The Sonnet

Its Characteristics and History

(Part 3)

William Sharp

From Sonnets of This Century

Sonnet-Structure

It is a matter of surprise that even now there are many well-read people who have no other idea of what a sonnet is than that it is a short poem--what kind of short poem they very vaguely apprehend. I have heard it described as any short poem of one or more stanzas used for filling up blank spaces in magazine pages--a definition not so very absurd when we remember that a poet and critic like Coleridge pronounced it "a medium for the expression of a mere momentary burst of passion." But the majority of readers of poetry know that it is limited to fourteen lines in length: beyond this the knowledge of all save a comparative few does not go. Even among verse-writers themselves there is some vagueness on this point: I have heard one well-known writer say that so-and-so's sonnet was a fine one, when the piece in question consisted of three octosyllabic quatrains; another spoke of In Memoriam as made up of a number of linked sonnets; and one of the contributors to this volume lately remarked to me that any one could write a sonnet--it was simply to say something in fourteen lines instead of in ten or twenty!

The commonest complaint against the sonnet is its supposed arbitrariness--a complaint based on a complete misconception of its nature. In the sense that a steersman must abide by the arbitrary law of the compass, in the sense that the engine-driver must abide by the arbitrary machinery of the engineer, in the sense that the battalion must wheel to the right or the left at the arbitrary word of command--in this sense is the sonnet an arbitrary form. Those who complain seem to forget that the epic, the tragedy, the ode, are also arbitrary forms, and that it is somewhat out of place to rail against established rules of architecture in the erection of a cottage, and to blink those in the building of a mansion or a palace. Any form of creative art, to survive, must conform to certain restrictions: would Paradise Lost hold its present rank if Milton had interspersed Cavalier and Roundhead choruses throughout his epic? What would we think of the Æneid if Virgil had enlivened its pages with Catullian love-songs or comic interludes after the manner of Plautus or Terence? The structure of the sonnet is arbitrary in so far that it is the outcome of continuous experiment moulded by mental and musical influences: it is not a form to be held sacred simply because this or that great poet, or a dozen poets, pronounced it be the best possible poetic vehicle for its purpose. It has withstood the severest test that any form can be put to: it has survived the changes of language, the fluctuations of taste, the growth of culture, the onward sweep and the resilience of the wave of poetry that flows to and fro, "with kingly pauses of reluctant pride," across all civilised peoples: for close upon six hundred years have elapsed since Guittone and Dante and Petrarca found the perfected instrument ready for them to play their sweetest music upon. Guittone was like the first man who adventured frequently upon the waters in a wedge-shaped craft, after whom every one agreed that grooved and narrow bows were better than the roundness of a tub or the clumsy length of a hollowed tree-trunk. Or again, he may be compared with the great Florentine painter Masaccio, who introduced the reality of life into Italian art, or with even greater Fleming, Jan van Eyck, who invented, or any rate inaugurated, painting in oils as now understood: though he too of course had his predecessor, even as Masolino foreshadowed Masaccio, and the monk Theophilus foretold the discovery that is commonly attributed to Hubert van Eyck and his more famous brother.

