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 assiduously
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 assonance 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 repetition 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,
Wishing 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 passions 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 Shelley 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 associated 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.