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Vallance Review, January, 2003 Part 1: Versification © by Richard Vallance, 2002 and Kedco Studios Press, Las Vegas, Nevada, © 2003 INTRODUCTION With a dozen and a half Vallance Reviews behind me, I find myself faced with the gargantuan task of penning an historical review of the evolution of the sonnet and in its variant forms, from its earliest years in the Thirteenth Century Italian Renaissance all the way to the advent of the Third Millennium. Formidable task indeed — at least if one approaches that task from the usual, traditional viewpoint, that of analyzing each discreet little step in the continuing evolution of the sonnet’s form. Practically any and indeed most reviews of the historical development of the sonnet form assume this approach. I intend not to. Instead, I shall focus on those unusual, uncharacteristic and sometimes quite unexpected developments in the sonnet’s evolution, which have kept cropping up, sometimes at the most crucial historical junctures, such as the advent of the Age of Romanticism, or others, emerging quite unexpectedly at the oddest moments in its occasionally unpredictable evolution, such as the swift appearance of metaphysical sonnets in the repertoire of English poetry at the end of the 16th. and the beginning of the 17th. Centuries. This investigation, which summarizes and amplifies the critical reviews I have already written on behalf of the UK E-Zine, Poetry Life and Times, traces the natural progression of the historical evolution of the sonnet in six discrete chapters: 1. Versification 2. Translation 3. Stylistics 4. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: Tradition Persists 5. Thematics and Athematics 6. Music of the Spheres: Renewal at the end of the Twentieth Century     and the Outset of the Third Millennium It is to be judiciously noted that the thematic materials presented in each of these chapters do not slavishly follow chronological sequence, since certain trends in the development of the sonnet from its earliest experimental forms in Renaissance Italy to its present day avatars actually began to manifest themselves very early on in the sonnet’s history, while others have emerged only recently in the progress of its structural, metrical or syntactic evolution. Hence, you will find that I may occasionally leap backwards or forwards in time, spanning several centuries at once. This may seem a haphazard practice, but in fact, the evidence presented to support the theses of each of these topical chapters is hopefully organized in such a way that it serves to clarify the questions raised and the issues addressed. There will also be ample supporting quotations from particular historically significant sonnets to illustrate the themes of each of the chapters. This should provide a synthesis, not only to the thematic integrity of each chapter, but to the essay as a whole, with the end result that we are left with a reasonably clear picture of the sonnet’s evolution into its several present-day forms. It will seem almost as though we have been watching a motion picture of the sonnet as dramatis persona, as its “personality” evolves and metamorphoses from its infancy, and inexorably matures to its contemporary role in the world of literature and the multi-media arts at the outset of the Third Millennium. DISCLAIMER: This essay cannot pretend to even approach a comprehensive or all-inclusive historical analysis of the sonnet’s evolution from its earliest beginnings in the Court of Frederick II of Sicily (1208-1250) to the present day. No historical overview could conceivably make such a rash claim. In fact, this study is perhaps more notable for its omissions, deliberate as they are, than for any in-depth analysis. That is not the point of our exercise. This is, in a word, an historical overview. As such, our essay aims to provide you with the highlights and most significant developments, trends, reversals of fortune and highpoints in the history of the sonnet. 1. Versification 1.1 What are the Distant Historical Origins of the Sonnet? How on earth and why even did the sonnet ever come into being? This is a question rarely posed, it seems, or at least only recently asked, in the annals of the sonnet’s history. Let us turn our attention to this seeming mystery. 