Contresonnet pour Peter

The author of this article recounts how the OuLiPo introduced him to Toulet’s sumptuous counter-rhymes and the renewed glory of the sonnet. The counter-sonnet emerges from this: sonnet + counter-rhymes. The rapport between long and short verse has been perfected by choosing to alternate between 9 and 6 syllables, the even figure being the reversed odd figure. In relation to the quatrain of counter-rhymes, the counter-sonnet is a closed form and, in relation to the classic sonnet, it is heterometric, with short verse which render its tone ‘lighter’.