SONDRIO 



SONNET 



571 



Sondrio, an Italian town, capital of a province, 

 on the Adda, 25 miles E. of Lake Como ; pop. 3989. 



Song, a short poem, adapted for singing, or set 

 to music. A song generally turns on some single 

 thought or feeling simply expressed in a number 

 of stanzas or strophes ( see LYRIC, BALLAD, POETRY, 

 and the articles on the great song- writers). The 

 music to which it is allied should serve to add 

 force and clearness to its meaning with or without 

 the assistance of an instrumental accompaniment. 

 The vast stores of simple ballads, of which various 

 nations in time became possessed, are known as 

 'folk-songs' (volkslieder), aa being the unstudied 

 outcome of their popular tastes, feelings, and 

 aspirations. In the modern 'art-song' (kunstlied) 

 the cultivated instincts of the musician are brought 

 to bear upon the utterances of the poet. The range 

 of this class of song is extremely wide, and includes 

 examples resembling the folk-song in simplicity, as 

 well as those of a more ambitious character, which 

 for adequate interpretation often depend very largely 

 on the accompaniment, the voice part sometimes 

 consisting of little more than declamation of words 

 whose meaning is further conveyed by instrumental 

 devices. Between these two extremes every variety 

 and combination of treatment is displayed, some 

 songs being strophic in form, the same melody 

 serving for each stanza, whilst others are 'com- 

 posed throughout, 'both melody and accompaniment 

 changing in sympathy with the narrative and 

 sentiments expressed by the words. The pinnacle 

 of perfection in song-writing has been reached by 

 German composers, and pre-eminently by Schubert, 

 Schumann, Brahms, and Loewe. Among celebrated 

 English composers of song music may be named 

 Henry Lawes, who very early excelled in the art of 

 setting words with due regard for accent and em- 

 phasis ; Henry Pnrcell, the greatest among English 

 song-writers ; with Carey, Arne, and Boyce. To 

 these must be added Dibdin, famous for his 'Tom 

 Bowling ; ' Davy, whose memory is kept green by 

 his ' Bay of Biscay ; ' John Braham, who wrote the 

 4 Death of Nelson ; ' and Charles Horn, composer of 

 'Cherry Ripe." Sir Henry Bishop also enjoyed a 

 lengthened popularity. The growth of national 

 taste in respect of song has not kept pace with its 

 advance in other brandies of music, many excellent 

 writers belonging to the later part of the 19th cen- 

 tury being as yet for the most part unappreciated, 

 while publishers find a large sale for vapid com- 

 positions in the so-called ' drawing-room ' style. 

 Songs written for several voices are known as part- 

 songs, glees, madrigals, &c. See CATCH, GLEE, 

 MADRIGAL, ROUND; and the article 'Song' in 

 Grove's Dictionary of Music. For the song of birds, 

 see BIRD, Vol. II. p. 169 ; and for the Song of Songs, 

 or Song of Solomon, see CANTICLES. 



Songhay. or SONRHAI, a former kingdom of 

 Africa, extended on both sides of the Niger below 

 its great bend. In the 15th century the empire 

 extended from Lake Tsad almost to the Atlantic, 

 but early in the 17th century it was overthrown 

 by the sultan of Morocco. 



Soim-ka. the chief river of Tong-king (q.v.). 



Soiinhlick. a hill 10,277 feet high amongst the 

 Salzburg Mountains, on whose summit is a meteor- 

 ological observatory, with a shelter built in 1886 by 

 the Austrian and German Alpine Clubs. 



Sonnet (Ital. smetto, dim. of suono ; Fr. 

 xonnet). In poetic art the sonnet a stanza mostly 

 iambic in movement, properly decasyllabic or hen- 

 decasyllabic in metre, always in fourteen lines 

 arranged properly according to some law that is 

 recognised at once as having universal acceptance 

 nelongs entirely to the rhymed poetry of the 

 modern world. Sonnets are divided into regular 

 %nd irregular. All regular sonnets are divisible 



into : ( 1 ) The sonnet of simple stanza in which the 

 staves follow each other in tnree quatrains of alter- 

 nate rhymes clinched at last by a couplet. This 

 form is for obvious reasons called the Shakespearian 

 sonnet. (2) The sonnet of compound stanza 

 divided generally, but not always, both as regards 

 sense-rhythm and metre-rhythm, into two parts 

 an octave consisting of eight lines (the first line 

 of which rhymes with the fourth, the fifth, and the 

 eighth lines, the second line with the third, the 

 sixth, and the seventh ), and a sestet consisting of 

 six lines running on two or else three rhymes in an 

 arrangement which, though free from prescription, 

 must always act as a response by way of either 

 ebb or flow to the metrical billow embodied in the 

 octave. This form is for equally obvious reasons 

 called Petrarchan. Within the space at our com- 

 mand it is impossible even to glance at the history 

 of the sonnet nere, save as it now and then discloses 

 itself in our remarks upon the general principles 

 governing the sonnet's matter and ite form. 



Though poetic art has many functions and many 

 methods, the two following among its functions 

 seem specially to concern us in treating of the 

 sonnet : The function of giving spontaneous voice 

 to the emotions and passions of the poet's soul ; 

 and the function of poetising didactic matter and 

 bringing it into poetic art. With regard to the 

 first of these functions, although the sonnet is a 

 good medium for expressing passion and emotion, 

 it cannot be said to take precedence in this respect 

 of other and less inherently monumental forms. 

 The ode of Sappho, the bird-like song of Catullus, 

 and the free-moving rhymed lyric of modern times 

 are probably better adapted to give expression to 

 simple passion at white heat while on the other 

 hand they are certainly better adapted to give 

 voice to that less intense form of passion which 

 can pause to' deck itself with the flowers of a 

 beautiful fancy than is the sonnet- even the son- 

 net of simple stanza of Shakespeare and Drayton. 

 With regard, however, to the second of the above- 

 mentioned functions of the poetthat of poetising 

 didactic matter a function which of course can 

 only be exercised by passing the didactic matter 

 through a laboratory as creative and as recreative 

 as nature's own, the laboratory of a true poet's 

 imagination, the pure lyric must of course yield to 

 the sonnet. Indeed, it is an open question whether 

 since the Bomantic revival the sonnet has not 

 been gradually taking precedence of most other 

 forms as an embodiment of poetised didactics. 

 And should this on inquiry be found to be the case, 

 the importance of this form will be made manifest. 

 For as the mind of man widens in mere knowledge 

 and intelligence fresh prose material is being fur- 

 nished for the poetic laboratory every day. And 

 the question, \\ hat is the poetic form best suited 

 to embody and secure this ever-increasing and ever- 

 varying wealth? a question which has to be 

 answered by each literature, and indeed by each 

 period of each literature, for itself goes to the root 

 of poetic criticism. Of course, before didactic 

 matter can become anything more than versified 

 prose, it has to be excarnated f rom the prose tissue 

 in which all such matter takes birth, and then in- 

 carnated anew in the spiritualised tissue of which 

 the poetic body is and must always be composed. 

 Hence it is not enough for the poet to use the 

 sieve, 'as Dante would say,' in selecting 'noble 

 words.' The best prose writers from Plato down- 

 wards have been in the habit of doing this. When , 

 Waller said : 



Things of deep sense we may in prose unfold, 

 But they move more in lofty numbers told, 



he meant by ' lofty numbers ' those semi-poetio 

 ' numbers ' or the English couplet in which poetised 



