A crown of sonnets, also called a sonnet corona, is a group of sonnets, often written for one person and/or focused on one topic. Each sonnet talks about one part of the topic and is connected to the sonnets before and after it by using the last line of the previous sonnet as its first line. The first line of the first sonnet is used again as the last line of the final sonnet, which ends the group.
Heroic crown
A more complex type of sonnet crown is called a sonnet redoublé or heroic crown. It includes fifteen sonnets linked together. The fifteenth sonnet, called the Mastersonnet, uses the first or last lines of the previous fourteen sonnets in order. This form was created by the Siena Academy, which was formed in 1460. However, no sonnet crowns from the academy have survived. The form was first described by Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni in his book L'Istoria della volgar poesia (History of Vernacular Poetry), published in Venice in 1731. Later, P.G. Bisso wrote about it in his book Introduzione alla volgar poesia (Introduction to Vernacular Poetry), published in Venice in 1794. A variation of the form sometimes uses the first sonnet as the binding sonnet, with later sonnets ending with lines from it. The oldest complete sonnet crown that survived was published in 1748. It was written by a group of 14 poets to celebrate the birth of an ideal woman: Corona di rime per festeggiare il natalizio giorno di fille.
John Donne wrote La corona, a set of seven linked sonnets. Because there are only seven sonnets and no Mastersonnet, La corona is not a full heroic crown. The first complete sonnet crown in English is A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love by Lady Mary Wroth, written around 1620.
The children’s book A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson follows the form of a heroic crown of sonnets. Another modern writer of sonnet crowns is Marilyn Hacker. Intertidal, a collaborative sonnet crown by poets Judith Barrington, Annie Finch, Julie Kane, Julia Lisella, D'Arcy Randall, Kathrine Varnes, and Lesley Wheeler, was created through discussions on the Wom-Po listserv and published in 2007. The form is also used by Tyehimba Jess, both in his first book Leadbelly and in his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Olio, which is structured around a heroic crown of persona poems inspired by the original Fisk Jubilee Singers.
In the 21st century, many poets have written sonnet crowns. Examples include Linda Bierds, Andrea Carter Brown, Robert Darling, Moira Egan, Jenny Factor, Andrei Krylov, Rachael Briggs, Julie Fay, Constance Merritt, Julie Sophia Paegle, Marie Ponsot, Patricia Smith, Marilyn Taylor, Natasha Trethewey, David Trinidad, John Murillo, John McDonough, Kathrine Varnes, Angela Alaimo O'Donnell, Laurie Ann Guerrero, Cindy Tran, Alicia Mountain, and Robert Luis Rodriguez. Fiona Chamness’s Choreography for Ensemble won the 2014 Beloit Poetry Prize. Joelle Taylor’s “dust kings, tough kids”, subtitled “a broken crown of sonnets”, uses the form to explore butch lesbian identity and history.
A Wreath of Sonnets (Sonetni venec in Slovene) is the oldest Slovenian sonnet crown. It was written in 1833 by the Romantic poet France Prešeren. The sonnet crown includes an acrostic in the master sonnet. Prešeren’s work was translated into Russian in 1889, influencing poets like Valery Bryusov. Jaroslav Seifert wrote Věnec sonetů (A Wreath of Sonnets) about Prague in this form. Jan Křesadlo translated it and also wrote his own sonnet cycles. Venko Markovski wrote over 100 sonnet crowns, some with acrostics honoring historical figures.
The oldest Dutch sonnet crown was written by H.Th. Boelen in 1876: Saffo-fantasie, published in a theater journal. The second Dutch crown was written by Eliza Laurillard: Der bloemen lof, published in his book Bloemen en knoppen in 1878. Jeanne Reyneke van Stuwe wrote the third Dutch crown, which appears in her book Impressies (1898). In the 20th and 21st centuries, the sonnet crown became a common form in Dutch poetry, with authors like Frédéric Bastet, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Frank van Pamelen, Wouter Ydema, and O.B. Kunst.
A Celestial Crown of Sonnets, written by Sam Illingworth and Stephen Paul Wren, was published in 2021 by Penteract Press. It explores the history of astronomy from Thales of Miletus to Shi Shen to William Herschel.
