Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson Part 12

The sonnet form was introduced into English poetry by Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. Their experiments in the sonnet were published in _Tottel's Miscellany_ in 1557, and were prompted by an admiration of Petrarch and other Italian models. Italy was almost certainly the original home of the sonnet (sonnet=Ital. _sonetto_, _a little sound_, or _short strain_, from _suono_, _sound_), and there it has been a.s.siduously cultivated since the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century Dante and Petrarch gave the form a European celebrity.

The Structure of the Sonnet.

Before saying anything of its development in English poetry, it is advisable to examine an admittedly perfect sonnet, so that we may gain an idea of the nature of this type of poem, both as to form and substance.

Wordsworth's sonnet upon Milton (_London_, 1802) will serve our purpose (see page 187). By reference to it you will observe:--

(1) That the sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, and consists of fourteen lines--that number by repeated experimentation having been found the most appropriate for the expression of a single emotional mood.

(2) As an examination of the rimes will show (a b b a a b b a: c d d e c e), there is a natural metrical division at the end of the eighth line.

The first eight lines in technical language are called the "octave," the last six lines are called the "sestet." The octave is sometimes said to consist of two quatrains, and the sestet of two tercets.

(3) There is not only a metrical division between the octave and the sestet, but the character of the thought also undergoes a subtle change at that point. It is to be understood, of course, that in the whole poem there must be both unity of thought and mood. Yet, at the ninth line, the thought which is introduced in the octave is elaborated, and presented as it were under another aspect. As Mr. Mark Pattison has admirably expressed it: "This thought or mood should be led up to, and opened in the early lines of the sonnet; strictly, in the first quatrain; in the second quatrain the hearer should be placed in full possession of it. After the second quatrain there should be a pause--not full, nor producing the effect of a break--as of one who had finished what he had got to say, and not preparing a transition to a new subject, but as of one who is turning over what has been said in the mind to enforce it further. The opening of the second system, strictly the first tercet, should turn back upon the thought or sentiment, take it up and carry it forward to the conclusion. The conclusion should be a resultant summing the total of the suggestion in the preceding lines. . . . While the conclusion should leave a sense of finish and completeness, it is necessary to avoid anything like epigrammatic point."

(4) An examination of the rimes again will show that greater strictness prevails in the octave than in the sestet. The most regular type of the octave may be represented by a b b a a b b a, turning therefore upon two rimes only. The sestet, though it contains but six lines, is more liberal in the disposition of its rimes. In the sonnet which we are examining, the rime system of the sestet in c d d e c e--containing, as we see, three separate rimes. In the sestet this is permissible, provided that there is not a riming couplet at the close.

(5) Again, with reference to the rime, it will be observed that the vowel terminals of the octave and the sestet are differentiated. Anything approaching a.s.sonance between the two divisions is to be counted as a defect.

(6) It is evident that there is unity both of thought and mood in this sonnet, the sestet being differentiated from the octave, only as above described.

(7) It is almost unnecessary to add that there is no slovenly diction, that the language is dignified in proportion to the theme, and that there is no obscurity or repet.i.tion in thought or phraseology.

These rules will appear to the young reader of poetry as almost unnecessarily severe. But it must be remembered that the sonnet is avowedly a conventional form (though in it much of the finest poetry in our language is contained), and as such the conventional laws attaching to all prescribed forms must be observed to win complete success.

Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton have lent the authority of their great names to certain distinct variations from the rigid Petrarchan type. The peculiarity of Spenser's sonnets is that the rime of the octave overflows into the sestet, thus marring the exquisite balance which should subsist between the two parts, and yielding an effect of cloying sweetness.

Although the famous stanza-form which he invented in his "Faerie Queene"

has found many imitators, his sonnet innovations are practically unimportant.

The Shakespearean sonnet, on the contrary, must be regarded as a well-established variant from the stricter Italian form. Though Shakespeare's name has made it famous, it did not originate with him.

Surrey and Daniel had habitually employed it, and in fact it had come to be recognized as the accepted English form. Its characteristic feature, as the following sonnet from Shakespeare will show, was a division into three distinct quatrains, each with alternating rimes, and closed by a couplet. The transition of thought at the ninth line is usually observed:--

"When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wis.h.i.+ng me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee--and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

It is Milton's merit that he rescued the sonnet from the snare of verbal wit in which the Elizabethans had involved it, and made it respond to other pa.s.sions than that of love. His sonnets, as imitations of the Italian form, are more successful than the scattered efforts in that direction of Wyatt and Surrey. They are indeed regular in all respects, save that he is not always careful to observe the pause in the thought, and the subtle change which should divide the octave from the sestet.

