xxvi SCOLLARD, CLINTON. Pomona (P) SMITH, ELIZABE Charity, Not J STOCKARD, STODDAI Abra Το 1 To To STO 1 T Ί REPRESENTATIVE SONNETS. THE SONNET. ONE must needs be in a rarely appreciative mood fully to enjoy the privilege of listening to an old violin that bears the autograph inscription of Antonius Stradivarius, knowing that the legend, Faciebat Anno 1720, is a true one, and that the soul of music embodied by the genius of Cremona has since been wooed and won by a Paganini or an Ole Bull. There are times when one is not attuned to the full appreciation of choice old ware of any sort; but again we become enthusiastic connoisseurs, and can almost worship through the medium of an old missal or miniature. In this latter spirit one should approach the consideration of a gem in the domain of literature which has outlasted seven centuries, and has glowed with the choicest thoughts of such souls as Dante and Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, by the chrism of whose genius its hope of immortality may be as well founded as almost any emanation of the human mind. There must be unusual strength and excellence in the artistic structure of the sonnet to give it an endurance, which, for so intricate and elaborate a form, is unparalleled in literature. The lays of minnesingers and troubadours, the eddas of the North, the ballad, the improvisations of the Celtic minstrel to the twanging of his harp,hymn and psalm and war-song, - have all left their impress on literature. But for preserving its own form and spirit, and retaining its popularity with readers and writers of to-day, the staunch-built little sonnet outsails all the literary craft of time. One feels like substituting the name of Petrarch in Aldrich's happy couplet: "What mighty epics have been wrecked by time Since Herrick launched his cockle-shells of rhyme!" The large number of fantastic conceits in the line of short poems, which have long ago foundered, only emphasizes the sea-going qualities of the sonnet. As for Herrick, he did not write sonnets, finding his debonair muse better suited with a shorter stanza and livelier line. But the most confirmed sonneteer will not think any less of Herrick for choosing to do what he could do best. The "fourteen facets" of the sonnet touch so many points of sympathy, and throw out such alluring rays into all the regions of history, biography, language, and poetic lore, that one is tempted to digress. In the works of Tasso will be found a whole lecture devoted to the consideration of a single sonnet by Casa, a poetic successor of Petrarch, the typical sonneteer of Italy. One can imagine that one of the rhymed texts by later and greater sonneteers might easily furnish an hour of profitable elucidation. It is apparent, then, that we cannot pursue our subject to the limits of its interest and yet complete a comprehensive glance at the sonnet's character and development within the few pages at our command. |