Essay on "Seth's the Golden Gate -- Sonnets"

Essay 3 pages (1042 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Seth's the Golden Gate -- Sonnets in the modern making

Although it uses a prosaic and modern setting, fictional contemporary characters, and addresses issues of present-day concern, the novel by Vikram Seth, the Golden Gate, is still located squarely in the sonnet-writing tradition of poetry and personal revelation. From the first Italian sonnets penned by Petrarch to Shakespeare's conflicts between his Golden Boy and Dark lady to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese to Robert Browning, the use of sonnets have often been deployed by poets to convey either thwarted and longing or triumphant and redemptive love.

Sonnet sequences like Seth's and Shakespeare's alike strive to balance the fictional elements of narrative with the lyricism of poetry. Sonnet sequences usually take the form of a loosely told plots, but the use of poetry rather than prose allows the author to look inward, into the narrator's feelings, rather than outward as might be more typical of prose. Prose provides a world of conflict, plot, and physical objects, poetry the world of inward reflection.

True, the sonnet sequence found in Vikram Seth's 1986 novel, although it makes primary use of the poetic medium, also has the quality of prose in that it relates a relationship between four fictional people, rather than simply the musings of a romantic, lyric self like an ode or a eulogy, or even Shakespeare's sonnets. But the notion of romantic conflict is at the heart of the sonnet sequence as well, and even individual sonnets take the form of an argument, as the first quatrain poses the problem, the second amplifies the internal or romantic conflict, and the final couplet poses an answer, however imperfect. Thus, the sonnet is a romantic and a rational form of romantic poetry. Seth uses the rational as well as the romantic elements of the sonnets to juxtapose many different dramatic and internal worlds within and without his major characters. Although he uses many modern words, he is also able to delicately balance the traditional uses of the sonnet, both the rational as well as the feeling aspects of this form of poetry.

Seth's novel consists of 690 sonnets, rhyming a-b-a-b-c-c-d-d-e-f-f-e-g-g. If this seems very long, it should be noted that its plot takes place between four individuals, rather than the customary two lovers, or three, at the most, in the form of the 'romantic triangle' of Shakespeare's sonnet sequence. Thus, the scope of the Seth's sequence is more sprawling in its emotional and territorial geography than many of his predecessors, even while he alternates rational but poetic musings about politics with sonnet-based written arguments between lovers.

The main characters are all Californians in various stages of identity conflict. The title of the poetic sequence refers to both the Golden Gate of California's famous cityscape, as well as the envisioned gates of paradise and love. The first character the reader is introduced to is named John, a technical 'yuppie' executive, looking for love. His ex-lover, Janet an artist and musician, fixes him up by placing a personal advertisement. Janet acts more out of boredom than altruism. Otherwise, "only her cats provide distraction," in… READ MORE

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