Humanist Poetic Forms: the Sonnet

Humanist Poetic Forms: the Sonnet

Chansons of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries utilized three poetic forms, the formes fixes. The sonnet breaks with the repeated text and music lines found in formes fixes stanza schemes. The single stanza of the sonnet, itself in turn divided into shorter sections, contains the entire thought or message. In the musical setting of the madrigal, no music is repeated, and the composer fashions music that best expresses the emotion or thought of
each line of text. The music of the madrigal, then, is through composed.

Two sonnet forms dominated the sixteenth century, both in poetry and in the madrigal. They were differentiated by form, language, and geography. The first, of course, was the Petarchan sonnet. It was written in the Italian vernacular and was used in the madrigal primarily in Italy. Petrarch's sonnets are in iambic pentameter (see rhythmic modes) and consist of a single stanza of fourteen lines. Iambic pentameter is an ancient poetic meter that places the syllabic accents in the pattern of weak-strong. The lines of the stanza are in turn divided into two groups of eight and six lines. The first group is called an octet or octave; the second, a sestet. Smaller line groups sometimes occur. Four-line units are called quatrains, and two-line units are called couplets. The rhyme scheme of the octet of the Petrarchan sonnet is usually abbaabba. Variants include abbacddc and abababab. The rhyme scheme of the sestet may also be one of several variants including xyzxyz or xyxyxy. The following sonnet, written by Petrarch, follows the rhyme scheme abbacddc xyxyzz. The final rhymed couplet of the sestet is a variant that was carried into English language sonnets.

Octet:

As oftentimes a foolish butterfly,

Used to the light, in the hot weather will

Fly into people's eyes his joy to fill,

Whence comes that others weep and he will die,

Like this I turn toward the fatal rills

Of the eyes from which comes a ray so bright

That Love tears reason's fetters in despite,

And who discerns is conquered by who wills.

Sestet:

And I see well how great is their disdain,

I know that this will mean true death to me,

My valor being lesser than my pain;

But Love dazzles my sight so pleasantly,

That I mourn others' wrongs and not my breath,

And my blind soul consents to its own death.

A second form, developed first by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), is today called the English or Shakespearean sonnet. Its language and geography are self-evident. It follows the form of three quatrains and a couplet, and features rhyme schemes such as abab cdcd efef gg. Sheakespeare's Sonnet VIII follows as an example of the genre. The lute, the principal instrument of the sixteenth century, makes the music Shakespeare describes in the sonnet. The first quatrain addresses the most powerful contradiction of hearing music.

Sonnet VIII

First quatrain:

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,

Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?

Second quatrain:

If the true concord of well tunes sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst hear.

Third quatrain:

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

Resembling sire and child and happy mother,

Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

Rhymed couplet:

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

Sings this to thee: "Thou single wilt prove none."

As Vesta was Descending

First quatrain:

As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending
She spied a maiden queen the same ascending,
Attended on by all the shepherds swain,
To whom Diana's darlings came running down again.

Second quatrain:
First two by two, then three by three together,
Leaving their goddess all alone, hasted hither,
And mingling with the shepherds of her train,
With mirthful tunes her presence entertain.

Rhymed couplet:
Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana,
Long live fair Oriana!