1.1.1 Antecedents: Prior to the advent of the XIIIth. Century, Latin was the literary language of Italy, as indeed elsewhere in Europe. Latin was almost exclusively used for the writing of historical chronicles and poems, heroic legends, the lives of the saints, religious and didactic poems and scientific works based on the Aristotelian tradition, all popular literary genres in the Middle Ages. In spite of this, numerous early French and Italian bards or troubadours “wrote” or more to the point, sang in Provençal, the “langue d’oc” [1a], or in early French, the “langue d’oil” [1b], or alternatively in Italian, though they appear to have borrowed verse forms and even literary themes from ancient Greek and Latin lyric sources. One particular verse form rose to prominence in the Middle Ages, viz; the Provençal “canzone”, a word roughly equivalent to the French “chanson” or song-ballad. In these troubadours’ songs, deeds of ancient heroes, of Arthurian knights and of Charlemagne, their King, were variously celebrated. Charlemagne’s “gestes” or troubadour tales were apparently first sung in a Franco-Venetian vernacular, and subsequently exported abroad, first to the Court of Sicily in the early to mid-Thirteenth Century, and subsequently to Tuscany. It is notable that the chivalric and courtly themes extolled by the troubadours were to wend their merry way into the early “sonettos” or “little sounds” [1] of the Sicilian poets, and later on, of the Italian sonneteers. The road to modern Italian literature was initially paved at the Court of the Holy Roman Hohenstaufen Emperor, Frederick II (1208-1250) of Sicily, in his Scuola poetica Siciliana [3]. The court was a centre of an ebullient cultural life, driven by a newfound love of knowledge or “philosophia”. It is notable that the first manifestations of individualistic, psychological literature were to emerge here, in the Sicilian Court, allowing its literature to blossom out of the vernacular or “volgare” into a great literary tradition. This was no mean feat in a Medieval world dominated by antiquated Latin scholarship. Immediate and practical concerns for a new literature of the vernacular dictated that la Scuola poetica Siciliana [3] create the earliest examples of “modern” literary lyricism in the “vulgaris” or Sicilian dialect of Italian. The School flourished throughout the first half of the XIIIth. century. Dante Alighieri, in his De Vulgaris Eloquentia, was adamant that the Scuola had attained literary primacy over all other Italian dialects, well before Italian literature was to establish itself on the mainland [1, op. cit.]. If we were to ask ourselves where the seeds of the Renaissance took root, as well we should, we would almost surely have to say, here at Frederick II’s erudite court, where authors penned translations into Sicilian Italian of scientific and philosophical texts from Arabic and Greek, and worked to establish libraries. Pier delle Vigne’s epistolary eloquence, reminiscent of Cicero’s, was something of a novelty in a heretofore Medieval world. The court was renowned for its sponsorship of literati and the educated, attracting artists even from abroad. Its poets were dignified and cultured court dignitaries, who experimented freely in the Sicilian “volgare” — a dialect which was not “vulgar” in any modern sense of that word, but literary. Court poets drew their inspiration from models of the Provençal ballads of the “langue d’oc” troubadours of Southern France. Although composed in the Sicilian dialect of Italian, the poetry of the Sicilian court was not native, but was, by and large, an imitative import of the courtly love poetry then so popular, based on earlier Provençal models. From here, Italian literature was to gradually migrate onto the Italian mainland, where the Dolce Stil Nuova (or “sweet new style”) had its origins in Bologna, only to be further refined in the city of Florence [2]. These models helped the "new poets" fashion the feudal courtly representation of love in service and homage to the lover’s exalted and inaccessible virgin maiden. Sound familiar? It should. Sonneteers from Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) in Italy, to Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585) and the poets of la Pléiade in France, and to Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) in England, to name but a few amongst scores and scores of splendid Renaissance poets, were soon to inherit these allegorical metaphors lock-stock-and-barrel. Why, even in Shakespeare’s tragedies, the allegory of pure, unadulterated love persists, as is clearly attested by the plot of Romeo and Juliet (to cite just one example). 