Michael spiller the development of the sonnet an introduction

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SONNET ‘A very useful book indeed, and one which will add to the scope of current debates about the sonnet.’ John Drakakis, University of Stirling In this indispensable introductory study of the Renaissance sonnet, Michael R.G.Spiller takes the reader on an illuminating guided tour He begins with the invention of the sonnet in thirteenth-century Italy and traces its progress through to the time of Milton, showing how the form has developed and acquired the capacity to express lyrically ‘the nature of the desiring self’ In doing so Spiller provides a concise critical account of the major British sonnet writers in relation to the sonnet’s history This volume is tailor-made for students’ needs and will be an essential purchase for anyone studying this enduring poetic form Poets covered include: Petrarch Wyatt Sidney Shakespeare Spenser Dante Milton Michael R.G.Spiller is Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural History at the University of Aberdeen THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SONNET An Introduction Michael R.G.Spiller London and New York First published 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005 “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1992 Michael R.G.Spiller All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Spiller, Michael R.G The development of the sonnet: an introduction/Michael R.G.Spiller p cm Includes bibliographical references and index English poetry—Early modern, 1500–1700—History and criticism Sonnets, English—History and criticism Sonnets, English— Italian influences Sonnet I Title PR539.S7S65 1993 821'.04209–dc20 92–4868 ISBN 0-203-40150-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-40177-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-07744-3 (Print Edition) 0-415-08741-4 pbk to Pamela ‘il soave mio fido conforto’ CONTENTS Preface vi THE SONNET AND ITS SPACE SICILIANS AND CITIZENS: THE EARLY SONNET 11 ‘MAKING THE AIR TREMBLE WITH CLARITY’: THE STILNOVISTI 29 PETRARCH: ‘THE GOOD WEAVER OF LOVE VERSES’ 45 THE FORTUNATE ISLES: THE SONNET MOVES ABROAD 63 WYATT, SURREY AND THEIR LEGACY 81 ‘I AM NOT I’: THE SONNETS OF SIDNEY 101 THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET VOGUE AND SPENSER 123 ‘THEE (MY SELFE)’: THE SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE 149 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: HERBERT, DRUMMOND AND MILTON 175 PUBLICATION DATES OF BRITISH SONNET SEQUENCES 197 Notes 199 Bibliography 229 Index 237 10 Appendix PREFACE The greatest sonneteer of them all, Francis Petrarch, looking back many years after the death of his beloved Laura upon what he had written with so much art and so much longing, said that quant’io di lei parlai nè scrissi fu breve stilla d’infiniti abissi [Whatever I wrote of her was a small drop out of infinite depths….] He meant to praise her, not his own sonnets; but spoke perhaps better than he knew, for the sonnet is at once small, and clearly formed, and capable of holding desires from the most tremendous depths If it were not so, it would not have been used consistently and continuously by the poets of Europe from its invention in southern Italy about 1235, a hundred years before Petrarch saw his Laura, to the present day My own task has been to look at the sonnet in Renaissance Britain and, by concentrating upon those sonnet-writers who seem to have done most to extend its powers, show how the self and its desires were imaged As for what came before, considerations of length and practical use to students of the form have urged me to make choices: Petrarch, of course, is massively and justly there, but as the history of the sonnet does not often take much notice of the century before him I have discussed the sonneteers of the thirteenth century at some length, with lots of examples, all translated, both because that is when the parameters of the sonnet were formed and because the Italian material is widely scattered and difficult to get at for those with little or no knowledge of the language I have passed over many later sonneteers of great merit, such as the Italian women poets, Lorenzo dei Medici, Michelangelo and others, who are good but of less relevance to the British sonnet; and the excellent work of Walter Monch, Sidney Lee, Janet Scott, Gary Waller and others has made it possible for me to deal lightly with the French sonnet, knowing that sources and themes are accessible to the student elsewhere Sonnets are all alike in form; but they can be, and were, used to talk about anything at all, and in critical discussion I have used concepts and ideas freely, as they seemed to have explanatory force If there is a critical bias, it is against vii the view of the sonnet as a piece of lyrical autobiography—if that view any longer needs opposing Sonnets not in English are taken from available