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February 2004 HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE SONNET 2. TRANSLATION: Part 2B
This is a reprint of Section 2B, Chapter 12 of
2.2 ENGLAND
Why was the sonnet form, as opposed to the genre in and of itself, obliged to change and permute, sometimes radically, when it passed from one culture to the next, even (or should I say, especially?) in its earliest years in the Renaissance, when it spread almost literally like wildfire across Europe, from Italy to Spain, Portugal, France and England and thereafter to Germany, Russia and the rest of Europe? Whereas in France, the poetry of the Renaissance fell under the auspices of an “official” literary school, La Pléiade, nothing even remotely resembling this ever occurred in England, where writers have historically been loathe to associate themselves with any school of “thought”, with the possible exception of the Neo-Classicists, such as Alexander Pope, the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. Instead, the new Renaissance literature struck England’s shores in successive spontaneous and perhaps more haphazard, yet altogether stimulating waves. As early as the very beginning of the Sixteenth Century, there were already some English poets and literati espousing the ideals we have come to associate with the Renaissance. Even King Henry VIII was himself a poet of sorts, while his later successor, Queen Elizabeth I was also known to dabble in verse. If you will pardon the Elizabethan pun, “everyone wanted to get in on the Act.”
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), England's first great sonneteer
For our purposes here, we wish merely to highlight certain salient features of Wyatt’s special and honoured place in English literature. It may be said of Wyatt that he was: 1. The first ever English sonneteer of real merit, whose poems have had a lasting and profound impact on the course of the sonnet in English; 2. As the first English sonneteer of note, Wyatt had to experiment with what he was familiar with, namely; the Petrarchan sonnet, as it was the only sonnet form in existence at the time. He valiantly struggled to adapt the Petrarchan sonnet to the exigencies of English syntax and metrics, and to a large extent, he succeeded, but he never went beyond the Petrarchan mold. 3. While some of Petrarch’s sonnets, most notably his justly famous, “Whoso list to hunt”, are highly reminiscent of Petrarch’s sonnets on which they are clearly modelled, nevertheless, Wyatt was able to stamp all of his sonnets with his own genius, which shines through his verses. 4. Many of Wyatt’s numerous ballads, song lyrics and ballads show the unmistakable influence of courtly music. This is most evident in his highly rhythmic, “Whoso List to Hunt,” a lilting sonnet whose metrical flow is nothing short of sheer wizardry. You actually feel as though the King’s hunt were on! I have decided to quote the text of the original sonnet in full below, in order that we may more fully appreciate the exquisite rhythm of the Renaissance English. 5. Finally, Wyatt’s greatest contribution to the evolution the sonnet was not that he invented any new sonnet form - that was left to Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare - but that he, just as the poets of La Pléiade had adapted the sonnet’s metrics to the French Alexandrine metre of 12 syllables per verse, had likewise hit upon the natural rhythms of English, when, for the first time in the history of the sonnet, he adopted the iambic pentameter, which was to become the staple metre for the English sonnet down through the centuries to come. By so doing, he was successful in reformulating the metrical structure of the Petrarchan sonnet to suit the phonetic demands of his own native English. And now, to delight your ears, here is the original version of Sir Thomas Wyatt's masterpiece, "Whoso List to hunt", which I urge you to recite aloud, that you may catch the excitement of its dramatic rhythms! Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) The text of this edition is taken from: The Poems of Sir Thomas Wiatt, edited by A.K. Foxwell, London, 1913. Now, doesn’t this sonnet sound remarkably familiar? It should. It is Wyatt’s own version, at once faithful to the original Italian and yet highly original, of Francesco Petrach’s Canzoniere 190, “Una candida cerva sopra l’erba verde”, which I have translated into English in Chapter 11 of this book, and cited in the introduction to this essay. What clearly sets Wyatt’s “translation” apart, if you can call it merely that, is its remarkable finesse and its fluent English tonality, entirely unlike that of its Italian model. Wyatt has altered the wording of the original sonnet almost beyond recognition; yet, he has cleverly preserved its spirit. Indeed, he has created an even livelier, more sprightly, more vivid sonnet than Petrarch’s original, for all its refined polish and and more elegant finesse. Pronunciation guide & other notes: [1] helas = French, "hélas", and pronounced almost certainly exactly as in French, except for a very slight aspiration. NOTE: It is clear enough from the above considerations that vowels were more open in Renaissance English