On Mon, 4 Mar 2002 00:14:18 -0000, Robin Hamilton
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Erminia:
>
>With respect ...
>
>"
>We would not ascribe to Sidney the authorship of the (petrarchian sonnet,
>because in fact it was invented by Petrarch and that's why we call it so.)
>"
>
>Wasn't the so-called "Italian" (a.k.a. sometimes "Petrarchan") form of the
>sonnet used by Cavalcanti and Dante before Petrarch?
Yes, Robin, of course, Petrarch (born in 1304) being contemporary of Dante
(1265 - 1321) and almost contemporary of Cavalcanti (with Petrarch being
born just 4 years after Cavalcanti's death in 1300 at 50 years of age) but
living in the same region so employing the structural forms that pre-
existed them all, that of the canzone ...). Yet, when we speak about the
sonnet having migrated abroad, the sonnet as a form - used in Florence or
Arezzo by Cavalcanti, Dante and Petrarch - we speak about the peculiar use
made and imposed by Petrarch, that's why we ascribe to Petrarch - or to
petrarchism, the kind of scheme later used around Europe, known as
the 'petrarchian' sonnet.
In fact, at there are many schemes for a sonnet:
The fundamental one with alternate rhyme schemes ABAB ABAB or crossed
rhymes (ABBA ABBA) in the 'quartine' , and two alternate rhymes CDC DCD
O CDC CDC or three inverted rhymes (CDE EDC) or three replicate rhymes
(CDE CDE ) in the 'terzine'. So, the form allows variations and these
variations represented indeed the peculiarities of the use made by each
author.
But having said this, having said that the sonnet as a 'forma strofica'is
a genuinely pure springs Italian form, maybe originating from the canzone,
lyric 'canzone', I'd like to add that the name 'sonnet' was Provencal and
that the first attempt at a sonnet were Sicilians (Jacopo Da Lentini being
the initiator, just contracting one of the stanzas of a canzone....
We call the sonnet which traveled abroad the 'petrarchian' sonnet for
those particular characteristics that Petrarca conferred to the 'sonnet',
and which was imitated by so many foreign writers...
But if you wish to know more about the sonnet as a form, then you should
consult a history of the Italian language, since the sonnet was a very
communicative form of also used for the 'poesia di corrispondenza', or
epistolary poetry which was in fact the 'tenzone'....
I do hope this will help, I am now aiming at Eco's lecture.
Erminia
>"
>A poetic form is as much an invention as Volta's battery or Franklin's
>electricity. It is a concrete object which comes out from given times and
>motivations. The literary forms are more important even of their authors.
>"
>
>Indeed -- and the evolution of the sonnet (in Italy, France, England,
>America, etc.) shouldn't be reduced to Pertrarch. The form predates
>Petrarch in Giacomo da Lentino, c. 1235, and reaches on at least as far as
>John Berryman (the Lise/Chris "Sonnets") and Edwin Morgan's "Glasgow
>Sonnets" and "Sonnets From Scotland".
>
>"
>Yet, poetic forms, such as the sonnet's form and its innovations, have
>authors behind. And their names must be clearly recorded down in our
>literary anthologies.
>"
>
>Quite.
>
>"
>It is just like when during an exam, one student, having to comment on a
>sonnet by Surrey's, comes out with an enthusiastic commentary of this
>kind:
>"
>
>I presume here Surrey is a misprint for Sidney. An unfortunate one, as
not
>only was Surrey writing about seventy years before Sidney, but he's also
the
>first writer to employ the "English" (a.k.a "Shakespearan") sonnet form.
>
>And the English -- abab cdcd efef gg -- form could quite as easily
>accomodate an octave/sestet division as the Italian -- abbaabba cdecde --
>form. A major difference is the Italian form enforces it, the English
form
>merely allows it. And one reason for the shift was that Italian (and
>French, and all the Latin-derived romance languages) are +much+ more
>rhyme-rich than English. Even Scots allows (or did) easier rhyming than
>English.
>
>"
>The other student will comment as follows: 'In this poem , "Astrophil and
>Stella", Sidney uses a Petrarchian style of sonnet writing , made of an
>octave/sestet form, The petrarchian sonnet was invented by the Italian
>poet of the Trecento, Petrarca and imitated throughout Europe and in
>England'.(and so on.)
>"
>
>Well, strictly, Sidney is writing in the +Perarchist+ tradition (as we can
>denominate the followers, in Italy and elsewhere, of Petrarch, rather than
>Petrarch himself). Thomas Wyatt, writing in the early part of the 16th
>century, and widely available in _Tottel's Miscellany_ (1555), translated
>quite a few of Petrarch's poems, mostly sonnets, but also "Mine old dear
>enemy ..." (Petrarch's "Quell 'antiquo mio dolce empio signore ...").
>
>Sidney's innovation was to (re)establish the idea of the sonnet
+sequence+,
>though there all kinds of ways in which _Astrophil and Stella_ differs
from
>the _Canzoniere_. Not least because Sidney's sequence would seem to
cover a
>period of about three years, while Petrarch covers something coming-on for
>thirty years, with Laura dying part-way through.
>
>Robin
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