesque Sonnet in the Sixteenth Century"> According to the ''Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry,'' the form is most frequently used for

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

, such as the most prominent English instance,

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

's "On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament."

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among leading Victorian poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innova ...

used the form in a less satirical mood in his "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire." The poem is one of many in which Hopkins experimented with variations on sonnet form. However, unlike the

curtal sonnet The curtal sonnet is a form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and used in three of his poems. It is an eleven-line (or, more accurately, ten-and-a-half-line) sonnet, but rather than the first eleven lines of a standard sonnet it consists of pre ...

, a Hopkins invention which is a 10½-line form with precisely the same proportions as a

Petrarchan sonnet The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is a sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets.Spiller, Michael R. G. The Develop ...

, his caudate sonnet is a full sonnet unmodified but with an extra six lines. Hopkins heightens the effect of the extension with an

enjambment In poetry, enjambment ( or ; from the French ''enjamber'') is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The ori ...

from the 14th line to the 15th. Hopkins explored the possibility of such a coda in a series of letters exchanged with

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

, from whom he learned of the centrality of Milton's example in the form. Though the intent of his example is distinct from Milton's satirical use, the effect of the coda—to add stability to the poem's close—is comparable.See Wagner (45), who quotes Barbara Herrnstein Smith on the effect of the form.

References

External links

Text of Milton's "On the New Forces of Conscience"
{{wikisource, That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection Sonnet studies ja:ソネット#コーデイト・ソネット