Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Introduction

V. The First Coming of the Sonnet in Sixteenth-Century England

In sixteenth-century England the history of the sonnet falls into two well-defined chapters. The form of verse was at its first coming into England recognised as the child of Petrarch, and Petrarch remained the guiding spirit of the sonnet through the Elizabethan era. But Petrarch’s example did not prove strong enough in itself—before it mingled with other developments—to stir in this country an extended or a permanent enthusiasm. It required the added stimulus supplied at a later date by the sonneteering activity of sixteenth-century France and sixteenth-century Italy, to render the sonnet in England a universally popular poetic instrument. The widespread vogue of the sonnet in Elizabethan England was, at the outset, indeed excited by French energy to a larger degree than by Italian. Consequently the first chapter in the history of the English sonnet, which treats of the sonnet under the more or less exclusive sway of Petrarch, is short. The canvas is mainly occupied by the second chapter, which treats of its growth under the spur not merely of Petrarch himself, but, in addition, of the French Pléiade School and of the contemporary Italian Petrarchists.

Petrarch’s fame reached England in his lifetime. Chaucer, who was his contemporary, in the prologue to the Clerk’s Tale, refers to

In his poem of Troilus and Criseyde (Book I. stanzas 58–60), Chaucer in a spirit of prophecy translated one of Petrarch’s best-known sonnets, which was in the sixteenth century to undergo innumerable renderings and adaptations in every language of Europe. But Chaucer’s cry found no lasting echo. More than a century passed away without any further attempt in England to spread abroad a knowledge of Petrarch’s poetic achievements.

Early in the sixteenth century Petrarch was discovered anew by cultivated Englishmen of Henry VIII.’s Court, who visited Italy and eagerly assimilated the literature of the Italian Renaissance. The elder Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey were the true pioneers of the sonnet in England. Their culture was wide, and they knew many classical writers. They perceived the merit of Petrarch’s predecessor, Dante, and of some of Petrarch’s followers, notably Serafino and Alamanni. To a smaller extent they were impressed too by the rising fame of their own contemporary Ariosto, as well as of Marot and Melin de St. Gelais in France. But it was mainly from Petrarch that they borrowed their inspiration.

EM>Wyatt and Surrey did their main literary work between 1530 and 1540, but none of it was published before 1557, when it appeared, together with much poetry by other of Henry VIII.’s courtiers, in the volume called Songes and Sonettes written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Howard late Earle of Surrey and other. The book was familiarly called, after its publisher’s name, Tottel’s Miscellany.

Sonnets figured largely in this volume. Although their source was never precisely indicated, it was generally hinted at in two anonymous sonnets in the collection, entitled respectively A praise of Petrarke and of Laura his ladie, and That Petrark cannot be passed but nothwithstanding that Laura is far surpassed. The first sonnet opened thus:—

The second sonnet began with the lines:—

Of Wyatt and Surrey, the two main contributors to Tottel’s volume, Wyatt, who had the advantage of superior poetic feeling although not of metrical skill, was the more voluminous sonneteer. His extant sonnets number thirty-eight. The majority are neither adaptations nor paraphrases; they are direct translations—for the most part of Petrarch. One example of Wyatt’s ordinary method will suffice:—

Wyatt did not entirely confine his study to the sonnets of Petrarch. He paid some attention to the master’s canzone, two of which he borrowed. Nor was he uninterested in the work of Petrarch’s fifteenth-century disciple, Serafino dell’ Aquila. At least two of his songs reproduce Serafino’s fantastic lyrics (strambotti). Even in his satires Wyatt, while betraying the influence of Juvenal and Persius, freely conveyed passages from the similar work of the sixteenth-century Italian Petrarchist, Luigi Alamanni. Nor did Wyatt altogether neglect French literature. He rendered with verbal accuracy a popular sonnet of Melin de St. Gelais (1487–1558).

Surrey is hardly less learned a graduate in the Petrarchan school, though his sonnets often adapt his master’s work with greater freedom than Wyatt essayed. But he did not on occasion disdain literal translation. Petrarch’s Sonnet cix., which was rendered into English by Wyatt, was also independently translated by Surrey, his fellow-poet; and it may be of some interest to compare with Wyatt’s version, which has already been quoted, Surrey’s version, which is somewhat more literal and more dexterous.