Why do I thus? I do not know." Doña Sol believes that her soul is bound to Hernani forever, and she looks upon him as a sort of god. Her love, exalted by spiritualism, and devoid of anything sensual, purifies her soul and brings happiness. Without Hernani, life would mean nothing to her, would be empty, hopeless. With him, she entertains lofty aspirations and sweet longings for immortality. For them, as for Romeo and Juliet, love is the arbiter of life and death. Together, full of love and hope and sensible of a moral victory, they spread their wings to a new and brighter world. Thus our heroine dies, a martyr to love. The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. JAMES D. BRUNER. FOREIGN INFLUENCE ON SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS "It may be reckoned as the progress of the twentieth century beyond the nineteenth, that it begins with a general confession of the futility of that criticism what has too long been exercised upon the sonnets of Shakespeare." With these words our lamented Professor Price opens his essay on the "Technic of Shakespeare's Sonnets!" "The gain is likely to be great," he goes on to say, "For, so soon as the world ceases to seek in the sonnets for morbid details of the poet's biography, and for the revelation of his adventures and intrigues, those poems assume their true value as works of art." Legitimate criticism hereafter will have to regard them as such, and one task which the critic of the sonnets will have to undertake - perhaps not the most charming one, yet an interesting one nevertheless, and a necessary one is the study of their sources, of their relations to previous similar works. For Shakespeare's sonnets were not an isolated phenomenon, any more than his plays and any more than any other works of art. As a matter of fact, the magnitude of the sonnetteering vogue in Europe in the sixteenth century is simply startling. When Charles VIII entered Rome in 1494- immediately after the reign of Lorenzo di Medici, glorious in the annals of art and literature - he inaugurated a long series of expeditions which revealed to France the literary and artistic treasures of Italy. The most popular poet of the peninsula was Petrarch, and several causes presently operated to make him the literary idol of Europe. In 1521, upon the death of Leo X, the Florentine academicians were compelled for political reasons to seclude themselves. Having nothing better to do, they decided to devote their time to the study of Petrarch. A word or a line became a topic for endless commentary and disquisition. Thus the subtle conceits of the poet were made prominent and probably multiplied, and Petrarchism became a fashion. There was upon the throne of France at this time, a monarch, Francis I, whose heart's desire was to re-establish the age of chivalry, with its glitter, its troubadours, its courts of love. His court became the haunt of idle lords who vied with each other in writing complimentary verses to the idle ladies. Now, inasmuch as idle lords are not especially gifted with fecundity of ideas, they would not of course be at all backward in availing themselves of the storehouse of conceits afforded by Petrarch and the Petrarchists. Indeed, these latter day troubadours could hardly have gone to a more appropriate source for material suited to their purpose. For Petrarch's lyric work was after all only the rich fruit of a plant whose main root lay in France, planted there by the troubadours. The French writers therefore went to that fruit as to a birthright, led the stem back to its original soil, where it again took root and was again destined to send off a runner into foreign domain - this time to England. About the middle of the century, seven French poets, full of Renascence enthusiasm, organized a circle which they called the Brigade a name afterwards changed to Pléiade-and after a rigid study of the classics they came to the conclusion that the salvation of French literature lay in the creation of an adequate literary or, more strictly, poetic language. This they proceeded to effect, and Tuscany, where such an end had already been accomplished, offered a ready model. Petrarch now assumed a more significant prominence than he had in the court of Francis I, for the Pléiade consisted of genuine poets, having as its leaders such great men as Ronsard and Du Bellay. In 1549, that body issued its famous manifesto, the Deffense et Illustration de la Langue Françoise, written by Du Bellay. In it the author, after declaring the value of classical models, proclaims: Sonne moy ces beaux sonnets, non moins docte que plaisante Invention Italienne. Pour le Sonnet donques tu as Pe trarque et quelques modernes Italiens. Petrarch thus became the idol, not only of the Pléiade, but also of the large school of sonnetteers that grew up under its influence. In his preface to L'Olive, a collection of sonnets, Du Bellay expressly admits having imitated Petrarch. Ronsard speaks of his lady's glory, Qu'un seul tusquan est digne de toucher'. But illustrations abound too plentifully to have justice done them by a few quotations. Of the disciples of the Pléiade, Desportes must be mentioned, not only because he was the greatest, but also because of the influence he exerted in England. While the above mentioned idle lords of the court of Francis I were getting the best they could out of Italy, Englishmen were doing the same thing. The Italian Renascence was in full swing, and it became fashionable for young men who could afford it to take a trip to Italy to complete their education. The effect of this practice upon English society may be judged by the fact that Roger Ascham said "an Italianate Englishman is an incarnate devil." No doubt there was much in the conduct of travellers returned from Italy to justify the good Roger Ascham's calling them names; nevertheless, the result of this Italian contact for English poetry was on the whole salutary. In the first half of the sixteenth century the English language was in as crude a state as the French, and the beautiful Italian tongue then discovered served as a model and inspiration to both. Wyatt and Surrey, some time before 1542 (the year of the former's death) showed the good effects of Italian influence by writing a number of sonnets in a style which broke utterly with English tradition and which may be enjoyed by twentieth century readNotice that this date is six years before Du Bellay wrote his Deffense; but many circumstances combined to postpone the completion of the work begun by these two pioneers. Wyatt died a young man in 1542, and in 1547, Henry VIII, a few days before his death, prevented Surrey, then only thirty years old, from writing any more sonnets, by having his head removed. ers. The sonnets which they had written remained in manuscript, for it was not then customary to print poetry. There followed a period of English history which reminds one of the Puritan ascendancy, and it had a corresponding effect upon literature. When, finally, the forces which made the Elizabethan Age great, began to operate, English poetry was still in its rude state, while the French Pléiade had already produced its best work; so that 1Amours, I. 8 English poets now had two guides instead of one - the French, in addition to the Italian and they took advantage of both with a will. Sonnetteering became such a rage that even Shakespeare could not resist trying his hand at it; and it is the purpose of this paper to indicate the influence which the foreign sonnetteers had upon him. A recent writer - Vaganay — has estimated that two hundred thousand sonnets were written in Europe between 1530 and 1650. The topic of most of them was love. Remembering that the subject of love was not limited to the sonnet form, we are prepared to expect a monotony of sentiment. If we bear in mind, moreovre, that the new inspiring ideal which the French found in Italian poetry, and which the English found in both Italian and French poetry, was not one of content, but the then more important one of form, of language, not only is our expectation strengthened, but any inclination to censure such monotony disappears. Sonnet writing became an intellectual exercise, and was reccognized as such by the writers themselves. Giles Fletcher, in the 'Epistle Dedicatorie' of his "Licia" says: ". . . take this by the waie. A man may writ of love, and not be in love, as well as of husbandrie, and not goe to plough; or of witches and be none: or of holinesse and be flat prophane." A large number of such confessions by English writers are quoted by Mr. Sidney Lee, and also some illustrations of the artificiality and conventionality of the practice, including some delightful ones by Shakespeare himself. But there is one by the latter which Mr. Lee does not give, and which deserves to be quoted because it is the only one (I believe) found in the son nets. It is from Sonnet 21: So is it not with me, as with that muse, Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. |