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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SIV-SOU |
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SONNET (Ital. Sonetto, dim. of Suono, Fr. Sonnet) . The sonnet in the literature of modern Europe is a brief poetic form of fourteen rhymed verses, ranged according to prescription
prescription
a prescribed sequence and then satisfying that expectation the division between octave and sestet, Mark Pattison says, which entitles a form of fourteen verses to be called a sonnet. Hence the so-called irregular sonnets of S. T. Coleridge, which lead the ear of the reader to expect the pleasure of a prescribed arrangement when what they have to offer is a pleasure of an exactly opposite kindthe pleasure of an absolute freedom from prescribed arrangementare unsatisfactory, while (as the present writer has often pointed out) the same poet's fourteen-line poem, " Work without Hope," in which the reader expects and gets freedom from prescription, is entirely satisfactory. This same little poem of Coleridge's also affords an excellent illustration
In modern Europe the sonnet has always had a peculiar fascination for poets of the first classpoets, that is, in whom poetic energy and plastic power are equally combined. It would seem that the very fact that the sonnet is a recognized structure suggestive of mere artsuggestive in some measure, indeed, of what Schiller would call " sport " in arthas drawn
sestina
That the sonnet was invented, not in Provence, as French critics pretend, but in Italy in the 13th century, is pretty clear, but by whom is still perhaps an open question. S. Waddington and several other critics have attributed to Fra Guittone the honour of having invented the form. But J. A. Symonds has reminded us that the sonnet beginning Pert ch' amore, attributed to Pier delle Vigne, secretary of state in the Sicilian court of Frederick, has claims which no student of early Italian poetry can ignore. As regards English sonnets, whether the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean are really the best of all possible forms we need not inquire. But, inasmuch as they have become so vital and so dominant over other sonnet forms that whenever we begin to read the first verse of an English sonnet we expect to find one or other of these recognized rhyme-arrangements, any departure from these two arrangements, even though the result be such a magnificent poem as Shelley's " Ozymandias," disappoints the expectation, baffles the ear, and brings with it that sense of the fragmentary and the inchoate to which we have before alluded. If, however, some writer should arise with sufficient originality of metrical endowment and sufficient poetic power to do what Keats, in a famous experiment of his, tried to do and failedimpress the public ear with a new sonnet structure, impress the public ear so powerfully that a new kind of expectance is created the moment the first verse of a sonnet is recitedthen there will be three kinds of English sonnets instead of two. With regard to the Petrarchan sonnet, all critics are perhaps now agreed that, while the form of the octave is invariable, the form of the sestet is absolutely free, save that the emotions should govern the arrangement of the verses. But as regards with great boldness, but perhaps with truth, that by blending octave with sestet Milton missed the very object and end of the Petrarchan scheme . Another critic, however, Hall
Sharp
With regard to what is called the contemporary forma Petrarchan arrangement with the sestet divided very sharply from the octavethe crowning difficulty and the crowning triumph of the sonnet writer has always been to so handle the rhythm of the prescribed structure as to make it seem in each individual sonnet the inevitable and natural rhythm demanded by the emotion which gives the individual sonnet birth, and this can perhaps only be achieved when the richness and apparent complexity of the rhyme-arrangement is balanced by that perfect lucidity and simplicity of syntax which is the special quest of the " sonnet of flow and ebb." The wave theory has found acceptance with such students of the sonnet as Rossetti and Mark Pattison, J. A. Symonds, Hall
Sharp
drawn
And now as to the Shakespearean sonnet. Some very acute critics have spoken as if this form were merely a lawless succession of three quatrains clinched by a couplet, and as if the number of the quatrains might just as well have been two or four as the present prescribed number of three. If this were so, it would unquestionably be a serious impeachment of the Shakespearean sonnet, for, save in the poetry of ingenuity, no metric arrangement is otherwise than bad unless it be the result of a deep metrical necessity. If the prescriptive arrangement of three quatrains clinched by a couplet is not a metrical necessity, if it is not demanded in order to prevent the couplet from losing its power, such an arrangement is idle and worse than idle; just as in the case of the Petrarchan sonnet, if it can be shown that the solid unity of the outflowing wave can be maintained as completely upon three rhymes as upon two, then the restriction of the octave to two rhymes is simple pedantry. But he who would test the metrical necessity of the arrangement in the Shakespearean sonnet has only to make the experiment of writing a poem of two quatrains with a couplet, and then another poem of four quatrains with a couplet, in order to see how inevitable is the metrical necessity of the Shakespearean number and arrangement for the achievement of the metrical effect which Shakespeare, Drayton and others sought. While in the poem of two quatrains the expected couplet has the sharp epigrammatic effect of the couplet in ordinary stanzas (such as that of ottava rima, and as that of the " Venus and Adonis " stanza), destroying that against Socialist obstruction in connexion with the Public pensive sweetness which is the characteristic of the Shake- Safety Bill. Upon the formation of the Zanardelli cabinet spearean sonnet, the poem of four quatrains is just sufficiently (Feb. 1901) he once more became leader of the constitutional long for the expected pleasure of the couplet to be dispersed opposition, and in the autumn of the year founded a daily organ, and wasted. Il Giornale d'Italia, the better to propagate moderate Liberal The quest of the Shakespearean sonnet is not, like that of ideas. Although highly esteemed for his integrity and genuine the sonnet of octave and sestet, sonority, and, so to speak, ability, it was not until February r906 that he was called upon metrical counterpoint, but sweetness; and the sweetest of all to form a ministry, on the fall of the Fortis cabinet. He immedipossible arrangements in English versification is a succession ately set about introducing certain urgent reforms, suppressed of decasyllabic quatrains in alternate rhymes knit together and all subsidies to the press, and declared his intention of governing clinched by a coupleta couplet coming not so far from the according to law and justice. In May, however, an adverse vote of initial verse as to lose its binding power, and yet not so near the the Chamber on a purely technical matter led to his resignation. initial verse that the ring of epigram disturbs the " linked SONORA, a northern state of Mexico, bounded N. by the sweetness long drawn out " of this movement
chief
chief
dispersed and wasted altogether. and Mayo. The longest is the Yaqui, which has its source on The French sonnet has a regular Petrarchan octave with a the eastern side of the Sierra Tarahumare in Chihuahua and sestet of three rhymes beginning with a couplet. The Spanish breaks through several ranges of the Sierra Madre before reaching sonnet is also based on the pure Italian type, and is extremely the gulf near Guaymas. The smaller tributaries of these graceful and airy. The same may be said of the Portuguese rivers of Sonora are often only dry canyons in the dry season. sonneta form of which the illustrious Camoens has left nearly Agriculture has been developed only to a limited extent in three hundred examples. (T. W.-D.) Sonora, because of its aridity, lack of irrigation facilities, lack See also ENGLISH LITERATURE: 3. Elizabethan; Sidney Lee on the of railways and roads, and the unsettled state of the country. Elizabethan sonnet in Arber's English Garner (1904) ; J. A. Noble, The soil of the sierra valleys is fertile, and when it is irrigated The Sonnet in England (1893) ; M. Jasinski, Ilistoire du sonnet en forage and cereal crops may be grown in abundance. Sugar-France (1903) ; C. A. Lentzner, Das Sonnett in d. eng. Dichtung bis Milton (1886) ; S. Waddington, English Sonnets by Living Writers cane, tobacco, maguey, cotton
American Sonnets (1889); John Dennis, English Sonnets (1873). profitable industry. Land is held in large estates, some of them End of Article: SONNET (Ital. Sonetto, dim. of Suono, Fr. Sonnet) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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