Note 101d — VII—THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY

Gabriel Harvey, in his Pierces Supererogation (1593, p. 61), after enthusiastic commendation of Petrarch’s sonnets (‘Petrarch’s invention is pure love itself; Petrarch’s elocution pure beauty itself’), justifies the common English practice of imitating them on the ground that ‘all the noblest Italian, French, and Spanish poets have in their several veins Petrarchized; and it is no dishonour for the daintiest or divinest Muse to be his scholar, whom the amiablest invention and beautifullest elocution acknowledge their master.’ Both French and English sonnetteers habitually admit that they are open to the charge of plagiarising Petrarch’s sonnets to Laura (cf. Du Bellay’s Les Amours, ed. Becq de Fouquières, 1876, p. 186, and Daniel’s Delia, Sonnet xxxviii.) The dependent relations in which both English and French sonnetteers stood to Petrarch may be best realised by comparing such a popular sonnet of the Italian master as No. ciii. (or in some editions lxxxviii.) in Sonetti in Vita di M. Laura, beginning ‘S’ amor non è, che dunque è quel ch’ i’ sento?’ with a rendering of it into French like that of De Baïf in his Amours de Francine (ed. Becq de Fouquières, p. 121), beginning, ‘Si ce n’est pas Amour, que sent donques mon cœur?’ or with a rendering of the same sonnet into English like that by Watson in his Passionate Century, No. v., beginning, ‘If ’t bee not love I feele, what is it then?’ Imitation of Petrarch is a constant characteristic of the English sonnet throughout the sixteenth century from the date of the earliest efforts of Surrey and Wyatt. It is interesting to compare the skill of the early and late sonnetteers in rendering the Italian master. Petrarch’s sonnet In vita di M. Laura (No. lxxx. or lxxxi., beginning ‘Cesare, poi che ‘l traditor d’ Egitto’) was independently translated both by Sir Thomas Wyatt, about 1530 (ed. Bell, p. 60), and by Francis Davison in his Poetical Rhapsody (1602, ed. Bullen, i. 90). Petrarch’s sonnet (No. xcv. or cxiii.) was also rendered independently both by Wyatt (cf. Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie, ed. Arber, p. 23) and by Drummond of Hawthornden (ed. Ward, i. 100, 221).