Heroic crown of crowns
In 1828, the German poet Ludwig Bechstein published a book called Sonettenkränze. This book contains 14 crowns of sonnets. However, Bechstein did not connect the 14 mastersonnets to form a new crown. A crown of crowns includes 14 crowns, with the mastersonnets forming their own crown. These 14 mastersonnets create a 15th mastersonnet using their first or last lines, called the Grandmastersonnet. A crown of crowns therefore has 196 linked sonnets that create 14 mastersonnets, which create 1 Grandmastersonnet, totaling 211 sonnets.
Een kruisweg van alledaags leed was the first crown of crowns in Dutch literature. Other examples include Dichter bij het eind, 't Is egoïstisch, maar 't is mooi geweest, Ik maak er gauw een eind aan, en ik kom, Met rasse schreden naar het laatste feest, and Zo feestend leef ik naar het einde toe by Olax. Evi Aarens is the second Dutch poet to write a crown of crowns. In 2021, she published Disoriëntaties, a crown of crowns about human history.
Bas Jongenelen and Martijn Neggers claimed to have written the first crown of crowns in 2016: Een kruisweg van alledaags leed. They created 14 crowns, which formed 14 mastersonnets. These mastersonnets created another mastersonnet, the Grandmastersonnet. However, their claim is incorrect.
The first crown of crowns was written by Mitja Šarabon in Slovenia in 1971: Sonetni venec sonetnih vencev.
In 1994, Janko Moder published Sla sponina. In 1998, Milan Batista published Veliki sonetni venec, and Valentin Cundrič published 8 crowns of crowns, one of which is Pamtivid (available online). The other 7 crowns are in his book Slovenska knjiga mrtvih. Two of these, Molitvenik peščeni and Terjatve, are also online. Cundrič’s crowns of crowns do not include mastersonnets or a Grandmastersonnet; readers must piece them together.
Russian literature also has crowns of crowns. Vladimir Germanovich Vasilyev wrote Мир in 1987 but could not publish it as a book. He published it online in 2016. Anatoly Martynov published Благовест in 1996. In 2007, Natalia Shamberova published The Mists of August, a wreath of wreaths: 211 linked sonnets made from 14 wreaths, forming a final sonnet called the magistrals’ magistral. In 2010, Arkady Alferov published Корона венков сонетов, and in 2011, Sergey Don published Тебе, мой город and Elin Grigory Yakovlevich published Колокол Герцелойды. Izyaslav Kotlyarov published Земля простит, но не прощает небо in 2001 and Ещё за далью и за высотой in 2015. Not all crowns of crowns have known publication years.
Vladimir Ostapenko’s Отшельник and Монолог are examples. Корона жизни – Око was written by Leo Himmelsohn. Волшебство сна by Mark Polykovsky, Метаморфозы by Sluka Alexander Yaroslavovich, Мировоззре́ние Ми́стика by Igor Morozov, При све́те – Не уснуть by Ananyin Valery Zosimovich, and Моя Мифологики by Alexander Chetverkin are undated.
Belarus has crowns of crowns, such as Мару стаць я мастаком by Sophia Nikolaevna Shah in 2015. This book is a children’s story. Shah also published Адухаўленне (2000), Прысвячэнне (2001), Прызначэнне (2002), Увасабленне (2003), Спасціжэнне (2004), Азарычы (2007), and Каб тое выказаць… (2015).
The first crown of crowns outside Europe was published in Brazil by Paulo Camelo in 2002: Coroas de uma coroa (Crowns of a Crown). He also published Mulheres, mulheres in 2020 and Via Crucis in 2024. Joedson Adriano da Silva Santos, a Brazilian poet, wrote Alcides about Hercules. His later book Alcides includes three crowns of crowns: Teoria e Práxis, Parerga e Paralipomena, and Dodecatlo. The last one matches the Alcides poster.
In English literature, John Patrick McDonough completed three Crowns of Heroic Crowns titled O Logos Tou Theou in 2020. It was officially published on January 13, 2024. In 2021, Daniel Ståhl published Requiem – In memory of all that should have been, claiming it is a heroic crown of crowns. However, the sonnets are not fully linked. The Mastersonnet is made from the first lines of 14 sonnets, not from interconnected sonnets. This method is similar to Anton Gričnik’s Hvalnica Življenju (2005), which also does not form a strict 15th crown. Still, the total number of sonnets is 211.
Dominic Peloso published Sonnets of the Commedia dell'Arte, a complete English-language Heroic Crown of Heroic Crowns, in 2023. It is based on the work of 16