than they are today. Whereas we would use a short "a" or "i", Renaissance English would have had recourse to their long equivalents. Thus, Sir Thomas Wyatt was instrumental in bringing this exquisite poetic form to fruition in English. While the English language was then in high flux, having undergone vast changes under the overweening influence of French since the time of Chaucer's Middle English, one thing is certain: we should not make the mistake of foolishly attempting any scansion of Wyatt's sonnets according to the natural rhythm of modern English, as to do so patently violates the innate rhythmical flow of Renaissance English, which is quite another kettle of fish. As the English Ambassador to France, Italy and Spain, Wyatt was undoubtedly familiar with the poetry of his contemporaries and forbears in those nations as well, not least of all, in Italy, where he must have read Petrarch's "Canzoniere" or "Songs" in extenso, before “translating” them into English for the first time ever. It was largely because of Wyatt's tireless efforts that English poetry found itself wholly rejuvenated for the first time since Chaucer. It should be noted in passing that by 1450, after some 300 years of Norman rule, with French the language of the English Court, English was no longer a pure "Germanic" tongue, like German or Dutch, or any of the Scandanavian languages, but had become a "lingua insulata", an isolated or "island" language. Consequently, its grammatical structure, while yet Germanic at its root, had become so unalterably changed and simplified it no longer bore the remotest resemblance to its Germanic cousins, not even in its pronunciation. And there lay the rub. By the time of Wyatt, it is clear, as English pronunciation had already softened remarkably, the English liquids, "l" and "r" had attenuated to the point where they closely resembled Modern pronunciation. In fact, English liquids are now softer than those found in any other European languages, including, notwithstanding, the Romance, such as French. The subtle fluidity of Italian lyrics was to serve as inspiration a new generation of poets, who would need to craft equally appealing, melodic English verse. Make no mistake about it, though. Theirs was no easy task. The natural rhythms of Italian and of English, or for that matter, of French and English, are so dissimilar that it would have been impossible for Wyatt to simply graft Italianate metrics onto the English sonnet form. He had several obstacles to overcome: Italian was and is a much more "singing" language than is English; Italian nouns almost always end in vowels, which makes for very "easy" rhyming (although that can be "pericoloso", i.e. a danger in itself!) It is rather more difficult to achieve melodic rhyme in English, which is predominantly consonantal in its terminations. Yet, paradoxically, whenever rhyme is finely wrought in English, it can be most appealing. English sonneteers and Elizabethan poets in general quickly realized that the most suitable metre for English poetry was (as it still is) the good old iambic pentameter. Taken at its most simplistic level, iambic pentameter is meant to echo the natural rhythm of Renaissance English speech patterns. To be sure, Renaissance English poses notable problems for modern readers. A large number of English words were pronounced with their stress in the same position as their French equivalents, from which they were derived. And that meant the stress often fell on the last syllable, whereas modern English stress is frequently recessive (with the stress falling back). That this is so is more than apparent from even a cursory glance at some of Wyatt's rhymes. For instance, in our sonnet, we have the iambic pentameter lines rhyming:
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, ... where the stress on, "therefore" is on the second, not the first syllable, just as it would be in French, as in "ainsi" (thus). Or, in yet another sonnet, Wyatt rhymes: "shall tangle me no more." with "for to endeavour." - where the stress in "endeavour" falls again on the last syllable (as it would in French). Or, yet again, in another sonnet, we find:
- where the final iambic stress falls on the last syllable of "displeasure", just as it would, had it been written in French, "déplaisir". Likewise, in Renaissance English, the words, "colour" and "savour" were pronounced with the stress on the ultimate, as were their French counterparts, "couleur" and "saveur" (as were all English nouns ending in "our", such as, "favour"). Needless to say, Wyatt's poems, as well as those of Surrey and others of his day - and I venture to say, even those of William Shakespeare himself - abound with examples of the Renaissance pronunciation, which must at all times be clearly and fully accounted for in any scansion of the poetry of the Age. Otherwise, the poems simply end up sounding, well, awkward or clumsy. And there again lies the rub. This is precisely the reason why so many modern critics are so hasty to harp on the apparent lack of dexterity of Renaissance verse, labouring as they do under the sorely mistaken notion that the natural rhythm of Elizabethan poetry should have been somewhat akin to that of modern poetry. It