Poetic sequence
A poetic sequence is a series of shorter poems that collectively form a unified longer work, or a collection of individual poems linked by common themes and subjects. While rooted in classical Western literary traditions, poetic sequences are particularly associated with modernist and postmodernist movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They can take various forms, from free verse to structured sonnet sequences, which have specific structural requirements. Notable forms of sonnet sequences include the crown of sonnets, the sonnet redoublé, and the heroic crown of crowns, each with its own intricate rules.
Historically, the concept of sequencing in poetry can be traced back to classical works, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad, and later to figures like Dante Alighieri and Shakespeare. Modern poetic sequences began to emerge in the nineteenth century, with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman being prominent practitioners. These sequences often use abstract strategies, such as juxtaposition, to create thematic connections. As literary movements evolved, the poetic sequence became a defining structural style in contemporary poetry, reflecting the subjective explorations of authors throughout the modern and postmodern eras.
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Poetic sequence
A poetic sequence is alternately defined as a series of shorter verse-form pieces that combine into a unified longer work, or as a collection of individual poems tied together by common treatments of theme and subject. Though rooted in classical Western literary traditions, poetic sequences are most readily associated with the modernist and postmodernist movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
While poetic sequences, and particularly those associated with modernism and postmodernism, can take any number of forms as determined by the subjective preferences of their authors, some have strict structural requirements. For example, literary experts recognize three distinct forms of sonnet sequences known as the crown of sonnets, the sonnet redoublé or heroic crown, and the heroic crown of crowns. Such formalized sequences are more common in classical and historical literature, while modern and contemporary poets have typically preferred to work in open-ended sequence forms.
Background
Historical treatments of sequencing in poetry cite classical works from the Western and global literary canons, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. These influential pieces of ancient literature display structural flourishes of cross-passage thematic unity reminiscent of the formalized poetic sequences that emerged in English literature much later, and particularly after the mid-nineteenth century.
While scholars often trace the origins of the modern poetic sequence to nineteenth-century figures including Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, its formal precedents reach back much further. Beyond classical figures including Homer and Virgil, commentators identify Dante Alighieri and William Shakespeare as important progenitors of the poetic sequence as it later emerged in the Western literary tradition. In his fourteenth-century work, the Divine Comedy, Alighieri used rhetorical and formal strategies that established structural links between the poem’s three main parts. In 1609, Shakespeare published a sequence of 154 sonnets linked by repeated themes and references to an unidentified subject to whom most of the poems are directly addressed.
Poetic sequences, as they are used by contemporary poets, began to emerge in the nineteenth century, with Dickinson and Whitman representing particularly notable practitioners. Literary critics and scholars have examined Dickinson’s poems, noting that many of them contain direct or indirect ties to other entries in her library. An emerging scholarly consensus holds that Dickinson intended for individual poems to function in tandem with others, suggesting an effort at deliberate sequential construction.
Whitman’s Song of Myself, a long-form work he revised on multiple occasions during his poetic career, is often identified as the first formalized and successfully executed poetic sequence, as the term has come to be used in modern contexts. First published in 1855 and substantially revised in 1892, both versions of Song of Myself feature fifty-two free-verse sections that combine to create the prototypical example of a poetic sequence that uses multiple shorter compositions to create a single larger work. Meanwhile, Dickinson’s poetic sequences more closely match the alternate definition of poetic sequence, in which standalone poems with similar themes and subjects combine to form a unified body.
Overview
For the most part, poetic sequences can be structured in any number of ways and are defined only by their shared treatments of formal elements, including theme, subject, and structure. Literary critics and scholars also note that sequences, especially as they appear in modernist and postmodernist literature, frequently use more abstract strategies such as juxtaposition to create their intertextual associations.
Sonnet sequences represent a notable exception to the freedom of the poetic sequence, with the three different types of sonnet sequences (the crown of sonnets, the sonnet redoublé or heroic crown, and the heroic crown of crowns) each maintaining their own set of rigid structural demands. A crown of sonnets consists of seven sonnets, with the last line from each sonnet repeating as the first line of the sonnet that follows it and the final line of the last sonnet repeating the opening line of the first sonnet. A sonnet redoublé or heroic crown comprises a sequence of fifteen sonnets, with either the first or the last sonnet in the heroic crown containing a line that recurs as either the opening or final line of each of the other fourteen poems in the group. In a heroic crown, the first or last sonnet that contains this repeated line is known as a master sonnet or a texte. The relatively rare heroic crown of crowns is a sequential collection of 211 sonnets subdivided into fourteen heroic crowns, plus an additional poem known as a grand master sonnet. The grand master sonnet derives its content from the master sonnets unique to each of the fourteen heroic crowns contained in the work.
After originating with figures including Dickinson and Whitman, the poetic sequences of the modernist tradition spread to British literature in the twentieth century. Poems 1912–1913 by novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, which largely dealt with the emotional and existential fallout from the death of Hardy’s first wife, is widely recognized as the first example of the modern poetic sequence written by a British author. As the preoccupations of modernist authors came to dominate twentieth-century English-language literature, poets increasingly embraced subjective and personal explorations of theme and subject that translated particularly well to sequential forms. In the United States, Ezra Pound became one of the most prominent users of the modern poetic sequence, while William Butler Yeats is frequently identified as his British counterpart with respect to sequential compositions. Poetic sequences later became a ubiquitous element of postmodern poetry, leading some scholars to describe it as the definitive structural style of twentieth- and twenty-first-century verse.
Bibliography
Brewer, Robert Lee. “What Is a Sonnet Sequence in Literature?” Writer’s Digest, 27 Dec. 2021, www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/what-is-a-sonnet-sequence-in-literature. Accessed 22 Nov. 2023.
Corcoran, Neil (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Morris, Timothy. “The Development of Dickinson’s Style.” American Literature, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Mar. 1988): pp. 26–41.
“Poems in Sequence: Reading Loop Introduction.” Virginia Commonwealth University, blackbird.vcu.edu/v10n2/features/poems‗in‗sequence/intro‗page.shtml. Accessed 22 Nov. 2023.
Rosenthal, M.L. and Sally M. Gall. “The Modern Poetic Sequence: The Genius of Modern Poetry.” American Literature, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Oct. 1986): pp. 465–468.
Seiferle, Rebecca. “Beyond Perfect: Eight Complex Poem-Cycles that Anthologies Always Miss.” Poetry Foundation, 25 May 2007, www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68883/beyond-perfect. Accessed 22 Nov. 2023.
Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself (1892 Version).” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version. Accessed 22 Nov. 2023.
Yu, Timothy (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First-Century English Poetry. Cambridge University Press, 2021.