After Milton there is a pause in sonnet-writing for a hundred years.

William Lisles Bowles (1762-1850), memorable for his influence upon Coleridge, was among the first again to cultivate the form. Coleridge and Sh.e.l.ley gave the sonnet scant attention, and were careless as to its structural qualities. Keats, apart from Wordsworth, was the only poet of the early years of the century who realized its capabilities. He has written a few of our memorable sonnets, but he was not entirely satisfied with the accepted form, and experimented upon variations that cannot be regarded as successful.

There is no doubt that the stimulus to sonnet-writing in the nineteenth century came from Wordsworth, and he, as all his recent biographers admit, received his inspiration from Milton. Wordsworth's sonnets, less remarkable certainly than a supreme few of Shakespeare's, have still imposed themselves as models upon all later writers, while the Shakespearean form has fallen into disuse. A word here, therefore, as to their form.

The strict rime movement of the octave a b b a a b b a is observed in seven only of the present collection of twelve, namely, in the first sonnet, the second, the third, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth. The rime formula of the octave with which Wordsworth's name is chiefly a.s.sociated is a b b a a c c a. The sonnets in which this additional rime is introduced are the fourth, the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh and the twelfth.

As regards the transition from octave to sestet the following sonnets observe the prescribed law, namely, the second, third, sixth, seventh, and ninth. The seven remaining sonnets all show some irregularity in this respect. The first sonnet (_Fair Star_) with its abrupt _enjambement_ at the close of the octave, and the thought pause in the body of the first line of the sestet, is a form much employed by Mrs.

Browning, but rigorously avoided by Dante Gabriel Rossetti with his more scrupulous ideal of sonnet construction. This imperfect transition is seen again in the fourth, fifth, eighth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth sonnets. Its boldness certainly amounts to a technical fault in the two sonnets on _King's College Chapel_.

In the sestet we naturally expect and find much variety in the disposition of the rimes. The conclusion of the last sonnet by a couplet is most unusual in Wordsworth.

"IT IS NOT TO BE THOUGHT OF"

This sonnet was composed in September, 1802, first published in the Morning Post in 1803, and subsequently in 1807.

WRITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1802:

PUBLISHED 1807

"This was written immediately after my return from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade of our own country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrasted with the quiet, I may say the desolation, that the Revolution had produced in France. This must be borne in mind, or else the Reader may think that in this and the succeeding Sonnets I have exaggerated the mischief engendered and fostered among us by undisturbed wealth."

LONDON, 1802

This sonnet was written in 1803 and published in 1807.

"DARK AND MORE DARK THE SHADES OF EVENING FELL"

This sonnet was written after a journey across the Hambleton Hills, Yorks.h.i.+re. Wordsworth says: "It was composed October 4th, 1802, after a journey on a day memorable to me--the day of my marriage. The horizon commanded by those hills is most magnificent." Dorothy Wordsworth, describing the sky-prospect, says: "Far off from us in the western sky we saw the shapes of castles, ruins among groves, a great spreading wood, rocks and single trees, a minster with its tower unusually distinct, minarets in another quarter, and a round Grecian temple also; the colours of the shy of a bright gray, and the forms of a sober gray, with dome."

"SURPRISED BY JOY--IMPATIENT AS THE WIND"

This sonnet was suggested by the poet's daughter Catherine long after her death. She died in her fourth year, on June 4, 1812. Wordsworth was absent from home at the time of her death. The sonnet was published in 1815.

"HAIL, TWILIGHT SOVEREIGN OF A PEACEFUL HOUR"

This sonnet was published in 1815.

"I THOUGHT OF THEE, MY PARTNER AND MY GUIDE"

This sonnet, which concludes "The River Duddon" series, is usually ent.i.tled "After-Thought". The series was written at intervals, and was finally published in 1820. "The Duddon rises on Wrynose Fell, near to 'Three s.h.i.+re Stone,' where Westmoreland, c.u.mberland, and Lancas.h.i.+re meet."

"SUCH AGE, HOW BEAUTIFUL!"

This sonnet, published in 1827, was inscribed to Lady Fitzgerald at the time in her seventieth year.