572 



soNNKT 



didactics were in his time embodied as in the time 

 of Shakes|>eare -m-li poetised secretions of the mere 

 intellectiu cogittibiinaiu were put into the mouth* 

 of dramatic characters after the approved old 

 fashion of the classical dramatists. 



Since the Romantic revival, however, poetic art 

 lias undergone an entire change. Acted drama 

 cannot now receive poetised didactics, which would 

 in these days slacken the movement and disturb 

 the illusion required, while as to the kind of 

 epigram in solution or half-poetised quintessential 

 prose which is embodied in the 18th-century 

 couplet the criticism of the Romantic revival is 

 apt to consider this not so much as poetry ait an 

 intermediate form and an extremely rich and 

 precious one hetween poetry and prose" Epigram- 

 matic matter must, to exist at all, be knowing, 

 and as knowingness anil romanticism are mutually 

 destnictive, it is evident that some form other 

 than the couplet, which is so associated with epi- 

 gram, must in our time be used for the poetising 

 of didactic matter of the unworldly and lofty kind. 

 And the sonnet of octave and sestet is a form 

 less epigrammatic than any other a form more- 

 over which can never, as certain other stanzaic 

 forms can do, embody mere quintessential prose 

 \vithout proclaiming its poverty, Imt must always 

 be poetic in ito very texture a form indeed which 

 will not bear one line that is not either in essence 

 or in method poetic or else ' rhetorical ' in Dante's 

 sense when he defined poetry to be ' a rhetorical 

 composition set to music.' So absolutely poetic a 

 form is this that if it should happen that the 

 diction will not on account of the subject bear 

 elevation, it has to be at once poetised by one of 

 tli'i-i- skilful disturbances of the prose order of the 

 words of which Wordsworth was so great a master. 



The fact of the word sonnet being connected 

 with fiionare, to play upon an instrument, shows 

 that a knowledge of music, though perhaps not 

 essential, is of great value to a sonnet-writer. 

 Indeed, owing to the consonantal character of our 

 language a knowledge of music is really of more 

 importance to the English than to the Italian 

 sonnet-writer. Although the 'singing words' 

 essential to a good song for music need not perhaps 

 be greatly sought in the sonnet ( save in the special 

 ana somewhat rare form mentioned further on), 

 still vowel-composition anil that attention to 

 sibilants which 1 indar i- constantly showing in his 

 odes that attention which Diony.sius of llalicar- 

 nassus extolled and also the softening of conson- 

 antal feet by liquids are extremely important in 

 the sonnet even although it is no longer written to 

 be et to music. After much practice in the art 

 of rhymed poetry when every feasible rhyme leaps 

 into the brain of the poet the moment that a 

 line-ending has suggested itself to his mind 

 this attention to structural demands becomes in- 

 stinctive, and is exercised in that half unconscious 

 and rapid evolution of the mental processes which 

 the witty conversationist shows in repartee, and 

 which the pianist exhibits when touching the key- 

 board supposing of course that the poet is a born 

 rhymer. It is, however, a curious and interesting 

 fact that ever since the time of I'ier* I 'low-man (when 

 alliterative measures gave way to rhymed measures) 

 English poet* have been clearly divisible into two 

 classes those to whom rhyme is an aid and those 

 to whom rhyme i* more or less a check. And still 

 more curious and interesting is it, that while three 

 of the greatest poets, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and 

 Milton, In-long to the one class, Coleridge (who by 

 endowment |x-rha]>s stands next to them) belongs 

 to the other. This is why some of the strongest 

 English poeto have not lieen successful in the 

 sonnet, where the rhyme-demands are very great. 

 For some reason or another the rhythmic impulse 



within them has not been stimulated but crippled 

 and tortured by the spur of rhyme. 



With regard to prescription in the number of the 

 lines and the arrangement of the rhymes of the 

 sonnet, metrical art offers the reader two opposite 

 kinds of pleasure ; the pleasure derived from a 

 sense of prescribed form, as in the sonnet, theballade, 

 the rispetto, the stornello, Ac- , and the pleasure 

 derived from a sense of freedom from prescribed form 

 as afforded by those pure lyric.--, in which tiie form 

 is, or at least should be, governed by the emotion. 

 Now every poetical composition sliould show at 

 once which of these kinds of pleasure i- licing 

 offered to the reader and should also satisfy 

 the expectation raised, for he will experience :i 

 sense of disappointment on being proffered one 

 kind of poetic pleasure when he has been led, by 

 the stanzaic arrangement or otherwise, to expect 

 another. Nevertheless a certain few of our great 

 sonnets are irregular, for a great poet can do 

 anything. 



With reference to regular sonnet* it is self- 

 evident, as regards the sonnet of compound stanza, 

 that there are four different forms into which 

 may fall a metrical structure consisting of an 

 octave of a prescriptive arrangement of rhymes 

 and a sestet consisting of another set of rlivims 

 that are free in arrangement from prescription. 

 And some years ago the present writer exemplified 

 these in 'tbursonnete on the sonnet,' one only of 

 which, under the name of 'The Sonnet's Voice,' 

 originally printed in the Atheirnni, was widely 

 circulated in sonnet-anthologies. These varieties 

 of the sonnet of octave and sestet are : ( 1 ) The 

 sonnet in which the st longer portion both in rhythm 

 and in substance is embodied in the sestet (2) 

 The sonnet in which the stronger portion both in 

 rhythm and in substance is embodied in the octave. 

 (3) The sonnet in which the sestet is not separ- 

 ated from the octave, but seems to be merely a 

 portion of the octave's movement rising to a close 

 more or less climacteric. (4) The sonnet in which 

 the sestet seems to be added to the octave's move- 

 ment, added after its apparent termination in a 

 kind of tailpiece, answering to what in music we 

 call the 'coda.' 



With regard to the second of these varieties 

 the one exemplified in 'The Sonnet's Voice' 

 perhaps the ideal form has the octave in double 

 rhymes and the sestet in single rhymes. lint 

 it has to be remembered by the poet that be- 

 tween the effect of Italian rhymes and the effect 

 of English double rhymes there is a great differ- 

 ence. Save in the hands of a sonnet-writer of 

 great practice in the art of vowel-composition, 

 in the art of using singing words, and in the 

 art of softening our consonantal language, by 

 the proper use of liquids and subtle and concealed 

 alliterations, the English rhyme-lieat in the double- 

 rhyme octave of this variety is apt to become too 

 heavy for the single-rhyme rhyme -lieat in the 

 sestet. By attention to these requirements, how- 

 ever, the rhyme-beat may be so lightened that this 

 variety may become the most brilliant of all. 



With regard to the sonnet of simple stanza, it 

 has two special glories : it was the form adopted by 

 Shakespeare, anil in it is written Drayton's famous 

 love-sonnet. Hartley Coleridge wrote some fine 

 sonnets in this form; so did Keats : but on the 

 whole it has been neglected in recent times. A 

 renewed attention has, however, been lately given 

 to it by critics of the sonnet l>th in England and 

 America owing t<> Drfiordon Hake's book of nature 

 poems, The New Day, where the Shakespearian 

 form of sonnet is lined. Here, by a free use of 

 double rhymes the poet gives a lyrical movement 

 to his verse, which, though an occasional feature 

 of Shakespeare's sonnets, is not a characteristic one. 



