Poets have been fascinated and challenged by the sonnet ever since it
was imported from Italy to England in the sixteenth century. With its
fourteen lines, inexhaustibly variable, it has met particular needs of
almost every major poet from Thomas Wyatt to Paul Muldoon. Don Paterson,
himself an adept of the form, has devised an anthology that is both a
sharing of personal favorites and a celebration of high moments in the
sonnet's history. His introduction and wonderfully insightful notes
provide a history and commentary that will prove illuminating to the
casual reader and indispensable to the student or aspiring sonneteer.