is safe, I believe, to dismiss any claims that Wyatt's finest sonnets lack sophistication and polish. Wyatt and Surrey were, in fact, often highly accomplished poets, who achieved what had once seemed the impossible. They brought English verse to a level of metrical, rhythmic and lyrical sophistication that was the hallmark, not only of the Petrarchan and Italianate poetry of the Fourteenth Century, but indeed of the ancient classic poets, such as Vergil and Horace. At this juncture in our study of the evolution of the sonnet, we shall temporarily gloss over the sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare, whose achievements are best discussed in the next part of this essay, Section 3. Stylistics. While there is more than ample evidence of the marked influence of Petrarch in the thematics and Renaissance conceits common to their respective sonnet collections, theirs was more a contribution in kind to the invention of new sonnet forms with elaborate rhyme schemes more suited to the intricacies of English morphemes. Two Cavalier Poets of the Early Seventeenth Century also Notable for their “Petrarchan” sonnets:
Near the end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st., at the outset of the 17th. Century, there emerged two distinct trends in English poetry, namely;
1. metaphysical poetry, and, in apposition to it, Needless to say, these two bands of poets were greatly at odds with one another. While the metaphysical poets, such as John Donne (1572-1631) were almost exclusively concerned with the salvation of the soul and with divine issues, the Cavalier poets took the courtly conceits of the Elizabethan poets to even further extremes of ornamentation and deliberate artificiality. Now, while admittedly their poetry may not reach the same exalted level as either the sonnets of the great Elizabethans, such as Spenser, Shakespeare and Michael Drayton, nor the sublimity of Christian idealism so devoutly espoused by the likes of John Donne, these poets have left us a legacy of elegant and appealing sonnets very closely modelled on the Petrarchan sonnet. And for that reason alone, these sonnets deserve a place of honour, albeit perhaps minor, in the repertoire of English poetry. The first of these poets I should like to mention is William Drummond of Hawthornden, who was a Scots poet of no small means living in the early 17th. Century. You may read several of his sonnets at the Sonnet Board [6]. William Drummond was a scholarly man, unusual for his day and age, as he possessed an extensive classical library, including the sonnets of Francesco Petrarch, from which he borrowed freely the inspiration for his own sonnets. His Poems, published in 1616, are in two parts, based on Petrarch’s division of his own sonnets addressed to Laura. Like Petrarch long before him, Drummond was to address his sonnets, the first 51 to his mistress in life, and the second part to her after her death. Drummond, also in imitation of Petrarch, composed numerous poems in other genres, including madrigals and songs, interspersed with his sonnets. There is little originality in Drummond’s sonnets; they cannot compare, either stylistically or imaginatively, with the much more convincing sonnets of Sir Thomas Wyatt. They are mainly memorable for the fact that they adhere so closely to Petrarch’s themes and preoccupations. The metre is, of course, iambic pentameter, which had already been adopted as the metre of choice for English sonnets. Even the rhyme schemes are limited and somewhat redundant, certainly in comparison with the much richer rhyming schemes previously invented by Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare. Nevertheless, his sonnets make for pleasant reading. Merely to illustrate how very closely Drummond has adhered to the original wording of some of Petrarch’s own sonnets, allow me to cite a few of his verses from the following sonnets: Pearl, ivory, coral, diamond, suns, gold, Petrarch uttered almost exactly these same words in one of his own sonnets. In the following sonnet, however, Drummond’s imagery is more effective, his language more colourful and persuasive, where we find such verses as: The more I move, the greater are my pains. And, in this sonnet, Drummond has recourse to a common Renaissance English convention, the use of a French word as a substitute for an English, namely; Malgré [8] my heart, I joy in my disgrace. 2.2.3 Philip Ayres (1638-1712)
The other mid-to-late Seventeenth Century Cavalier poet noteworthy of mention is Philip Ayres [9], whose elegant sonnets were a match for the polished ballads and lyrics of his contemporary, the famous Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), not a sonneteer in his own right. Philip Ayres’ sonnets are clearly superior to those of William Drummond, both in style and in his rhyming abilities, as well as in the range of imagery Ayres was able to summon. It is furthermore notable that Ayres was to be the last fine English sonneteer for a long while to come, for the sonnet was unfortunately to fall into a long period of devolution and disuse from the end of the Seventeenth Century all the way through to the latter half of the Eighteenth Century, when at long last, the so-called Pre-Romantic