1.1.2 The Birth of the “sonetto” The “sonetto” itself was, for all intents and purposes, gradually nursed into existence in the early 13th. century at the Sicilian court of the Holy Roman Hohenstaufen Emperor, Frederick II (1208-1250), who was a multilingual monarch of Norman (that is, French) and of Frankish descent, and who even wrote four poems himself! The earliest sonnets were apparently based on the Provençal troubadour ballad form, which was metamorphosed into Italian as a “canso” or “canzone” (cf. French, “chanson” = song). These abbreviated “canzone” or “sonettos” were recited or probably even sung to the accompaniment of the lute, mandolin or other such similar musical instrument. According to William Sharp of the Sonnet Board [1], “sonettos” were almost certainly in existence, and at least sung to the accompaniment of musical instruments, well before they were actually identified in Italian literature as a distinct literary genre, just as ballads and troubadour songs surely abounded in England and France, well before they were composed as actual poetry in the annals of early English and French literature. I find myself strongly inclined to agreement with Sharp on this point. In its earliest manifestations, the “sonetto” was thematically highly specialized, invariably centred around one object, allegorical love on a mythical level. It appears to have been the fruit of a series of experimentations by the Sicilian court’s versifiers, who fell under the influence of diverse literary genres, such as: 1. the lais or roundelays of their predecessors, the Provençal troubadours and the French “trouvères” [4], 2. the Arabic qasida et le ghazel of the great poets of the new Golden Age of the Islamic Civilization of the Middle East then on the ascendant, 3. possibly also, the scaldic poetry of the Vikings, and almost certainly 4. under the influence of the Christian motet, monks’ hymnals and other similar religious chants. While there can be no direct connection between these historically separate timelines, it is notable that this last influence echoes a similar antecedent in ancient poetry, where the ballads and eminently lyrical epigrams of the Greek and Latin poets, not to be confused with the modern satirical epigram, also found their origins in the religious chants of the Oracle at Delphi (Greece) and the Sybilline Oracle (Rome) and in the ancient Eleusynian Mysteries. Similar cultic or religious origins of poetry in civilizations all over the ancient and Medieval world tend to confirm that this is likely the case. But early sonnets were just one of many poetic genres vying for the ascendant at the Sicilian court. Even then, as early as the mid XIIIth. Century, the arts were cultivated and intellectual pursuits avidly pursued by Frederick II’s courtiers, many of whom were to become historically significant prose and poetry writers. The then flourishing Arab civilization also keenly exerted its influence on the newly emerging Sicilian literary scene. 1.1.3 Origins of the “sonetto’s” metrification: Once again, according to William Sharp (and I find no reason to doubt his premises), the earliest sonnets appear to have been the outgrowth of two likely predecessors, one Provençal (already noted), the other Italianate, probably working more or less in tandem. These were: 1.1.3.1 The Sicilian stornelli or olive orchard “contadino’s” [5] songs, which every contadino sang while tending to his olive groves. From the “rispetto” or, as we might have it in modern English, the riposte or “reply” bound up in the rhymed couplets of the stornelli, sometimes even ran to four lines of two rhyming couplets. Aha, you exclaim, “That’s a quatrain!”. Even so. It would not take much of a leap of the poetic imagination to expand the double “stornelli” or quatrain into what was soon to be recognized in even the earliest Italian “sonetti” as the sestina rima, essentially, a quatrian with yet another rhyming couplet tacked on. From there it is but another small step to the ottava rima, which further expands the original quatrain into two successive quatrains, for a total of eight verses. All this playful experimentation was bound to produce something closely approximating a germinal sonnet form. Now, that is precisely what occurred, with the advent of the sonnet, consisting of an ottava rima, otherwise known today as the Octave, and of a sestina rima, the sestet. 1.1.3.2 The World’s First Sonneteer? Giacomo da Lentini (1210-1240) Perhaps the earliest sonneteer, from whom we have extant sonnets, some 40 all told, is Giacomo [Jacobo] da Lentini [2], King Frederick II’s Imperial Notary. His poems were of such merit they elicited admiration from his contemporaries and even Dante. His rhyming skills were admirable; and I note in passing that rhyme was something new, as it had never existed, at least not formally, in ancient Greek or Latin poetry. He is generally accredited as the “creator” of the sonnet, if ever there was one poet who actually did create it. Here is the text of one of his loveliest sonnets, both in its Sicilian original and in a new translation by Richard Vallance: Giacomo da Lentini (1210-1240) Io m'aggio posto in core a Dio servire, com'io potesse gire in paradiso, al santo loco ch'aggio audito dire, u' si mantien sollazzo, gioco e riso. Sanza mia donna non vi voria gire quella c'ha blonda testa e claro viso, che sanza lei non poteria gaudere, estando da la mia donna diviso. Ma no lo dico a tale intendimento, perch'io peccato ci volesse fare; se non veder lo suo bel portamento e lo bel viso e 'I morbido sguardare: che lo mi teria in gran consolamento, veggendo la mia donna in ghiora stare. 