critical editions or anthologies that libraries in Britain are likely to have, and are usually in modern spelling; British sonnets are reproduced either from the original texts or in the original form from a critical edition, with the accepted alterations of i to j and u to v All translations are my own unless assigned to someone else For the help I have received from friends, colleagues and above all from my family, I am sincerely grateful; and my students over the years have, I hope, at least taught me what it is I ought to teach them in such a book as this MS viii THE SONNET AND ITS SPACE And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove, We'll build in sonnets pretty roomes; As well a well wrought urne becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombes… (‘Zohn Donne, The Canonization’) The sonnet is Donne’s original ‘well wrought urne’—compact, shapely, highly finished, and able to contain, in concentrated form, almost all that is human Donne wrote when the sonneteering vogue was at its height in England, in the years 1580–1610, and was perfectly familiar with the sonnet, singly or in groups, as the commemorator of love, when every Jack could promise his Jill that though that Laura better limned bee, Suffice, thou shalt be lov'd as well as shee Petrarch’s achievement of a sequence of 317 sonnets and forty-nine other poems in praise of his love for one woman, his Laura, though it was imperfectly understood, was the glass of fashion and the mould of form for European sonneteers from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century But love is not the only occupation of the sonnet, nor was it for Petrarch himself; its astonishing success and persistence has to be explained by recourse to rather wider terms The sonnet was invented about the year AD 1230, in southern Italy; and by the end of the thirteenth century1 abouta thousand sonnets had been written, almost all in Italian (that is, in one of the dialects of it), exploring most of the varieties of its form and most of the possibilities of its subject matter Francis Petrarch (1304–74), writing in the middle of the century following, inherited an already very sophisticated poetic instrument The sonnet came into the vernacular of Spain in the midfifteenth century, into the vernaculars of Britain and France in the early sixteenth, and into German in the early seventeenth.2 With the exception of the Augustan poets in Britain, there have been few major poets who have not attempted sonnets; and even today, when verse is freer, formally 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY Kelley, Maurice, ‘Milton’s Dante-Della Casa-Varchi volume’, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, vol 66, 1962, pp 499–504 Kelso, Ruth, The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century, Urbana, Ill., 1926 Kennedy, William J., Rhetorical Norms in Renaissance Literature, New Haven, Conn., 1978 Klein, Holger M (ed.), English and Scottish Sonnet Sequences of the Renaissance, vols, Hildesheim, 1984 Labé, Louise, Oeuvres completes, ed Enzo Giudici, Geneva, 1981 Langley, Ernest, ‘The extant repertory of the early Sicilian poets’, PMLA, vol 28, 1913, 454–520 Larner, John, Culture and Society in Italy , 1290–1420, London, 1971 Latini, Brunetto, La rettorica Italiana, ed A Maggini, Florence, 1915 Lee, Sidney, The French Renaissance in England, Oxford, 1910 ——(ed.), Elizabethan Sonnets, vols, London, 1904 Lentino, Giacomo da, ‘A critical edition of the poetry of Giacomo da Lentino’, ed Stephen Popolizio, PhD thesis, 1975, Ann Arbor University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1980 Levao, Ronald, Renaissance Minds and Their Fictions, Los Angeles, 1985 Lever, J.W., The Elizabethan Love Sonnet, London, 1956, reprinted 1968 Lewis, C.S., The Allegory of Love, Oxford, 1936 Linche, Richard, Diella: Certain Sonnets, 1596 See Lee, Sidney Lock, Anne, ‘A meditation of a penitent sinner’, Sermons of John Calvin, upon the Songe that Ezechias made, London, 1560 Lodge, Thomas, Phillis, 1593 See Lee, Sidney Lok, Henry, Ecclesiastes…compendiously abridged…in English Poesie, 1597, in Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library, ed A Grosart, Blackburn, 1871 Lytle, G.F and Orgel, S (eds), Patronage in the Renaissance, Princeton, NJ, 1981 Macdonald, Hugh (ed.), England’s Helicon, 1600, Muses’ Library, London, 1949 Macdonald, R.H., ‘Drummond, Miss Euphemia Kyninghame and the poems’, Modern Language Review, vol 60, 1965, pp 494–9 Markland, Murray F., ‘A note on Spenser and the Scottish sonneteers’, Studies in Scottish Literature, vol 1, 1963, pp 136–40 Marti, Mario, Storia dello Stil Nuovo, Lecce, 1972 ——(ed.), Poeti del Dolce Stil Nuovo, Florence, 1969 Masserà, A.F., Sonetti burleschi realistici dei primi due Secoli, vols, Bari, 1920 Masson, David, Drummond of Hawthornden, London, 1873 Mazzaro, Jerome, The Figure of Dante: An Essay on the ‘Vita nuova’, Princeton, NJ, 1981 Menzini, Benedetto, Poetica