Book of Sonnets [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION 'Personally, 1 have a dread of the sonnet,' wrote Edward Thomas in a letter. 'It must contain fourteen lines, and a man must be a tremendous poet or a cold mathematician if he can accommodate his thoughts to such a condition.' 'Some Eyes Condemn', his sonnet on page 60, shows how simply and strikingly he used the rhythms of ordinary speech to great effect in what is certainly an exacting verse-form. Its fourteen lines are just long enough for a single theme to be developed, and short enough to test the poet's gift for concentrated expression. Its name is an Italian word for 'htde song', and the greatest of sonnets are those in which the poet has overcome the limitations of the form (in the sense that any form imposes strictures), reconciling an adherence to a reasonably rigid set of conventions v^dth his or her own variety and richness of language, tone and mood. Look at this lovely, pellucid line from Roy Campbell's sonnet, 'The Zebras': The zebras draw the dawn across the plains . . . It softly beckons the reader's eye to scan the horizon. You are led to see a movement of colour at the world's edge where the bushveld meets the rising sun, and the loping motion of the animals appears to 'draw' the dawn along. An awesome unity exists between the zebras and the sun; the natural world is working without us, and to our wonder. This is one of the great modem sonnets, and its juxtaposition of such words as 'trampled' and 'lilies' evokes the cruel grandeur of the animal world and the lushness of its flora; its active verbs such as 'roll', 'volted', and 'zithering' indicate the power of the zebra's body. This physicahty together with the way the sonnet evokes the smell and colour of the African bush perhaps make it unique. But it shares its form and structure with sonnets written in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.