The Guittonian limitation of the sonnet's length to fourteen lines was, we may rest assured, not wholly fortuitous. The musical and poetic instinct probably, have determined its final form more than any apprehension of the fundamental natural law beneath its metrical principles. The multiplicity and easy facility of Italian rhymes rendered the more limited epigram of the ancients too malleable a metrical material in one way, and too obstinate a material in another, for while almost any one with a quick ear and ready tongue could have rattled off a loose quatrain, it was difficult to give sufficient weight and sonority thereto with a language where rhyme-sounds are as plentiful as pebbles in a shallow mountain stream. It became necessary, then, to find a mould for the expression of a single thought, emotion, or poetically apprehended fact, which would allow sufficient scope for sonority of music and the unfolding of the motive and its application, and which yet would not prove too ample for that which was to be put into it. Repeated experiments tended to prove that twelve, fourteen, or sixteen lines were ample for the presentation of any isolated idea or emotion; again, that the sensitive ear was apt to find the latter number a shade too long, or cumbrous; and still later, that while a very limited number of rhymes was necessitated by the shortness of the poem, the sixteen reverberations of some three or four terminal sounds frequently became monotonous and unpleasing. Ten or twelve-line poems were ascertained to be as a rule somewhat fragmentary, and only worthily served when the poet was desirous of presenting to his readers a simple pearl rather than a diamond with its flashing facets, though here also there was not enough expansion for restrected rhyme, while there was too much for merely two or at the most three distinct terminal sounds. Again, it was considered advisable that the expression should be twofold, that is, that there should be the presentation of the motive, and its application; hence arose the division of the fourteen-line poem into two systems. How were these systems to be arranged? were seven lines to be devoted to the presentation of the idea or emotion, and seven to its application: seven to the growth of the tree, and seven to its fruitage: seven to the oncoming wave, and seven to its resurge? The sensitive ear once more decided the question, recognising that if there were to be a break in the flow of melody--and the necessity of pauses it had already foreseen--it could not be at a seventh line, which would bring about an overbalance of rhyme. Experience and metrical music together coincided to prove that the greatest amount of dignity and beauty could be obtained by the main pause occurring at the end of the eighth line. Here, then, we arrive at the two systems into which the sonnet is divided--the major and the minor: and because the major system consists of eight lines, it is called th "octave," and correspondingly the minor system is known as the "sestet." It soon became evident, however, that something more was wanted: it was as if a harpist had discovered that with another string or two he could greatly add to the potential powers of his instrument. This was the number and the true distribution of rhyme-sounds. How many were to occur in the octave, how many in the sestet? or were they to pervade both systems indiscriminately? Even before Dante and Petrarca wrote their sonnets it was an accepted canon that the octave lost its dignity if it contained more than two distinct rhyme-sounds, or at most three. In the sestet it was recognized that a greater freedom was allowable, if not in the number of rhyme-sounds, at least in their disposition. Again, Guittone had definitely demonstrated that in length each sonnet-line should consist of ten syllables, the decasyllabic metre permitting a far greater sonority than the octosyllabic; and that acute experimentalist probably quite realised that continuous sonority and unbroken continuity of motive were two of the most essential characteristics of the sonet. No one who has any knowledge of the laws both of music and of poetical forms would be surprised if it were proved, as has been asserted, that Fra Guittone or his predecessors perceived and acted in accordance with the close analogy existing between their chosen metrical form and the musical system established by Guido Bonatti in the eleventh century. Throughout Fra Guittone's work it is evident that he is no blind blunderer, but a poet striving to make his vehicle the best possible, working upon it with a determinate aim.

In most of his sonnets we find the following arrangement: in the octave the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth lines rhyme, and so do the second, third, sixth, and seventh. By this arrangement the utmost attainable dignity and harmony is obtained, there being no clashing of rhymes, no jingle, but a steady, sweeping, wave-like movement entirely satisfactory to the ear. There have been some fine sonnets written with the introduction of a third rhyme-sound into the octave (the terminations of the sixth and seventh lines), and there can be no doubt that if this were equally satisfactory to the ear, a still greater and most valuable expansion would be given to the English sonnet; but to the sensitive ear, especially sensitive among Italians, it is as out of place as some new strain is in a melody that is already in itself amply sufficient, and that loses in effect by the alien introduction. This variation never gained ground in Italy, though in Spain it found favour with some of the Castilian sonneteers as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century.

It gained instead of losing in what Mr. Theodore Watts calls the solidarity of the outflowing wave by its nominal subdivision into two basi or bases, as the Italians name what we call the quatrains: upon these basi the poetic image could rest, either rendered dear to the reader supported on both, or appealing to him by an illuminating gleam from one base, and then by an added light from the other. The octave of the perfect sonnet, then, we find to consist of two quatrains, capable of divisional pause yet forming a solid whole: in all, eight lines following a prescribed rhyme-arrangement, which may be thus expressed--