e satire, Milan, 1808 Milton, John, Milton’s Poetical Works, ed Helen Darbishire, vols, Oxford, 1955 ——, The Prose Works of John Milton, ed J.A St John, vols, London, 1864 Minta, Stephen, Petrarch and Petrarchanism, Manchester, 1980 Mirollo, James V., The Poet of the Marvelous, New York, 1963 Moleta, Vincent, The Early Poetry of Guittone d’Arezzo, London, 1976 Monch, W., Das Sonett, Gestalt und Geschichte, Heidelberg, 1955 Monte, Alberto del, La poesia popolare nel tempo di Dante, Bari, 1949 BIBLIOGRAPHY 233 Montgomerie, Alexander, The Poems of Alexander Montgomerie, ed James Cranstoun, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh and London, 1887 ——, Poems of Alexander Montgomerie…Supplementary Volume, ed George Stevenson, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh and London, 1910 Montrose, Louis A., ‘Of gentlemen and shepherds: the politics of Elizabethan pastoral form’, English Literary History, vol 50, 1983, pp 433–50 Muir, Kenneth, The Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Liverpool, 1963 Murray of Gorthy, Sir David, Caelia, 1611 See Klein, Holger M Musa, Mark (ed and trans.), Dante’s ‘Vita Nuova’, Bloomington, Ind., 1973 Muscetta, Carlo and Ponchiroli, Daniele, Poesia del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento, Turin, 1959 Neale, J.E., Queen Elizabeth I, 1934, reprinted Harmondsworth, 1960 Pagani, W., Repertorio tematico della scuola poetica siciliana, Bari, 1968 Parker, William Riley, Milton: A Biography, vols, Oxford, 1968 Parks, G.B., ‘The route of Chaucer’s first journey to Italy’, English Literary History, vol 16, 1949, pp 174–87 Patterson, Warner F., Three Centuries of French Poetic Theory, vols, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1935 Percy, William, Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia, 1594 See Lee, Sidney Petrarch, Francis, Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, ed and trans Robert Durling, Cambridge, Mass., 1976 ——, Le rime di Francesco Petrarca, ed G Carducci and S Ferrari, Florence, 1899, reprinted Florence, 1965 Picone, Michelangelo, ‘Strutture poetiche e strutture prosastiche nella Vita nuova’, Modern Language Notes, vol 92, 1977, pp 117–29 Pomeroy, Elizabeth W., The Elizabethan Miscellanies, Los Angeles, Calif., 1973 Ponchiroli, Daniele and Bonino, Guido (eds), Lirici del Cinquecento, Turin, 1958, revised 1968 Potter, J.L., ‘Sylvester’s shaped sonnets’, Notes and Queries, September 1957, pp 405–6 Purcell, Sally (trans.), Dante: Literature in the Vernacular (Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia), Manchester, 1981 Puttenham, George, The Arte of English Poesie, 1589, ed G.D Willcock and A Walker, Cambridge, 1936 Ralegh, Sir Walter, The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed Agnes Latham, London, 1929 Ramsey, Paul, The Fickle Glass, New York, 1979 Robb, Nesca, Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance, London, 1935 Roncaglia, A., ‘Sul divorzio tra musica e poesia nel Duecento italiano’, L’Ars nova italiana del Trecento, Certaldo, 1978, pp 365–97 Rossetti, D.G., Dante and his Circle, 1100–1200–1300, revised edn, London, 1874 Rossi, Nicolo de’, Il canzoniere di Nicolo de’ Rossi, ed F Brugnolo, vols, Padua, 1977 Saiz, Prospero, Persona and Poesis: The Poet in the Poem, The Hague, 1976 Salmari, C., La poesia lirica del Duecento, Turin, 1951 San Gemignano, Folgore de, Le rime di Folgore de San Gemignano, ed G Navone, Bologna, 1880 Sannazaro, Jacopo, Opere volgari, ed A Mauro, Bari, 1961 Santagata, Mario, Dal sonetto al canzoniere, Padua, 1979 Santangelo, Giorgio, Il Petrarchismo del Bembo e di altri poeti del ‘500, Rome and Palermo, 1967 234 BIBLIOGRAPHY Santillana, Marqs de, Los sonetos ‘Al Italico Modo’ de Ínigo López de Mendoza, Marqués de Santillana, ed Maxim Kerkhof and Dirk Tuin, Madison, Wis., 1985 Scaglione, A (ed.), Francis Petrarch, Six Centuries Later: A Symposium, Chapel Hill, NC, 1975 Scheiner, Louise, ‘Recent studies in poetry and music of the English Renaissance’, English Literary Renaissance, vol 16, 1986, pp 253–86 Scott, Janet, G., Les Sonnets élisabéthains, Paris, 1929 Shakespeare, William, Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, London, 1623, reprinted, ed Helge Kökeritz, London and New Haven, Conn., 1955 ——, A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: the Sonnets, ed H.E Rollins, vols, Philadelphia, Pa, 1944 ——, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, ed Stephen Booth, New Haven, Conn., 1977 ——, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, ed W.G Ingram and T Redpath, London, 1964, revised 1978 ——, The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint, ed John Kerrigan, Harmondsworth, 1986 Sidney, Sir Philip, The Old Arcadia, ed K Duncan-Jones, World’s Classics, Oxford, 1985 ——, The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, ed W.A Ringler, Oxford, 1962 Sidney, Robert, The Poems of Robert Sidney, ed P.J Croft, Oxford, 1984 