…I began feeling a bit under the weather. And in a few minutes, I will settle down into my bed with my laptop and something fizzy to soothe my throat, and write the answer to Will Shakespeare’s sonnet II; which prompt, I have already posted. I do like doing these; however, now I have two sequences that are essentially notes to myself. I’m not sure how to characterise that.
Also: I, of late, have been thinking I should number all my sonnets. I am not sure the numbering system I should use, however. There are the short sequences and there should be some method for making them sequential whether or not I add to them later or not. Still… that type of enumeration, in and of itself, might be confusing as well. Perhaps I should just use plain sequential numbers and keep things in date order. That, or I could use two different systems depending on what type of cataloguing I, or another reader, might like to do.
“Kirkpatrick” type numbers and perhaps “Shorto” (rather than “Longo“) numbers. This is a reference to Domenico Scarlatti, whose sonatas have three different numbering systems, mostly rather confusing, with Kirkpatrick being the most used–and which puts Scarlatti’s sonatas in sequential order by date as well as can be done.
Regarding my sonnets, these ‘K’ numbers would be chronological simply as: K1, K2, K3, &c.
The ‘S’ numbers would be Chronological as S1, S2, S3, &c; except where sequences are involved, I would then, perhaps, note the place where sonnet number one of a sequence first appears (whether it is out of order or not) and then, for example:
If S2 marks the first of a sequence, it will be numbered S2.1, and the next in the sequence would be S2.2, S2.3, &c, (all the way up to S2.154 or more if necessary!) These would not indicate very well how many sonnets in total there might be, but the ‘K’ numbers would be for that purpose.
I might even try ‘P’ numbers also, for “Petrucci,” or whatever type of pasta the third system for classifying Scarlatti’s sonatas is named; which might group all sonnets by subject, perhaps in a similar way as the ‘S’ numbers. Very well… I looked it up, it is, in fact, “Pestelli.” Sounds delicious, perhaps tossed with seafood and Alfredo sauce. This is making me hungry. “Feed a cold,” do they say, after all.
This would make the mnemonic for these three systems fairly straight forward. If ‘K’ numbers are simple enumerators, and ‘S’ numbers are sequence based, and ‘P’ numbers are subject related; then we might say “Count, Sequence, Passion,” which would help one remember which is which: K for count (or Kount), ‘S’ for sequence, and ‘P’ for passion (hence subject).
I suppose I could also use the unique post id that wordpress provides. However, this, I have found does not exist on every screen wherein one might want or need it.
I could, of course, leave such enumeration to posterity, but I find myself needing and wanting such numbers now, for a variety of reasons.
Filed under: Sonnet Blog Tagged: Art, British, Calendar Date, Domenico Scarlatti, Form, Literature, method, Poetry, Sequence, Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Sonnet, Sonnet Writing, Technical, William Shakespeare, World Literature, Writing