poets, such as William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850) were to surface, and once again reassert the sonnet’s rightful place on the stage of English literature. Allow me to quote a few of Ayre’s eloquent images from his his, Lyric Poems: Made in Imitation of the Italians (1687). I found the following sonnet to be a convincing and moving English transliteration of Petrarch’s original: This Nightingale that does so much complain This last sonnet is from Ayres’, Emblems of Love, where he, just as Petrarch had centuries before him, mourns the loss of his belovèd: On this note, we come to the end of our discussion of the ars poetica or the Art of translation, as difficult and demanding as it has always been and shall always surely be, of transliterating the sonnets of our greatest forbears into our own language, whether it be from Italian to French or to English, French to English, or what have you. This task is most demanding, and requires the resources and inspiration of the true poet and even truer sonneteer, if it is to meet with any measure of success. Petrarch would surely have been proud of the efforts of any and all of the fine Portuguese, Spanish, French and English sonneteers we have mentioned in this Section, of whom so many have themselves reached the pinnacle of sonnet writing in their own inimitable way. REFERENCES & NOTES:
[2] Sonetos del Siglo de Oro: Golden Age Spanish Sonnets [3] Pleiades Mythology [4] The Pleiades [5] La Brigade et La Pléiade (1550-1575) [6] William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) [7] cynoper = cinnabar, vermilion [8] “Malgré” or alternatively, “maugré” = “instead of”, was a word commonly used as a courtly conceit in English Renaissance and Cavalier poetry. [9] Philip Ayres (1638-1712). Lyric Poems: Made in Imitation of the Italians (1687) [10] Note how, even in the Seventeenth Century, Ayres has “wind” rhyming with “find”, exactly in the same manner as his forbear, Sir Thomas Wyatt. To read the full text of this sonnet, please refer to the Sonnet Board, here: Philip Ayres. A Sonnet, of Petrarch, Showing How Long He Had Lov'd Madonna Laura [11] Philip Ayres. Petrarch Laments for the Death of M. Laura [12] Philip Ayres. Petrarch on Laura's Death [13] Vallance, Richard. Chapter 12, Sections 2A & 2B of, "The Historical Evolution of the Sonnet", in Canadian Spirit Voices. Las Vegas, NV.: Kedco Studios Press,© 2003. ISBN 1-878431-44-7. CD-ROM multimedia book |
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SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524 a été publié. Cliquer ici pour lire le numéro actuel : http://sonnettopoesiavol3n12004.homestead.com/index.html 25 poètes en provenance de 8 pays y ont collaboré : du Canada, de 'Australie, de l'Inde, de l'Italie, de la France, du Népal, du Royame-Uni et des États-Unis. Vous y lirez des sonnets, des villanelles et des quatrains en anglais, en français et en italien. Mais il y a plus ! Dans le numéro de l'hiver 2003-2004 de SONNETTO POESIA, il y a une performance enregistrée en public du Messie de Georg Frideric Haendel, jouée par le M.I.T. Handel Chorus de Boston, Mass., en décembre 2002. Cliquer sur le logo illustrant des instruments musicaux à la première page pour écouter cet enregistrement en stéréo haute-définition. C'est une expérience audio à ne pas manquer ! Cliquer sur le lien suivant pour écouter la musique : http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/MIT_Music/Handel/Messiah/ Veuillez remarquer que le nouveau hymne choral, "Brighter Orbs on High" de Peter Zanette, n'est pas encore achevé, mais qu'il sera disponible d'ici quelques jours près. Nous vous prions de nous excuser pour tout désagrément éventuel.
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SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524 Vol. 3, no. 1, Winter 2003-2004 has been published! Click here to read the current issue: http://sonnettopoesiavol3n12004.homestead.com/index.html 25 poets from 8 nations: Canada, Australia, India, Italy, France, Nepal, the United Kingdom and the United States, are featured. There are sonnets, quatrains and villanelles in English, French and Italian from the nations represented. Even more exciting is this! The Winter 2003-2004 issue of SONNETTO POESIA features a READER SELECTABLE high fidelity stereo Real Player and Windows Media Player public domain (i.e. free, non-copyrighted) high definition STEREO LIVE performance by the M.I.T. Concert Choir, Boston, Mass., in 2002 of the entire "Messiah" by George Friderick Handel! If you click on the on the icon illustrating musical instruments on the cover page, a link will open to the page where the "Messiah" can be played while you read SONNETTO POESIA. This will be an experience you will not want to miss! Click here to open the current issue: http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/MIT_Music/Handel/Messiah/ Also please note that, while the Canadian composer, Peter Zanette''s, all-new Choral Anthem, "Brighter Orbs on High" is not yet available for your listening pleasure, it will be put online in the poetry journal within the next few days. We apologize for the inconvenience.
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