1233 A.D. My soul proposes to serve alone God, In whom it is well pleased with Paradise, One Holy place whose fame has gone abroad, where solace, joy and laughter are the prize. Though there, without my love, I will not go, Unless I see her fair, angelic blonde, For in her absence, pray, I cannot glow, My light divided from her presence fond. Though I forswear to utter words of sin, I find my verse will never fail to praise Her, whose gracious demeanour I appraise, Whose finer looks and sweetest glance console, Since my consolation through her eyes shines, Her Vision Glory to my well versed lines. Translation © by Richard Vallance, 2002 1.1.3.3 How Many Sonneteers Were There Before Petrarch? Actually, quite a few. In general terms, the earliest sonnets may have been also inspired by the Provençal langue d’oc sonnette [2], mimicking the tinkling of sheep bells in Provençal. A cute notion, indeed! The first seeds of the sonnet were, as we have seen, sown around the mid XIIIth. Century in Sicily. From there, the sonnet form gradually crystallized and took its definitive shape, before migrating to the mainland, where it appeared in full flower by the end of that Century. Finally, Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) was to make his unique and brilliant stamp on the sonnet, as his hundreds of sonnets blossomed into a lush rose garden, which was to prove the stock for all sonnet genres that have since been derived from it. However, before Petrarch had placed his own inimitable stamp on the sonnet, sculpting it into the polished form he invested on it, there were, according to a Latin treatise on poetry in the vernacular or “volgare”, Perfetta Poesia by Antonio di Tempo of Padua, dated 1332, no less than sixteen distinct variants of the sonnet! It boggles the imagination. Clearly, then, this poetic form was in a high state of flux at the time [9]. This is only understandable, in so far as any newly emergent literary genre must of necessity undergo many refinements before it gels into a recognizable genre as such. It was left to Petrarch to accomplish this remarkable feat. But, Petrarch was far from being the only sonneteer in his day and age, and far from being the only polished sonneteer. Amongst others who then composed sonnets on a considerable scale, we may count: 1.1.3.3.1 Guittone d'Arezzo (1230-1294) D’Arezzo, from Tuscany on the Italian mainland, was a prolific poet, who composed no less than 246 sonnets on a wide range of courtly and other subjects. D’Arezzo was not loathe to experiment with elaborate forms of love poetry in his local dialect, Tuscan [6]. 1.1.3.3.2 Rustico di Filippo (ca. 1200 - ca. 1274) Rustico di Filippo was mainly a satirist, specializing not only in satires, but in caricatures and sketches of everyday life. But he also composed a few love lyrics, some in sonnet form. 1.1.3.3.3 Guido Guinizelli (died 1276?) Guinzelli of Bologna took the refined new dolce stil nuovo ("sweet new style") to new heights. According to its dictates of feudal chivalry, the poet shunned worldly love in princely courts, where it had been previously extolled in Provençal and Sicilian love ballads. He turned his devoted attention instead to the cultivation of the Platonic love relationship with the belovèd, whose unattainable loveliness spiritually exalted the lover-poet to a lofty appreciation of her divinely-inspired beauty. This allegory, which Francesco Petrarch would polish to a golden lustre, was to persist throughout the Centuries, celebrated in the sonnets of such greats as Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586) in his Astrophel and Stella , Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) in his Amoretti, Samuel Daniel (1562-1619), in his Delia, Michael Drayton (1563-1631), in his Idea (1594; rev. 1619) and, of course, in the polished sonnets of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), most notably in his rarefied Sonnet 53, "What is your substance, whereof are you made..." In fact, the metaphor of the unattainable damsel was to prove so compelling that it would resurface yet again in the poetry of the Romantics, such as John Keats (1795-1821), in his lyrical ode, “La belle Dame sans merci”, the Pre-Raphaelites, for instance, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) and in the exquisite gem collection, Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) in England. I shall return to this question later. 1.1.3.3.4 Guido Cavalcanti (1255-1300) Cavalcanti further refined the Provençal style of sonnet writing, which Guittone d'Arezzo had developed, by introducing tragic elements into the sonnet. 