Smart, J.S., The Sonnets of Milton, Glasgow, 1921 Smith, Barbara H., On the Margins of Discourse, Chicago, Ill., 1978 Smith, G Gregory (ed.), Elizabethan Critical Essays, vols, Oxford, 1904 Smith, William, Chloris, 1596 See Lee, Sidney Solimena, Adriana, Repertorio metrico dello Stil Novo, Rome, 1980 Soowthern, John, Pandora, 1584 See Klein, Holger M Spagnoletti, G., Il Petrarchismo, Milan, 1959 Spenser, Edmund, Spenser’s Minor Poems, ed E de Selincourt, Oxford, 1910, reprinted 1966 Stewart of Baldynneis, John, Poems of John Stewart of Baldynneis, ed Thomas Crockett, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1913 Stone, Donald, Ronsard’s Sonnet Cycles, New Haven, Conn., 1966 Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1588–1641, Oxford, 1965 Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, Poems, ed Emrys Jones, Oxford, 1964 Svensson, Lars-Hakan, Silent Art: Rhetorical and Thematic Patterns in Samuel Daniel’s ‘Delia’, Lund Studies in English 57, Lund, 1980 Tatham, Edward, Francesco Petrarca: His Life and Correspondence, vols, London, 1925 Tempo, Antonio da, Summa artis rithimici vulgaris, ed R Andrews, Bologna, 1977 Tennenhouse, Leonard, ‘Sir Walter Ralegh and the literature of clientage’, inG F Lytle and S Orgel (eds), Patronage in the Renaissance, Princeton, NJ, 1981 Thompson, D and Nagel, F., The Three Crowns of Florence, New York and London, 1972 Thomson, Patricia, ‘The Canticus Troili: Chaucer and Petrarch’, Comparative Literature, vol 11, 1959, pp 313–28 ——, Sir Thomas Wyatt and His Background, Stanford, Calif., 1964 Tilley, Arthur, ‘Wyatt and Sannazaro’, Modern Language Quarterly, vol 5, 1902, p 149 Tofte, Robert, Laura, the Toyes of a Traveller, 1597 See Lee, Sidney Tomlinson, Charles, The Sonnet, London, 1874 BIBLIOGRAPHY 235 Tottel, Thomas (ed.), Tottel’s Miscellany, ed Hyder Rollins, vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1965 Vaganay, Hugues, Le Sonnet en Italie et en France au XVIème siècle, Louvain, 1899, reprinted Geneva, 1966 Varchi, Benedetto, Opere di Benedetto Varchi, ed A Racheli, vols, Trieste, 1858–9 Vianey, J., Le Pétrarquisme en France au seizième siècle, Montpellier, 1909 Waller, Gary, English Poetry of the Sixteenth Century, London and New York, 1986 Waller, Gary and Moore, Michael (eds), Sir Philip Sidney and the Interpretation of Renaissance Culture, London, 1984 Waller, Marguerite, Petrarch’s Poetics and Literary History, Amherst, Mass., 1980 Warkentin, Germaine, ‘The meeting of the Muses: Sidney and the mid-Tudor poets’, in Gary Waller and Michael Moore (eds), Sir Philip Sidney and the Interpretation of Renaissance Culture, London, 1984 Watson, Thomas, The Hekatompathia [1582] See Klein, Holger M ——, The Tears of Fancie, 1593 See Lee, Sidney Weinberg, Bernard, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, vols, Chicago, 111., 1961 ——(ed.), Trattati di poetica e rettorica del Cinquecento, vols, Bari, 1970–4 Weiser, David K., Mind in Character: Shakespeare’s Speaker in the Sonnets, St Louis, Mo., 1987 Whigham, Frank, Ambition and Privilege, Los Angeles, Calif., 1984 Whythorne, Thomas, The Autobiography of Thomas Whythorne, ed James M Osborne, Oxford, 1961: modern spelling edition, Oxford, 1962 Wilkins, E.H., ‘A general survey of Renaissance Petrarchanism’, Comparative Literature, vol 2, 1950 Wilkins, Ernest, ‘Cantus Troili’, English Literary History, vol 16, 1949, pp 167–73 ——, ‘The invention of the sonnet’, Modern Philology, vol 13, 1915, pp 463–94 ——, The Making of the ‘Canzoniere’ and Other Petrarchan Studies, Rome, 1951 Wilson, K.M (ed.), Women Writers of the Renaissance, Athens, Ga, 1987 Wroth, Lady Mary, The Poems of Lady Mary Wroth, ed Josephine A Roberts, Baton Rouge, La, 1983 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, Collected Poems, ed Kenneth Muir, Muses’ Library, London, 1960 Zepheria (anonymous), 1594 See Lee, Sidney 236 INDEX absence 124, 147 absent presence 111–14 abstractions 139, 159 adages 87, 88, 96 aggregation problem 89, 95 Alexander, Sir William 103–6, 121; Aurora 175, 181–4, 184 allegories 51, 147 alliteration 142 ambiguation 159–2, 165–9, 171–5 Anacreontic sonnets 128–32, 144, 149, 167 anagnorisis Angiolieri, Cecco 6, 22–6, 50, 106, 107, 178 ‘anterior discourse’ 182 anti-sonnets 24 antithesis 48, 64, 69, 83, 125 apophthegm 87, 96 aposiopesis 114 apostrophic sonnets 107, 114, 179, 191–4, 193 architectonic sense 48, 57 Archspeaker 95–9, 141 Ariosto, Ludovico 73, 75, 188 Aristotle: Poetics ars dictaminis 44 artes eloquentiae 14 artifice 14, 79, 106, 116 Augustine of Hippo 78; Confessions 41, 48 autobiography 4, 38, 39, 141 Bacon, Francis: Essays 87 ballata 6, 7, 38, 50, 51 Barthes, Roland 71 beauty 61, 71–4, 74, 75 Bembo, Pietro 68–2, 72, 75–8, 78, 79, 82– 6, 116, 125; Gli Asolani 72; Prose della Volgar Lingua 77, 81 Best, Charles 125–7 Bible 13, 89, 127, 185 Blake, William 61, 181 blank verse 1, 101, 157 Blount, Sir Charles 105 Boccaccio, Giovanni 64, 70 body (battle of the faculties) 