a--b--b--a--a--b--b--a

The sestet in like manner is subdivided equally, in this case into sections of three lines each: these sections are called the tercets. There can be either three rhymes or two, and the variations thereupon are numerous. The Guittonian, or, as it is generally called, the Petrarcan sestet-type, is one containing three distinct rhyme-sounds, and employing the valuable pause permitted by the true use of the double-tercet; but a system of two rhyme-sounds is, as far as "metrical emphasis" goes, much stronger, and any arrangement of the rhymes (whether two or three) is permissible, save that of a couplet at the close. It is a difficult question to decide even for one's-self whether it is better for sestet to contain only two rhymes or three: personally I am inclined to favour the restriction to two, on account of the great accession of metrical emphasis resulting to this restriction. But, on the other hand, the normal type (the Petrarcan) affords a better opportunity for a half-break at the end of the first tercet, corresponding to the same midway in the octave and to the full break at the latter's close. It would be a mistake, however, to dogmatise upon the point, and the poet will probably instinctively use the tercets in just correspondence with his emotional impulse. The Italian masters recognised as the best that division of the sestet into two distinct tercets (which they termed volte, or turnings), which, while not interfering with what Mr. Watts calls the ebb-movement of the sestet, are fully capable of throwing out two separate lights in one gleam--like azure hollow and yellow flame in burning gas.

The sestet of the pure Guittonian sonnet, then, may be expressed by the following formula:--

a--b--c:--a--b--c

The following are among the more or less appropriate variations:--

"ex" in the third division of this Table denotes examples among the Sonnets in this book of the variation in question.

*Rossetti used to say that he considered this (No. 3) to be the best form of sestet, if it could be achieved without any damage to intellectual substance.

Of these, it seems to me that the two most musical--the least disturbant to the melodic wave--are the first and third,

a--b--a--b--a--b
a--b--b--a--b--a

The occurrence of a rhymed couplet at the close of the sonnet is rare indeed in Italian literature. I cannot recall a single example of it among the classic masters of the sonnet, and even in later times I fancy it would be difficult to find a single good Italian example worthy the name with this termination. But it does not necessarily follow that a dosing couplet is equally unpleasant to the ear in English, for in the latter practically all sonnets are what the Italians call mute, that is, the rhyming terminals are in one syllable, while in the language of Petrarca and Dante they are trisyllabic and dissyllabic--a circumstance materially affecting our consideration of this much-debated point. Not only are there few good English sonnets with dissyllabic terminals (I remember none with trisyllabic throughout, and do not suppose there is an example thereof to be found), but there are few of any quality. In Mrs. Alice Meynell's Preludes there are one or two partially so constructed, e.g., "A Day to Come," quoted in the Appendix to this volume. But, notwithstanding the differences in terminal structure, it is open to question whether the rhymed couplet-ending be not almost as disagreeable to the English as to the Italian ear, unless the form be that of the so-called Shakespearian sonnet. One of the chief pleasures of the sonnet is the expectancy of the closing portion, and when the ear has become attuned to the sustained flow of the normal octave and also of the opening lines of the sestet, the couplet is apt to come upon one with an unexpected jar, as if some one had opened and banged-to a door while the musician was letting the last harmonious chords thrill under his touch. There has been a good deal written on this point, and Mr. Hall Caine and others have succinctly pointed out their reasons for strongly objecting to it. It is, moreover, perhaps the last point on which sonneteers themselves will agree. Writing some three or four years ago on this subject, I stated that "if the arrangement of lines suit the emotion, I am not offended by a concluding rhymed couplet, or by the quatrains used to such purpose by Shakespeare, Drayton, and Tennyson-Turner;" but then, undoubtedly, only one side of the question was clear to me. Continuous study of the sonnet has convinced me that while many English sonnets of the Guittonian type, even by good writers, are markedly weakened by rhymed couplet endings, in the Skakespearian form the closure in question is not only not objectionable but is absolutely as much the right thing as the octave of two rhymes is for the Petrarcan sonnet. Most writers on the sonnet either state generally that they object or that they do not object to the rhymed couplets at the close: thus one anonymous critic writes that he fails "to see wherein a couplet ending is not musical as any other arrangement, that indeed it is demonstratably so by the citation of some of the most striking sonnets in our language"--while, on the other hand, Mr. Caine refers to the closure in question as being as offensive to his ear as the couplets at the ends of scenes and acts in some Shakespearian plays. It seems to me now that there are, broadly speaking, but two normal types in English of sonnet-structures--the Petrarcan and the Shakespearian: whenever a motive is cast in the mould of the former a rhymed couplet ending is, to my own ear at least, quite out of place; whenever it is embodied in the latter the couplet is eminently satisfactory.