1.1.3.3.5 Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Both Guido Cavalcanti (1255-1300) and Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) were further proponents of the dolce stil nuovo, which they developed and refined further. In their sonnets, the allegory of the unattainable virgin Lady is even more idealized. Sonnets are dominant in Dante's Vita Nuova, where he recollects his love for his idealized Beatrice. The “Crossed” Rhyme Scheme: These poets perfected linked "crossed rhymes" in the Sonnet’s Octave = abbaabba, and cdccdc in the Sestet. Additionally, instead of pursuing a single “argument” or theme throughout, they also devised the Octave, in which the description or theme was presented, and the Sestet, which served as a commentary or counterpoint to the octave. Both of these conventions were adopted as is by Francesco Petrarch, who was to institutionalize them in his sonnets, all of which he composed in the world’s first fixed sonnet form, which we now know as the “Petrarchan Sonnet.” Folgore da San Geminiano: 1.1.3.3.6 Folgore da San Geminiano (fl. 1309?-1317?), known for his satirical wit, composed primarily political poems. He also penned a series of sonnets based on the Gregorian Calendar, in which he celebrated in turn each of the days of the week and months of the year. Such diurnal cycles had not been unknown in the annals of poetry prior to the advent of the sonnet, and in fact, “Books of Days” were a mainstay feature of Medieval literature. Francesco Petrarch, Poet Laureate (1304-1374) 1.2 Francesco Petrarca (Italian spelling) or Francesco Petrarch, the "Father of Renaissance Verse" ? Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) Francesco Petrarch, whose name in Italian is Francesco Petrarca, was born on July 20th., 1304, in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy, and died the night of July 18th./19th., 1374, at Arquà, near Padua, Carrara. Italian scholar, poet and perhaps the World's first true "humanist", he addressed his lyrical poems, the vast majority of them sonnets, to one idealized Laura, whose name has become the watchword for "the belovèd" down through the intervening seven centuries. Petrarch was instrumental in giving birth to the Rinascimento or Renaissance in Fourteenth Century Italy, long before it was to flourish in 16th. Century France and England. His naturally inquisitive mind and love of the ancient classical authors led him to travel widely. He was regarded as the greatest scholar of his age, and was honoured as the first ever Poet Laureate of the Renaissance. Yet, the question remains — was Petrarch in fact the first poet ever to have composed sonnets? The answer is a simple, but emphatic, no. However, to claim that Petrarch was not the Father of the Sonnet as we know it today would be tempting fate. For surely he made an indelible stamp on the genre. Clearly, he single-handedly established the sonnet as a valid poetic genre in the volgare or the new Italian literary language, once and for all time. The “Canzoniere” Facsimile, page from Petrarch's, Canzoniere, 1559 Edition Francesco Petrach's Canzioniere are, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the seminal masterpieces at the heart of Renaissance and subsequently, modern Western literature. In his sonnets, which account for almost 90% of all his poetry, we find metaphors and conceits that have long since been absorbed by all manner of love poetry, and are part and parcel of the sonnet repertoire throughout its long history of seven Centuries. Now, it is notable that Petrarch should have written so many of his poems as sonnets. It would appear, in retrospect, that he not only favoured this genre, but was indeed enamoured of it; he devoted so much of his poetic skill to its perfection. Petrarch spent decades composing his sonnets (1327-1374), revising and polishing his manuscripts, which he dedicated to his patrons and friends alike. It was only in 1374, the year he died, that his Canzoniere actually saw the light of day in their ultimate form. The Canzoniere are comprised of 317 sonnets, 29 canzoni or longer poems, 9 sestinas, of which one is a double sestina, 7 ballads and 4 madrigals, for a total of 366 poems [7]. Now, Petrarch came to perfect the notion of the idealized virgin belovèd of the Medieval troubadours, canzone poets and earlier sonneteers in his paragon of beauty and love, the Lady whom he called Laura, noting that he had first seen her, apparently from afar, at the age of 23. He pined after her for the rest of his living days, and celebrated his love for her profusely in his sonnets, but that love was to be forever unrequited. Merely invoking her exalted name would afford him boundless joy commingled with unspeakable desires and passions, taboo to the Medieval mind. We actually know next to nothing about the quasi-divine Laura. She was of course very beautiful, apparently sported golden hair, and was both modest