37 Boethius 74; Consolation of Philosophy 48 Boleyn, Anne 75, 82 Bolton, Edmund 136 ‘book of memory’ 40 Borgia, Lucrezia 68 Boscán, Juan 81 Boyle, Elizabeth 145, 146 Bracciolini, Francesco Britain vii; Chaucer 62–7; Elizabethan sonnet vogue 121–49; seventeenth- century 173–97; Shakespeare 148–75; Sidney 99–22; sonnet sequences chronology 121, 195– 9; Wyatt and Surrey (legacy) 98 Bryskett, Lodowick 144 Bunyan, John: Bach, J.S 142 237 238 INDEX The Holy War 37 Burckhardt, Jacob 67 Burton, Robert: Anatomy of Melancholy 87 Calvin, John 89 Campion, Thomas 92–6, 133 canso 3, 14, 15 canzone 3, 6, 19; da Lentino 14, 15; Dante 7, 14, 38; Guinizelli 30; Milton 187; Petrarch 54, 61, 78, 78 Carducci, Giosué 44 ‘carpe diem’ topos 169 catastrophe ‘categorial’ sequence 102 Catullus 52, 69, 151 Cavalcanti, Guido 27, 32, 33, 59 chained quatrains 142–4 Charles V, Emperor (of Spain) 81 Chaucer, Geoffrey: Troilus and Criseyde 62–7 Christianity 179–2; Bible 13, 89, 127, 185; God 30, 71, 94–8, 134, 154, 176–9, 184–7 Cicero 78 Circe 74 clinch (in last line) 4, 25 closed form closures 11, 16, 57, 94 coercions, social 84–8, 86 coinages 158–1 Colie, Rosalie 23, 87, 160 Colonna, Vittoria 68 comic sonnets 2, 22–6, 29, 50, 106–9, 144, 178 complaint 65, 74, 126–9, 144 complimentary sonnets 80, 89 Constable, Henry: Diana 117 conversation 23–5, 98, 108, 163; and circumstantiality 151–7 copia 156 Cornaro, Caterina 72, 74 corona-form 89, 101, 116, 169, 170, 177– 80 court culture 14, 65–72, 74–78, 79, 81–89, 96, 103–7, 115–19, 127–9, 145 courtesy manuals 72–5, 76, 87, 146, 173 Crichton-Smith, Ian criticisms/critical problems 132–9 Cromwell, Oliver 189, 193 crossed rhymes 34 cruelty 154–7, 161–4, 165–8 cummings, e.e Cunninghame, Euphemia 182–5 da Lentino, Giacomo 13–17, 24, 27, 33, 34– 5, 81, 82, 143, 195 da Montefeltro, Federigo 67 dance sonnets 162–5 Daniel, Samuel 121, 128, 135, 143, 167; A Defence of Ryme 133–5, 137; Delia 136, 137–40, 170–4 Daniello, Bernardino: La poetica 78 d’Annunzio, Gabriele 8–9 Dante Alighieri 19, 25, 44, 61, 64, 65, 76, 143; Beatrice 38, 39, 40, 41–3, 45; canzone 7, 14, 38; Commedia 68; De Vulgaria Eloquentia 7, 70, 77; Il Fiore 6; La Vita Nuova 35–6, 38–43, 45, 48, 50, 91, 188; Rime petrose 75; stilnovisti 27, 30, 35–43; The Divine Comedy 39 da Pistoia, Cino 27, 37 d’Aragona, Tullia 68, 71 d’Arezzo, Guittone 2–3, 19–3, 24, 27, 32– 5, 49, 103, 127, 194 Dark Lady (Shakespeare) 75, 149 Davies of Hereford, John 173 death (elegies) 139, 140, 182–5 de Baif, Jean-Antoine 105 deconstructive irony 106, 110–13 dedicatory sonnets 80, 89 Dekker, Thomas 87 della Casa, Giovanni 188–3, 194 INDEX 239 de Sade, Laura v, vii, 6, 45–7, 51–6, 58, 60– 2, 63, 72, 89–3, 114, 120, 137, 145–8 desire 61, 71–5, 75, 85, 116, 194–7; discourse of passion 123–7, 130–2 ‘developmental pairs’ 167, 170 Devereux, Penelope (Lady Rich) 99, 104– 7, 111, 116, 149 dialogue sonnets 23–5, 98, 163 diary 141–3 Diella 123 diesis 14 di Filippo, Rustico 18 Diodati, Charles 187 discourse, three kinds of 123–33 dissidio 48, 49, 55 distich ‘division’ of text 39 dolce stil nuovo 19, 27 donna angelicata 30, 43, 55, 72, 74, 194 Donne, John 19, 21, 34, 57, 80, 93, 117, 132, 173, 181; ‘Elegie 18’ 140; Holy Sonnets 33, 127, 176–9; ‘La Corona’ 177–80; rhymescheme 157, 166, 177, 179–2; ‘The Canonization’ vii,8, 158 Drake, Sir Francis 138 Drayton, Michael 135–7, 144, 181; Idea 139, 140–2; Ideas Mirrour 139 Drummond of Hawthornden, William, 104, 120–5, 128, 143, 146, 173, 184–9, 192; Flowres of Zion 181; Poems 181, 182, 194 du Bellay, Joachim 77, 94, 101, 128; L’Olive 96 Duecento poets 19–6, 47, 57, 70 eclipsis 178, 180 elegies 139, 140, 182–5 Elizabeth I 74–8, 82, 113, 116, 126, 173 Elizabeth sonnet vogue (and Spenser): comments/critical problems 132–9; Daniel 133–40; development/output 11 2–3; discourses (and overlap) 123–33; Drayton 139–2; Spenser 139, 141–9 eloquent form 25, 81–5, 116, 125, 147 eloquentia 13–14, 16 emotional identity 68–1, 79 enchantment 74–7 enjambment 21, 33, 48, 90, 110, 117, 166, 176–9, 180, 188–3, 194 enunciating self 39–40, 57 Enzo, King of Sardinia 11–13 epic poems 144, 145, 186 epigrams 4, 10, 14, 25, 48, 82, 94, 128, 158, 186, 190, 194 epiphany 31, 35, 44, 61 epitaphs 89 Equicola, Mario 78 erotic poetry 90–5, 101, 104, 146 Essex, Earl of 113 Este family (of Ferrara) 67 eulogy 155 Euripides’ Alcestis 194 Europe vii–1; establishment of sonnets in 62–79, 80– 4; see also individual countries extension ‘fear of trust’ 165 feeling 68–1, 79; performance of 144 female domination fantasy 73–6 female poets 68–1, 182 Ferry, Anne 84, 117 Ficino, Marsilio 71 fictionality of text 5, 106 fin amors 16, 17, 25 fiori di rettorica 14 Fletcher, Giles 136; Licia 131–3 Folgore di San Gemignano foreclosures 10 forensic mode 16, 29, 33, 81 Fowler, Alistair: Kinds of Literature Fowler, William: The Tarantula of Love 181 France vii, 80, 81, 93–8 240 INDEX Francis I, King of France 81 Frederick II, Emperor and King of Sicily 13–15, 17–18, 65–8, 