A BRIEF HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SONNET

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.”