and dignified, though even those details may merely be lofty abstractions induced by the poet’s extreme devotion to her and by the Medieval code of courtly love. One thing we do know for certain: she died while Petrarch lived still. Her death was to be a source of the most unspeakable grief to him; and his lamentation was so profound that the tenor of his sonnets “in mourning” was to affect all such similar sonnets for centuries to come. Petrarch's "Letter to Posterity": In his famous and highly personal “Letter to Posterity”, in his own words, Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming, though pure love affair - the only one I ever had; I would have struggled with it longer had not her premature death, bitter but salutary to me, extinguished the cooling flames. I only wish I could claim I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did." Now, there are several things extremely significant about this confession, and indeed about the sonnets per se. Characteristically, Petrarch’s sonnets had made a marked break with Medieval tradition; nor can it be denied that he alone, single-handedly and in the course of one man's lifetime, ushered in the Italian Renaissance and, consequently all subsequent Western poetry throughout the Centuries to come. What were the qualities inherent in his poetry, and especially in his sonnets, that have persisted in sonnet writing ever since, and have informed the very essence of Renaissance and modern sonnet-writing? These were (and still are): 1. Petrarch’s devotion to his idealized love, which he exalted to a Neo-Platonic plane, and yet which he focussed on a single individual, however idealized she may have been; 2. His devotion to the Classical ideals and style of the greatest of the ancient lyricists, such as the great Roman poet, Horace, whom he (justly so) greatly admired; 3. His uncanny ability to perfect and polish the sonnet form into what is now known universally as the Petrarchan Sonnet, one of about five or six primary sonnet formats still universally used in the Twenty-First Century; 4. While the sonnet's form had already been more or less established, it was Petrarch who was to stamp it with a discipline of form and of content unknown in the annals of poetry since polished Odes and Epodes of the ancient Greek and Roman lyricists. Petrarch fine-tuned the highly telescopic form of the sonnet, comprised of a mere 14 lines, by subjecting it to the dictates of a strict, yet beautifully fluid metric structure. Within the confines of this quasi-formulaic framework, he proposed the sonnet could treat of only one subject or theme, and that all emotional considerations, however lofty they be, were to be subject to the discipline of the sonnet's structural elements. [11] These characteristics have persisted throughout the long history of the sonnet to the present-day, regardless of the several permutations the sonnet's form has undergone since his day and age. An overarching unity of structure, metrics and theme is one of the definitive factors that comes into play in the creation of any sonnet, regardless of its form, Petrarchan in Italian, Alexandrine in French, Spenserian, Shakespearian or "sprung rhythm" in English, or whatever variant forms it has assumed in any and all languages which have adopted it (of which there are now many). 5. His devotion to the lingua franca or the volgare, the literary language, Italian, in which he wrote the entire Canzoniere, single-handedly supplanted Latin as the language of prose and poetry authors alike, spelling the death knell of Latin, except in ecclesiastic liturgy, and catapulting, first Italian, and within the next Century, Spanish, French and English to prominence on the world stage as literary languages; 6. His intimate knowledge of music (he played the lute with real competence) informs the rhythms and metric structure of all his poetry, and most especially, of his sonnets, the easeful lyrical flow of which is incontestable; 7. His polished and erudite Italian was on a par with his equally polished Latin poetry, which in turn was no less exalted than the poetry of such great ancients as Horace and Vergil. In a word, Petrarch had, for the first time since antiquity, become the world’s first real poet laureate. In 1341, he was crowned in Rome Poet Laureate of all Italy for his magnificent and sweeping Latin Epic, Africa [10], the first ever "Roman" Poet Laureate since Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 B.C.) was the Court poet of the great Roman Emperor, Augustus (63 B.C.-12 A.D.). 