Classic Poem

Now that Italy holds such a brilliant place among our Allies during this
the greatest war in the world's history--the war of chivalry (which is
to say moral and spiritual right) against the arrogant might of the
Prussian Octopus,--it is well to remember that it was from Italy the
Sonnet first came into England. The word sonnet in fact, is from the
Italian sonetto (literally "a little sound"), and the sonetto was
originally a short poem recited or sung to the accompaniment of music,
probably the lute or mandolin.

Whether its birth should be attributed to Italy or Sicily,--or to
Provence, the cradle of troubadour poetry,--is a subject on which the
learned may still indulge in pleasant controversies. But in Italy,
towards the end of the thirteenth century, it had already become a
favourite mode of expression; and some forty years later, in a
manuscript treatise on the Poetica Volgare (written in 1332 by a Judge
in Padua), sixteen different forms of sonnet were enumerated as then in
current use.

But despite the continued vogue of the Sonnet, and its association with
the names of such masters as Dante, Petrarch, Tasso and Michelangelo in
Italy; Ronsard in France; Camoens in Portugal; Shakespeare, Milton,
Wordsworth and Rossetti in England--to say nothing of a host of minor
poets, who, though one star differeth from another in glory, yet
constitute a brilliant galaxy--it is remarkable that even now the
average non-literary reader when asked "What is a Sonnet?" seldom gives
any more explicit reply than to say it is "a short poem limited to
fourteen lines."

The rules for the structure of those fourteen lines, and the labour and
patience entailed in producing a poem under these limitations, are not
always realised even by those who enjoy the results of the poet's
concentrated efforts. The more successful a sonnet, the more the reader
is apt to accept its beauty as if it had grown by a natural process like
a flower. This, perhaps, is the best compliment we could pay the poet;
but if the poet is one who boldly essays a most difficult and complex
form, in a language which for him is foreign, then we should pause a
moment to consider what it is that he has set out to accomplish.

Taking the structure first (though for the poet the spirit and impetus
of the central idea must of course come first)--a sonnet on the Italian
(Petrarchan) model must consist of fourteen lines of ten syllables each,
and must be composed of a major and minor system, i.e. an octave and a
sestet.

In the octave (the first eight lines) the first, fourth, fifth and
eighth lines must rhyme on the same sound, and the second, third, sixth
and seventh, must rhyme on another sound.

In the sestet (the last six lines) more liberty of rhyme and arrangement
is permitted, but a rhymed couplet at the end is not usual except when
the sonnet departs from the Italian model and is on the English or, as
we say, "Shakespearian" pattern.

Each sonnet must be complete; and, even if one of a sequence, it should
contain within itself everything necessary to the understanding of it.
It must be the expression of one emotion, one fact, one idea, and
"the continuity of the thought, idea, or emotion must be unbroken
throughout." "Dignity and repose," "expression ample yet reticent," are
qualities which one of our ablest modern critics emphasises as
essential, and the end must always be more impressive than the
beginning,--the reader must be carried onwards and upwards, and left
with a definite feeling that in what has been said there is neither
superfluity nor omission, but rather a completeness which precludes all
wish or need for a longer poem.

How difficult this is for the poet can only be realised by trying to
achieve it.

The earliest writers of English sonnets were two very romantic and
gallant men of action, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and Henry Howard, Earl of
Surrey,--both destined to brief brilliant lives and tragic deaths. They
were followed by Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney and a host of Elizabethan
poets, courtly and otherwise. But it is Shakespeare whose Sonnets
(though not conforming to the Petrarchan model) show the most force and
fire of any in our language until those of Milton.

To analyse the variations of the Shakesperian, Spenserian and Miltonian
forms is, however, unnecessary to our present purpose, as the Sonnet
Sequence we are now prefacing is based on the Petrarchan model. Strictly
speaking, the Petrarchan sestet (the last six lines) should have three
separate rhymed sounds; the first and fourth lines, the second and
fifth, and the third and sixth should form the three rhymes. But this
rule is by no means invariably followed; even Wordsworth and Rossetti
often rhymed the first with the third, and the second with the fourth
lines; and sometimes used only two sounds,--the first, third, and fifth
lines making one rhyme and the second, fourth, and sixth the other.

As already said, these liberties are permitted, for the sestet is not
under such arbitrary regulations as the octave.

There are writers who keep all the rules, and yet leave their readers
cold; and others who are technically less correct, but in whom the
vigour and intensity of emotion is swiftly felt and silences adverse
criticism. The ideal is to combine deep and exalted feeling with perfect
expression, and produce a whole which goes to the heart like a beautiful
piece of music, and satisfies the mind--like one of those ancient Greek
gems which, in a small space, presents engraved images symbolic of
sublime ideas vast as the universe.

The Nawab Nizamat Jung has written in English several sonnets which we
should admire even if English were his native language. But if any of us
would like to form some estimate of the difficulties he has surmounted,
let us sit down and try to express in a sonnet in any foreign language
our own thoughts and beliefs. We shall then the better appreciate what
he has achieved.

As, however, while the Great War lasts, few of us have leisure for
literary experiments, it will perhaps be best to read these Sonnets
primarily for their soul and spirit. In melody and expression they are
of varying degrees of merit and completeness, but in the inspiring ideal
they consistently embody they rise to heights which have been scaled
only by the noblest. In tone and temper--as already said--they are akin
to the Sonnets to Vittoria Colonna by Michelangelo,--of whom it was
written by one who knew him well, "Though I have held such long
intercourse with him I have never heard from his mouth a word, that was
not most honourable.... In him there are no base thoughts.... He loves
not only human beauty, but everything that is beautiful and exquisite in
its own kind,--marvelling at it with a wonderful admiration."

Here we see defined the temperament of the heroic poet, that inner
nobility and exaltation without which mere technical skill can avail
little in moving and holding the hearts of men.

This note on the structure of the Sonnet would fail in its purpose if it
distracted the reader from the spirit behind the form;--for the spirit
is the life,--and few who read these Sonnets will deny that the spirit
of Nizamat Jung is that of the true poet, ever striving to look beyond
ephemeral sorrows up to the Eternal Beauty--now hidden behind a veil,
but some day to be revealed in all its splendour and completeness.

R.C.F.

October 6, 1917.