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Sunday, May 18, 2014

Vine video as the sonnet of this generation

I have been wondering what is the attraction of Vine videos - those six-second looping videos.

Then today I was reading about the sonnet (16-line poems), and how popular they were in England in the 16th century. Maybe Vine is the sonnet of this generation?

Consider the following description of the sonnet - note that it has some similarity to a Vine video with its 6-second constraint:

Very often these love poems were addressed to a small circle of congenial spirits—fellow poets, wits, ladies of fashion—whom the poet wished to amuse. The way to impress this company was to exhibit special ingenuity in devising new variations on the old theme or in polishing one's work to an impressively high gloss. The reproach that such poetry is “insincere” would have astonished any Elizabethan. The rules were there with all the weighty authority of tradition behind them, and they were there to be followed. To depart from them would be as incomprehensible as if a chess player were to propose a change of rules to his opponent in order that he “might express himself better”.

—Adventures in English Literature

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