Before, however, considering the five chief types (primarily, two), I may finish my general remarks on the early history of the sonnet.

That by the fourteenth century the mature sonnet was fully understood and recognised is evident from the facts (set forth by Mr. Tomlinson) that of the forty attributed (one or two of them somewhat doubtfully) to Dante, thirty-three belong to the strict Guittonian type: of the three hundred and seventeen produced throughout a long period by Petrarca, not one has more than two rhymes in the octave, and only fifteen have any variations from the normal type (eleven in alternate rhymes, and four with the first, third, sixth, and eighth lines harmonising); while two hundred and ninety agree in having nothing more than a double rhyme both in the major and in the minor system--one hundred and sixteen belonging to the pure Guittonian type, one hundred and seven with the tercets in two alternate rhymes (Type I. in foregoing table), and sixty-seven with three rhyme-sounds, arranged as in Type VII. in foregoing table. Again, of the eighty sonnets of Michael Angelo, seven-eighths are in the normal type. It is thus evident that, at a period when the Italian ear was specially keen to all harmonious effects, the verdict of the masters in this species of poetic composition was given in favour of two sonnet formations--the Guittonian structure as to the octave, and the co-relative arrangement of the sestet a--b--c--a--b--c, or a--b--b--a--b, with a preference for the former. Another variation susceptible of very beautiful effect is that of Type IX. (ante), but though it can most appropriately be used when exceptional tenderness, sweetness, or special impressiveness is sought after, it does not seem to have found much favour. I may quote here in exemplification of it one of the most beautiful of all Italian sonnets. It is one of Dante's, and is filled with the breath of music as a pine-tree with the cadences of the wind--the close being supremely exquisite: while it will also afford to those who are unacquainted with Italian an idea of the essential distinction between the trisyllabic and dissyllabic terminals of the southern and the one-syllable or "mute" endings of the English sonnet, and at the same time serve to illustrate what has been already said concerning the pauses at the quatrains and tercets:--

Tanto gentile, e tanto onesta pare
La donna mia, quand' ella altrui saluta,
Ch' ogni lingua divien tremando muta,
E gli occhi non l' ardiscon di guardare.

Ella sen va, sentendosi laudare,
Umilimente d' onestà vestuta;
E par che sia una cosa venuta
Di cielo in terra a miracol mostrare.

Mostrasi si piacente a chi la mira,
Che dá per gli occhi una dolcezza al core,
Che'ntender non la puó chi non Ia pruova.

E par, che dalla sua labbia si mova,
Uno spirito soave, pien d' amore,
Che va dicendo all' anima: sospira.

I need not here enter into detail concerning all the variations that have been made upon the normal type; in Italian these are very numerous, as also in French. In Germany the model type (where, by-the-by, the sonnet was first known by the name of Klang-gedicht, a very matter-of-fact way of rendering sonetto in its poetic sense!) has always been the Petrarcan, as exemplified in the flawless statuesque sonnets of Platen. The following six Italian variations represent those most worthy of notice:--(I) Versi sdruccioli, twelve-syllabled lines, i.e. (Leigh Hunt) slippery or sliding verses, so called on account of their terminating in dactyls--tenere--venere. [Boldface used to indicate stress rather than the original long/short vowel marks, which are unreproducible here.] (2) Caudated, or Tailed Sonnets--i.e., sonnet to which as it were an unexpected augmentation of two or five or more lines is made: an English example of which will be found in any edition of Milton's works, under the title, "On the New Forcers of Conscience." (3) Mute Sonnets: on one-syllable terminals, but generally used only for satirical and humorous purposes--in the same way as we, contrariwise, select dissyllabic terminals as best suited for badinage. (4) Linked, or Interlaced Sonnets, corresponding to the Spenserian form, which will be formulated shortly. (5) The Continuous or Iterating Sonnet, on one rhyme throughout, and (6) the same, on two rhymes throughout. French poets (who, speaking generally, are seen to less advantage in the sonnet than in any other poetic vehicle) have delighted in much experimentalising: their only commendable deviation, one commonly made, is a commencement of the sestet with a rhymed couplet (a mould into which Mr. Swinburne is fond of casting his impulsive speech)--but their octosyllabic and dialop sonnets, and other divergences, are nothing more than experiments, more or less interesting and able. The paring-down system has reached its extreme level in the following clever piece of trifling by Comte Paul de Resseguier--a "sonnet" of single-sylIable lines:--

EPITAPHE D'UNE JEUNE FILLE.