81 fronte 14–15, 16 Fubini, Mario 48 future time, in sonnet 57, 128, 193 Gamage, Barbara 124 Gambara, Veronica 68 Gascoigne, George 92–6, 121; A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres 101 Germany vii, 80 Gianni, Lapo 27 giullari 19 God 30, 71, 94–8, 134, 154, 176–9, 184 Gonzagas (of Mantua) 67 Googe, Barnabe 101 grammatical suspension 191–4, 193 gravity 76, 78, 81, 83, 88, 116, 135, 188, 189, 191 Greek Anthology 129 Greville, Fulke 121, 173 Griffin, Bartholomew 128 Grimald, Nicholas 91 Guinizelli, Guido 27, 29–30, 31–2 half-lines 23–5, 98 Hartlib, Samuel: Letter on Education 186 Hatton, Sir Christopher 82 Henry VIII 13, 77, 81, 82 Herbert, George 57, 80, 87, 157, 173–80, 181; ‘Love (l)’ 179; rhymescheme 179–2; ‘The Answer’ 180; ‘The Holdfast’ 179; ‘The Pulley’ 185; The Temple 179 Herbert, Lady Margaret 177 heroic couplet 1, 88 Holland, Hugh 89 Hopkins, G.M 6, 57, 123; ‘Terrible Sonnets’ 21 Horace 52, 60, 185 Houston, John 70 Howell, Thomas 101 humanism 68, 77–78, 81, 103, 120, 130, 155, 171, 189, 192, 194 hyperbaton 178, 180, 191 hypotyposis 108–11 I (speaker) 4, 6–7, 16–17, 19, 86, 88, 113, 116–19, 120; Archspeaker 95–9, 141; circumstantiality 151–7; dialogue 23–5, 98, 108, 151–7, 163; inner transformation 35–41, 43–4; narrated I 39–42, 59–1; narrating I 5, 39–43, 59–1, 144; psychomachia 37, 40, 42, 84–8; self- doubt 156, 165–9; suffering I 41–2, 103, 106; uttering I 39–41, 143 iambic rhythm 13, 177, 178 Il Burchiello 107 images/imagery 60–2, 68, 163 immediacy 4–5, 176 ineffability topos 164–7 Ingram, W.G 161 in morte sonnets 45, 90, 104, 146, 183 inner self 35–41, 43–4, 57 inspissation 156, 158, 165 in vita sonnets 45, 90, 104, 146 irony, deconstructive 106, 110–13 Italy vii, 2, 6–7, 62, 68–6, 77–82; early sonnets 10–26; signories/principates 65–8, 67; stilnovisti 27–44; see also individual poets Jaggard, William: The Passionate Pilgrim 148 James, Henry 148 James VI and I 76, 77, 92, 102, 121, 142, 173; Twelf Sonnets of Invocations to the Goddis 101 Johnson, Samuel 165 Jonson, Ben 181; Every Man in His Humour 121 ‘juste forme’ 134 Kastner, L.E 183 INDEX 241 Keats, John Lady: Dante’s Beatrice 38, 39, 40, 41–3, 45; donna angelicata 30, 43, 55, 72, 74, 194; Milton’s Emilia 75, 187–90; Petrarch’s Laura v, vii, 5, 45–7, 51–6, 58, 60–2, 63, 72, 89–3, 114, 120, 137, 145–8; Shakespeare’s Dark Lady 75, 149; Spenser’s 139, 144–8; in stilnovisti 29–32, 35–6, 54, 74, 85– 9, 118 la Morosina 68 Latin 6–7, 14, 62 Laura see de Sade, Laura Lear, Edward Lee, Sidney 143; The French Renaissance in England 99 Lever, J.W 99, 124, 143 lexemes 39 lexical straightforwardness 34 limericks 1, 3–4 linkages: paired sonnets 149, 150, 152, 167–4; triangle sonnets 150 linked rhymes 34 ‘list’ form 56, 166 Lock, Anne 89–3 Lok, Henry 89, 157, 175; ‘Sundrie Sonnets’ 127 Lopez de Mendoza, Inigo (Marqués de Santillana) 62, 65–9, 81 love sonnets: Bembo 68–2, 72–78; erotic poetry 90–5, 101, 104, 146; Petrarch 44–62, 68–4, 75, 79, 85–9, 88; Shakespeare 161–7; Sidney 101–6, 112–16; Spenser 123–7, 130–2, 143–6, 146–9; stilnovisti 19, 27–44; Surrey 77–78, 88–4, 93, 95–98; Wyatt 80, 85–9, 88, 93, 95–98 lute-song books 173 McGonagall, William 103 madrigals 50, 51, 173, 182 Marino, Giovanbattista 185, 186 Marot, Clément 81, 94, 101 Marqués de Santillana see Lopez de Mendoza, Inigo marriage 194 maxims 11–14, 22, 87–1, 96, 177, 180, 190, 193 Medici dynasty 67, 74, 76 Mellin de Saint-Gelais 81 memorials 139 Meres, Francis 150 metafiction 106, 109, 114 metamorphosis 51–3 metanarrative 40 metaphors: Donne 34; Petrarch 34, 51–6, 60–2, 64, 68, 75, 119, 180; Shakespeare 34, 51, 117, 120, 156–62, 163–6, 170; Sidney 114–17, 117–22, 135; Spenser 117, 120, 127–9, 130, 135, 139, 142, 143–6, 147; theatrical 143–6, 165–8 metatext 112 metonymy 137, 138 metricum 44 Michelangelo 148 Milton, John 10, 22, 72–5, 80, 121–4, 128, 143, 157; Catherine 194–7; Comus 75; ‘Donna leggiadra’ 187; Emilia 75, 187–90; Lycidas 183; Paradise Lost 39, 181, 191; Poems 186; rhymeschemes 188–1, 190, 193; ‘When the Assault was intended to the City’ 192–5 mimesis 5, 58, 59, 106, 135, 151, 179, 190 mistress (role) 139, 154 Mitchell, Denis 166 monosyllables 117, 136, 190 242 INDEX Montaigne, Michel de 87 moral sonnets 19–3, 80, 103 motifs/themes (Petrarch) 55 Mozart, W.A 20 Murray, Sir David (of Gorthie) 121, 184; Caelia 175, 181 Muscetta, Carlo 65–8 mutability 126–9, 130–2, 136, 153, 156 myths 51, 53, 73–7, 125, 129, 184–7 narrated I see I (speaker) narrating I see I (speaker) narrative 3–4, Nashe, Thomas 115, 143–6 neologisms 158 Neoplatonism 71–5, 75, 77, 79, 85, 103, 118, 120, 134, 145 ‘normal sonnet’ 2–3 occasional sonnets 29, 80, 93, 186, 194 octave 2, 4, 13–13 Odyssey 73–6 off-rhymes 142 ontogenesis 41 ‘overview’ principle 144 Ovid 114, 140, 185; Metamorphoses 52, 53 Oxford, Earl of 103 paired sonnets 149–2, 152, 167–4 parody 22, 25 passion, rhetoric of 143–6, 147 passionate discourse 123–7, 130–2 past 56–8, 60, 128, 193 pastoral sonnets 123, 126, 