R. D. Laing, Sonnets

Daniel Burston (Duquesne University); Gavin Miller (University of Glasgow)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1979

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection
Sonnet

Resources

R.D. Laing’s literary ambitions culminated in the publication of his Sonnets in 1979. The volume contains a sequence of 38 sonnets (with a concluding two-stanza lyric). There is no narrative pattern linking the sonnets. The collection moves from theme to theme, occasionally touching on psychiatric issues, but in the main taken up with more typical concerns such as love, death and spirituality. Writing in iambic pentameter, Laing does not use Petrarchan pattern of an octave and sestet rhyming abbaabba cdecde (or cdcdcd). Instead he uses the Shakespearean sonnet of abab cdcd efef gg, which he frequently varies with the pattern abba cddc effe gg, or by combining quatrains into octets, or …

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598 words

Citation: Burston, Daniel, Gavin Miller. "Sonnets". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16854, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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