8. Finally, by fashioning a poetic opus, in which he formulated for the first time in history, an intimate and personal psychology of love and its effects on the soul of the lover, Petrarch actually introduced the world to a new wave of literature, through his poetry, and above all, in his sonnets, hitherto unknown in the world. He had ushered in modern literature as we know it. Allow me to leave you with just one of his exquisite sonnets, to offer you at least a little insight into one of history’s most exalted poets of all time: Canzoniere - Sonetto 190 Una candida cerva sopra l'erba verde m'apparve, con duo corna d'oro, fra due riviere, all'ombra d'un alloro, levando 'l sole a la stagione acerba. Era sua vista sí dolce superba, ch'i'lasciai per seguirla ogni lavoro: come l'avaro che 'n cercar tesoro con diletto l'affanno disacerba. "Nessun mi tocchi - al bel collo d'intorno scritto avea di diamanti et di topazi - libera farmi al mio Cesare parve." Et era 'l sol già vòlto al mezzo giorno, gli occhi miei stanchi di mirar, non sazi, quand'io caddi ne l'acqua, et ella sparve. Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) Translation by Richard Vallance Songs - Sonnet 190 A snow white doe in an emerald glade To me appeared, with antlers soft of gold, And leapt two streams, under a laurel's shade, By sunrise, in the Winter's bitter cold. To me she treasure seemed so wild as fair My eyes fell distraught where they fell to stare, As if, one poor miser in search of gold, I might relieve my grievances of old. I spied round her neck, "No one dares touch me", Graven in topaz and diamond stones, "For Caesar wills I always shall run free." The sun had nigh to zenith come, and she Was gone in a flash, lost in its pale gleam. While I chased her still, I slipped in the stream! © by Richard Vallance, December 2002 REFERENCES & NOTES: [1a] “langue d’oc” = abbreviation for “Occitan” or Provençal, Southern French Medieval dialect [1b] “langue d’oil” = “la langue d’oui”, lit. “the language of ‘yes’” or the Northern French Medieval dialect, as spoken in and around Paris and in the French court. [2] “sonetto” = (diminutive) “little sound” for Italian “suono” or “sound”. It is also noteworthy that the old langue d'oc word, "sonnette" is clearly closely related to the modern French, "chansonnette" = "little song" or "ditty". For a more detailed analysis of the sonnet’s musical origins and original metric structure, see William Sharp’s seminal essay at the Sonnet Board, The Sonnet: its Characteristics and History (Part 2) [3] This material was drawn from the following highly informative Web site, la Scuola poetica Siciliana, which I urge you to read scrupulously. This is perhaps the most all-inclusive discussion of the seminal Scuola poetica Siciliana in the annals of early Italian literature. The site even includes an exhaustive lists of all the writers and poets who frequented the court of Frederick II of Sicily (1208-1250 A.D.) [4] “les trouvères” = Old French (“langue d’oil”) for “troubadour” [5] “contadino” = Italian = "peasant/farmer" [6] For more on Guittone d'Arezzo, see, The Beautiful Italian Language: From the Sicilian Court to Dante [7] Source for information relative to the Canzoniere: Italian [8] Source for information relative to Petrarch’s ideal Love, Laura: Petrarch (1304-1374) - in full Francesco Petrarca [9] Again, this poetic form was in a high state of flux at the time. Let us keep this little quotation firmly in mind, as it is bound to resurface a few times later on in this esssay. [10] It is noteworthy that both Petrarch himself and his contemporaries considered his Latin works, poetry and prose, to be his crowning achievement, rather than his Italian, Canzoniere. Critics of his day extolled his grand Epic, Africa, as being on a par with Vergil's splendid masterpiece, The Aeneid.  Indeed, Petrarch had slaved to imitate Vergil's polished Augustan Latin, and had, by and large, succeeded in so doing. This was no mean feat in an age when Latin had been thoroughly debased. His was not the Latin of the Vulgate Bible; rather, he composed in a Latin highly reminiscent of Classical Latin. [11] This information is drawn from the introduction to the following complete works of Petrarch, which I highly recommend: Armi, Anna Maria, trans. Petrarch: Sonnets & Songs (Introduction by Theodor E. Mommsen). New York: Pantheon Books, © 1946.  XLII, 521 pp. The January, 2003, Vallance Review is an excerpt from Richard Vallance's forthcoming book, Canadian Spirit Voices = Les Voix éthérées canadiennes (ISBN: 1-878431-44-7) to be published early in 2003. This Review is only the first of six Sections comprising Chapter 12 of Canadian Spirit Voices, "The Historical Evolution of the Sonnet", which you will be able to read in its entirety, upon ordering the book, as soon as it becomes available on ebay.com and amazon.com sometime in 2003. This Review is subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act of the United States of America (1976), whereby: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the Publisher.

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