129, 130 patronage 67–68, 75, 81, 107, 126, 137, 153–6, 164, 166, 171 Paul IV 188 pedes/pes 14–15 Pembroke, Countess of 105, 116, 133 penitential writing 42, 55, 126 peripety personality notion 37, 143 persuasion 17, 109 Petrarch, Francis 10, 11, 19, 101, 124; Chaucer’s translation 62–7; Drummond 182, 184–8; Herbert 173, 178, 180–3; in morte sonnets 45, 90, 104, 146, 183; in vita sonnets 45, 90, 104, 146; Laura v, vii, 5, 27, 45–7, 51–6, 58, 60– 2, 63, 72, 89–3, 114, 120, 137, 145–8; metaphors 34, 51–6, 60–2, 64, 68, 75, 119, 180; Milton 187–90, 192–6; personality/selves 44–6, 47–9, 52; rhymescheme 11, 34, 50, 107, 142, 169–3, 171, 180; Rime 17, 44–62, 62, 70, 83, 107, 109, 113–16, 126, 169–3, 178, 182, 184, 187, 194; as role model 68–4, 78–2, 99, 102–6, 173; Shakespeare 169–3, 171; Sidney 104, 106–9, 109–12, 113–16, 118–1 ; Spenser 132, 135, 137–9, 141–3, 143– 8; stilnovisti 27–9, 34, 38–9, 41, 44; Surrey 88–4, 93, 95, 97; Wyatt 81–9, 88–2, 91, 93, 98 Phillips, Edward 192, 186 phonic straightforwardness 33–4 Platonism 85–9 pleasure 71–4, 115–18 pleynt 65, 74, 126–9, 144 plu gente 17 Poetical Rhapsody, A 173 polysyllables 125 Portinari, Beatrice 38, 39, 40, 41–3, 45 power relations 65, 66, 67–68, 70, 74, 77, 81, 171 praise-poetry 60, 139, 192 prescribed form present 56–8, 60, 128 ‘Prodnose, Lord’ 108, 111, 113 Propertius 52 proportion/proportionality 1–4, 17 prosaicum 44 prose narrative 38, 39, 401 prosimetrum 39 prosopopoeias 114 Provenỗal poetry 1415, 17, 25, 30, 42, 52 proverbs 11, 22, 50, 87–1, 155, 171, 177, 180, 190, 193 INDEX 243 psychomachia 37, 40, 42, 84–8 Pucci, Antonio 26 Pulci, Luigi: Morgante 68 puns 25–7, 34, 60–2, 112, 159, 171–5 ‘punto’ 10, 11, 23, 57 purity (stilnovisti) 32–3 Puttenham, George 77–79, 119, 126; Arte of English Poesie 76, 81–5 quasi-circumstantiality 151–7 ‘quatorzain’ 92–6 quatrains 2; chained 142–4 Queen of the Fortunate Isles 73, 75–8, 116, 120 quibbles 159 Ralegh, Sir Walter 126, 128, 138, 141; ‘Farewell to the Court’ 127; History of the World 173 Redpath, Theodore 161 reflective discourse 126–9, 130–2, 135, 153 relations matrix 78–2 repetition 4, 19–1, 34, 112, 159 resistive theory of art rhetoric 44, 130; classical 6–7; court culture 14, 76, 77, 87, 104, 145; inspissation 156, 158, 165; of passion 143–6; Petrarch 44, 55, 114, 118; of praise 192; Shakespeare 5, 163–9; Sidney 114–17, 118, 119 rhyme-royal 63 rhymeschemes 13; Donne 157, 166, 177, 179–2; English 93; French 94; Herbert 179, 180; iambic 13, 177, 178; Italian 2, 34; Milton 188–1, 190, 193; Petrarch 11, 34, 50, 107, 142, 169–4, 180; proportionality 1–4, 17; Scottish 102; Shakespeare 10–11, 33, 156–9, 163, 166, 169, 171; Sidney 102, 106–9, 117; Spenser 91, 142–4, 171; stilnovisti 32–3, 34–5; Surrey 93–8, 142–4, 156, 166; Tottel 93, 94–8; Wyatt 15, 34, 93–8, 166 rhyming couplets 2, 4, 82 Rich, Lady Penelope 99, 104–7, 111, 116, 149 Rich, Lord Robert 105 rime incatenate 34 rime incrociate 34 rime rovesciate 32, 34, 50 rithimicum 44 Rival Poet (Shakespeare) 144, 153, 165 Robert of Naples and Sicily 45, 66 Rogers, Daniel 101 Rollins, Hyder 98 Roman de la Rose Ronsard 80, 105, 108, 128, 129 Rossetti, D.G 32, 36 salute (Lady’s greeting) 30–1, 32 Scot, Michael 13 Scottish sonnet 102 self: -accounting 139, 140–3; -doubt 156, 165–9; enunciating 39–40, 57; inner 35–41, 43–4, 57; object and (merged) 60–2; -realisation 62–5; see also I (speaker); speaker semi-proverbs 50, 155 senhal 60, 187 sense couplets 2, 86–87, 94 sense pauses 177–80 sententia 4, 87–1, 94, 96, 110, 135 Serafino dell’ Aquila 15, 82, 88, 94 sestet 2, 4, 10, 13–13 sestina 61, 182 seventeenth century: 244 INDEX Drummond 173, 181–9; Herbert 173–83; Milton 186–97 sextains 182 sexual love 105–8, 124; see also erotic poetry Shakespeare, William 19, 54, 57, 61, 89, 97; ‘A Lover’s Complaint’ 148, 150; ambiguousness 148–1; A Midsummer Night’s Dream 107; circumstantiality 151–7; Dark Lady 75, 149; exclusion of speaker 154–8, 160–3; Henry V 108–11; linkages 167–4; Love’s Labour’s Lost 132, 157, 163; metaphor 34, 51, 117, 120, 156–62, 163–6, 170; Much Ado About Nothing 154; purposes 152–5; Q-sonnets (facts/conjectures) 149–2; rhetorical strategies 5, 163–9; rhymescheme 10–11, 33, 156–9, 163, 166, 169, 171; Richard II 98; Rival Poet 144, 153, 165; Romeo and Juliet 130, 163; sonnet form 80, 156–62, 166–75; sonnets 6, 38, 40, 45, 51, 73, 104, 121– 4, 128–30, 148–75; ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ 150; The Rape of Lucrece 145; Twelfth Night 137, 138; ‘undecidable’ sonnets 156, 160–5 Sicilian poetry 13–18, 19, 27, 30, 42 Sidney, Sir Henry 105 Sidney, Sir Philip 5, 19, 24, 34, 41, 80, 88, 141, 144, 146; Arcadia 99, 106–9, 132; Astrophel and Stella 6, 74–7, 99–3, 104–18, 118, 121, 128, 130, 137, 140, 143, 147, 149, 151, 155, 157, 165, 184; ‘Certain Sonnets’ 99–3, 104, 107; contemporaries 101–6; Defence of Poesie 120; enjambment 90, 110, 117, 176; metaphors 114, 115, 117–22, 135; Old Arcadia 99, 104, 106, 109–12; rhetoric 114–17, 