Fort
Belle,
Elle
Dort!

Sort
Frêle
Quelle
Mort!

Rose
Close--
La

Brise
L'a
Prise.

Among English sonnets the chief variations are the rhymed-couplet ending added to the preceding twelve lines cast in the regular form: the sonnet ending with an Alexandrine (example): the sonnet with an Alexandrine closing both octave and sestet (example): the Assonantal Sonnet, i.e., a sonnet without rhymes, but with the vowel sounds of the words so arranged as to produce a distinctly harmonious effect almost identical with that of rhyme-music. Of this form Mr. Wilfred Blunt, among others, has given a good example in his Love-Sonnets of Proteus: the octosyllabic sonnets (mere experiments), written by Mr. E. Cracroft Lefroy and Mr. S. Waddington and others; and the sonnet constructed on two rhyme-sounds throughout. Among the last named I may mention Mr. William Bell Scott's "Garland for Advancing Years," Mr. Edmund Gosse's "Pipe-Player," and Lord Hanmer's "Winter." The latter I may quote as a fine but little-known example of this experimental variation:--

WINTER.

To the short days, and the great vault of shade

The whitener of the hills, we come--alas,

There is no colour in the faded grass,

Save the thick frost on its hoar stems arrayed.

Cold is it: as a melancholy maid,

The latest of the seasons now doth pass,

With a dead garland, in her icy glass

Setting its spikes about her crispéd braid.

The streams shall breathe, along the orchards laid,

In the soft spring-time; and the frozen mass

Melt from the snow-drift; flowerets where it was

Shoot up--the cuckoo shall delight the glade;

But to new glooms through some obscure crevasse

She will have past--that melancholy maid.

This interesting and poetic experiment would have been still better but for the musical flaw in the first line (days---shade) and those in the 13th-14th (crevasse--past), though of course in this instance the terminal is intentional, and is a metrical gain rather than a flaw. In the Appendix will be quoted a sonnet by Mr. J. A. Symonds, constructed on three rhymes throughout. Dialogue-sonnets are not an English variation: I am aware of very few in our Ianguage,--the earliest which I have met with is that written by Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1580-1640). There are one or two sonnets in French with octaves where the first three lines rhyme, and therewith also the fifth, sixth, and seventh: one, in English, will be found in the Appendix.

We may now pass to the consideration of the five standard formal types, thereby closing the first section of this Introduction, that on "Sonnet-structure."

These formal types are (I) The Petrarchan. (2) The Spenserian. (3) The Shakespearian. (4) The Miltonic: and (5) The Contemporary.

The Guittonian, or Petrarcan sonnet, has already been explained from the structural point of view: but its formal characteristics may be summarised once more. (I) It, like all sonnets, must primarily consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines. (2) It must be made up of a major and minor system: the major system consisting of eight lines, or two quatrains, to be known as the octave; the minor consisting of six lines, or two tercets, to be known as the sestet. (3) Two rhyme-sounds only must pervade the octave, and their arrangement (nominally arbitrary, but in reality based on an ascertainable melodic law) must be so that the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth terminals rhyme, while the second, third, sixth, and seventh do so also on a different note. (4) What is generally looked upon as completing the normal type is a sestet with the tercet divisions clearly marked, and employing three rhyme-sounds, the co-relatives being the terminals of lines I and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6.

Among the numerous sonnets (the great majority naturally) in this anthology conforming to the two archetypal forms, the reader of these remarks may glance for reference at Mr. Matthew Arnold's Immortality, and at Mr. Theodore Watts' Foreshadowings.

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