一種文學樣式的興起往往是一個時代的產物,它不僅源于文學內部各種因素,更源于宗教、政治和科學文化等外部因素的合力。以十四行詩為例,伊麗莎白女王的獎掖拔擢,與懷亞特、錫德尼、斯賓塞等人在詩體格律方面的探索發明,同樣闕功甚偉,至莎士比亞則可謂臻于完備。本文由破格這一獨特的詩歌語言現象入手,考察英國十四行詩的流變,揭示莎士比亞十四行詩的藝術創新。作為詩人的特權,詩之破格一方面是詩人不肯落入俗套的主觀努力,另一方面也是人為法則與思想自由表達之間矛盾沖突的表現。隨著17世紀科學革命興起,散文逐漸取代詩歌成為主流,正是這一矛盾運動的必然結果。

The rise of a literature genre can be ascribed to both the conflicts of the interior literary elements, and the composition of forces of the exterior elements such as politics, religion, science and culture of a certain age. Take the sonnet as an example, the Queen Elizabeth’s favor and promotion, together with the experimentation of rhymes and metrics by such poets as Wyatt, Sidney, and Spenser, is of vital importance for its prevalence, which is eventually consummated by Shakespeare. By examining the origin and variation of the sonnet in English literature history, with a focus on the poetic license, this paper attempts to demonstrate that Shakespeare’s artistic achievement is mainly based on his poetic invention. As the privilege of the poets, the poetic license on the one hand indicates the poets’ endeavor to break away from the convention; on the other hand, it also reflects the conflict between the bondage of grammatical rules and the freedom to express the thoughts and feelings of human beings. With the dawn of scientific revolution in the 17 th century, the prose gradually substitutes the verse and becomes the mainstream of the literary genre, which can be regarded as the ultimate result of the above conflicts.