118, 119; rhymescheme 102, 106–9, 117 Sidney, Robert 116, 117, 124 signifier/signified 41 signs system 106 similes 51 sirma 14–15 sixain 94 social behaviour/space 35–8 social coercions 84–8, 86 Socrates 74 sonetto caudato 2, 34, 186 sonetto rinterzato 34 sonettus consuetus sonnet sequences 80; chronological table 121, 195–9; discourses of 123–33; Drummond 173; Elizabethan vogue 121–49; Petrarch 50–62, 89, 93, 103, 192, 194; Sidney 99–22; stilnovisti 41, 44; Watson 90–5, 101, 103–6, 127, 130, 146 sonnets: comic 2, 22–6, 29, 50, 106–9, 144, 178; dedicatory 80, 89; dialogue 23–5, 98, 163; Elizabethan vogue 121–49; form (Shakespeare) 156–62, 166–75; international output 80, 121–4; love see love sonnets; meaning (and usage) 91–6; moral 19–3, 80, 103; and music 3, 15, 91–5; occasional 29, 80, 93, 186, 194; space/form vii–9; strategy (Shakespeare) 167–4; structure/size 10–16, 81, 88–2, 133; as written/spoken 59, 61, 110, 136–9, 164–7, 165 sonnets, early: comic (Angiolieri) 22–6; moral (d’Arezzo) 19–3; INDEX 245 repertoire (versatility) 24–7; shape/size 10–16; statements 16–19 sonnets, in Europe: Bembo 68–2, 72–78; Chaucer 62–7; court culture 69–3, 74–78; emotional identity 68–1; Marqués de Santillana 62, 65–9; patronage/power 67–68; Petrarch 62–7, 68–4, 75; relations matrix 78–2; style/stylistic qualities 78–1 Soowthern, John: Pandora 101, 102–5 Spain vii, 62, 65, 67, 81 speaker 4–5; Archspeaker 95–9, 141; circumstantiality 151–7; discourses 123–3 2; exclusion/marginality 154–8, 160–3; narrated I 39–42, 59–1; narrating I 39–40, 41–2, 43, 59–1, 144; uttering I 39–41, 143; see also I (speaker) Spenser, Edmund 73, 80, 88, 99, 104, 157, 181; Acrasia 75; Amoretti 102, 139, 141–9, 165, 194; Epithalamion 146, 147; metaphors 117, 120, 127–9, 130, 135, 139, 142, 143–6, 147; rhymescheme 102, 142–4, 171; The Faerie Queene 1, 75, 132, 142, 143, 144–7 spiritual sonnets 80 Stampa, Gaspara 68–1 stanzaic verse/stanzas 1, 14–15 stilnovisti 52, 61, 71, 75, 79, 119, 191; Dante’s Vita Nuova 38–43; emergence 27–9; form/patternings 34–5; inner transformation 35–8, 43–4; Lady in 29–32, 35–6, 54, 74, 85–9, 118; musicality 33, 34, 35, 49; social behaviour/space 35–8; straightforwardness 32–4, 48 strambotto 15, 82, 94 strophic verse style/stylistic qualities 78–1; levels of 70, 76, 145 suffering I 41–2, 103, 106 Surrey, Earl of 13; court culture 77–78, 88–2, 96, 116; Petrarch and 88–4, 93, 95, 97; rhymescheme 93–8, 142–4, 156, 166; sonnet defined (and usage) 91–6; Tottel’s Miscellany 91, 93, 95–98 suspension, grammatical 191–4, 193 sweetness 42–3, 78, 135, 191 Swift, Jonathan 76, 180 syllables 10–11; monosyllables 117, 136, 190; polysyllables 125 symbolism 51 syntax: Petrarchan 48–49; straightforwardness 33, 34, 48 tailed sonnet 2, 34, 186 Tasso, Torquato 73, 75, 80, 132, 145, 146, 188 Tedaldi, Pieraccio 8, 10 Tennyson, Alfred Lord: In Memoriam 146 tenzoni 27, 169 tercets 2, terza rima texts 108–12; division of 39; fictionality of 5, 106 theatrical metaphors 123, 143–6, 165–8 Thorpe, Thomas 148 thought, proportion and 3–4 titling poetry 95–9 Tottel, Richard 90; Miscellany [Songes and Sonnets] 88–2, 91, 93, 95–101, 103, 114, 141 Touchstone 114 traductio 112, 159 transformation 74–7; by metaphor 51–3, 54 246 INDEX triangle sonnets 150 trimeters triolet troubadours 14 truth 74 Turberville, George 98, 101 ‘undecidable’ sonnets 156, 160–5 ‘upside down rhyme’ 32, 34, 50 uttering I 39–40, 41, 143 Vaganay, Hugues 80 van der Noodt, John 101 vernaculars vii, 1, 3, 6–7, 14, 62, 65, 77, 78 Virgil 46, 52, 78 volta 14, 17, 50 voyage-text 138–40, 140 Walsingham, Frances 105 Watson, Thomas 103, 106, 127; Hekatompathia 90–5, 101, 104, 146; The Tears of Fancie 130 wealth 70–3 Whythorne, Thomas 87, 91–5 Wilton House 133 wit 4, 25, 82–6, 87–1, 106, 110, 116 woe (performance of) 115–18 Woodcock, Catherine 194 word order 178, 180, 191 wordplay 19, 32, 38, 112, 117, 119, 162–5, 170 Wordsworth, William 5, 22, 143 written sonnets 59, 110, 136–8, 164–8 Wroth, Lady Mary 173, 182; Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 182 Wyatt, Sir Thomas 13, 108, 151; court culture 65, 75, 77–78, 81–89, 96, 116, 146; Petrarch and 81–9, 88–2, 91, 93, 98; rhymescheme 15, 34, 93–8, 166; sonnet defined (and usage) 91–6; sonnet structure 2, 80–4; Tottel’s Miscellany 91, 93, 95–98 Yeats, W.B 54, 72 Zepheria 123, 132 ... north to Calabria in the south; the philosophy and literature of the Arabs, of the Sicilian and Byzantine Greeks, of classical and neo-Latin Italy, and of southern France and Spain, all flowed... Spenser Dante Milton Michael R.G .Spiller is Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural History at the University of Aberdeen THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SONNET An Introduction Michael R.G .Spiller London and... complete poem To announce a theme, to change it, and to close it: these features are essentially part of the structure of the sonnet and, though they can be rearranged, they cannot be eluded So