Contents.—
[INTRODUCTION]
The composition of the Sonnet has been regulated by Boileau in his Art
of Poetry, and since Boileau, by William Preston, in the elegant preface
to his Amatory Poems: the rules, which they would establish, are founded
on the practice of Petrarch. I have never yet been able to discover either
sense, nature, or poetic fancy in Petrarch's poems; they appear to me all 5
one cold glitter of heavy conceits and metaphysical abstractions.
However, Petrarch, although not the inventor of the Sonnet, was the first
who made it popular; and his countrymen have taken his poems as the
model. Charlotte Smith and Bowles are they who first made the Sonnet
popular among the present English: I am justified therefore by analogy 10
in deducing its laws from their compositions.
The Sonnet then is a small poem, in which some lonely feeling is
developed. It is limited to a particular number of lines, in order that the
reader's mind having expected the close at the place in which he finds it,
may rest satisfied; and that so the poem may acquire, as it were, a Totality,—in 15
plainer phrase, may become a Whole. It is confined to fourteen lines,
because as some particular number is necessary, and that particular
number must be a small one, it may as well be fourteen as any other
number. When no reason can be adduced against a thing, Custom is a
sufficient reason for it. Perhaps, if the Sonnet were comprized in less 20
than fourteen lines, it would become a serious Epigram; if it extended to
more, it would encroach on the province of the Elegy. Poems, in which
no lonely feeling is developed, are not Sonnets because the Author has
chosen to write them in fourteen lines; they should rather be entitled
Odes, or Songs, or Inscriptions. The greater part of Warton's Sonnets are 25
severe and masterly likenesses of the style of the Greek επιγραμματα.
In a Sonnet then we require a developement of some lonely feeling, by
whatever cause it may have been excited; but those Sonnets appear to me
the most exquisite, in which moral Sentiments, Affections, or Feelings,
are deduced from, and associated with, the scenery of Nature. Such 30
compositions generate a habit of thought highly favourable to delicacy of
character. They create a sweet and indissoluble union between the
intellectual and the material world. Easily remembered from their briefness,
and interesting alike to the eye and the affections, these are the poems
which we can "lay up in our heart, and our soul," and repeat them "when 35
we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise up".
Hence the Sonnets of Bowles derive their marked superiority over all
other Sonnets; hence they domesticate with the heart, and become, as it
were, a part of our identity.
Respecting the metre of a Sonnet, the Writer should consult his own 40
convenience.—Rhymes, many or few, or no rhymes at all—whatever the
chastity of his ear may prefer, whatever the rapid expression of his
feelings will permit;—all these things are left at his own disposal. A
sameness in the final sound of its words is the great and grievous defect of the
Italian language. That rule, therefore, which the Italians have 45
established, of exactly four different sounds in the Sonnet, seems to have arisen
from their wish to have as many, not from any dread of finding more. But
surely it is ridiculous to make the defect of a foreign language a reason for
our not availing ourselves of one of the marked excellencies of our own.
"The Sonnet (says Preston,) will ever be cultivated by those who write on 50
tender, pathetic subjects. It is peculiarly adapted to the state of a man
violently agitated by a real passion, and wanting composure and vigor of
mind to methodize his thought. It is fitted to express a momentary burst
of Passion" etc. Now, if there be one species of composition more difficult
and artificial than another, it is an English Sonnet on the Italian Model. 55
Adapted to the agitations of a real passion! Express momentary bursts
of feeling in it! I should sooner expect to write pathetic Axes or pour
forth Extempore Eggs and Altars![1140:1] But the best confutation of such idle rules
is to be found in the Sonnets of those who have observed them, in their
inverted sentences, their quaint phrases, and incongruous mixture of 60
obsolete and Spenserian words: and when, at last, the thing is toiled and
hammered into fit shape, it is in general racked and tortured Prose rather
than any thing resembling Poetry. Miss Seward, who has perhaps
succeeded the best in these laborious trifles and who most dogmatically
insists on what she calls "the sonnet-claim," has written a very 65
ingenious although unintentional burlesque on her own system, in the
following lines prefixed to the Poems of a Mr. Carey.
"Prais'd be the Poet, who the sonnet-claim,
Severest of the orders that belong
Distinct and separate to the Delphic song 70
Shall reverence, nor its appropriate name
Lawless assume: peculiar is its frame—
From him derived, who spurn'd the city throng,
And warbled sweet the rocks and woods among,
Lonely Valclusa! and that heir of Fame, 75
Our greater Milton, hath in many a lay
Woven on this arduous model, clearly shewn
That English verse may happily display
Those strict energic measures which alone
Deserve the name of Sonnet, and convey 80
A spirit, force, and grandeur, all their own!
"Anne Seward."
"A spirit, force, and grandeur, all their own!!"—Editor.[1140:2]