The Subtext of Form in the English Renaissance

Pennsylvania 1994, pp 69–78

I would exhorte you also to

beware of rime without reason.

-George Gascoignel

The fourteen-line sonnet–or, more properly, the quatorzain–was unknown in the ancient world. Certain lyric forms, such as the ode and the elegy, were common and persisted throughout the medieval period in both secular and theological modes. But the peculiar arrangement of octave and sestet that characterizes the quatorzain was not a classical form. It appeared quite suddenly about 1220 at the court of Frederick II in Sicily, apparently the work of a single poet, Giacomo da Lentini; and it quickly established itself as a major literary fashion. What cultural imperatives called it into existence?

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1194-1250), Holy Roman emperor from
1220 to 1250, maintained a brilliant if peripatetic court, most notably in
Sicily. He patronized a vigorous coterie of philosophers, mathematicians, natural scientists, and men of letters from all centers of learning in the East as well as West. He encouraged the study of cosmology as that discipline had come down from the ancient world in the texts of Ptolemy and kept at court two prominent astrologers, Michael Scot and Theodore of Antioch. In addition, as Van Cleve notes, "His insatiable intellectual curiosity carried him also into the world of pure mathematics," thereby acquainting him with Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa, "the foremost mathematician of his era". Most germane to our interests, of course, is Frederick's support of translators and poets. Frederick and his courtiers themselves wrote verse and generously patronized others who did likewise.

Although in many ways conditioned by lyric practice in Provence, northern France, and Germany, this scuola siciliana is seen by most historians of literature as the beginning of Italy's national literary tradition. And foremost among the literati at Frederick's court, along with Piero della Vigna, was Giacomo da Lentini (fl. 1220-40), by profession a notary entrusted with the drafting and implementation of imperial documents. While identification of the first poet to write a quatorzain is neither certain nor of paramount importance, the innovation is commonly attributed to Giacomo, whom Dante singles out as a forerunner of il dolce stil nuovo (Purgatario, 24.56). As Kleinhenz asserts, "The invention of the sonnet by Giacomo da Lentini at the imperial court was perhaps the single most important event in the history of early Italian literature".

So it was Giacomo, seemingly, who first devised the characteristic form
of the quatorzain, comprising an octave followed by a clearly distinguished sestet. Although it is impossible to ascertain the chronological order of the twenty-five or so extant quatorzains by Giacomo, even if it were desirable, we can take the following example as a prototype:

lo m'aggio posto in core a Dio servire, a

com 'io potesse gire in paradiso, b

al santo loco, c'aggio audito dire, a

o' si mantien sollazzo, gioco e riso. b

Sanza mia donna non vi voria gire,                           a
quella c'a blonda testa e claro viso,                          b
che sanza lei non poteria gaudere,                           a

estando da la mia donna diviso. b

Ma no lo dico a tale intendimento, c

perch 'io pecato ci volesse fare; d

se non veder lo suo bel portamento c

e lo bel viso e 'l morbido sguardare: d

che'l mi teria in gran consolamento, c

veggendo la mia donna in ghiora stare. d

I have set my heart on serving God,

so that I may go to Paradise,

to the holy place I have heard people speak about,
where pleasure, joy and merriment never cease.

Without my lady, I would not want to go there,
the one who has blond hair and a shilling brow,
for without her, I could not have any joy,
being separated from my lady.

But I am not saying this with the intention

that I might want to commit a sin there;

but only in order to see her dignified bearing

and the beautiful face and the sweet gaze,
for I would consider it a great consolation,
beholding my lady standing in glory.

In the Italian text of this sonnet there are fourteen lines of hendecasyllabic verse. In both versions printed here the volta at line 9 is clearly evident, signaled by the word Ma (hut) and dividing the text into an octave and a sestet. The eight lines of the octave rhyme a b a b a b a b; the six lines of the sestet rhyme c d c d c d.

What I want to focus upon first is the arrangement of this octave and
sestet, and the significance of the proportion 8/6. When reduced to its lowest ratio, this proportion becomes the relationship between 4 and 3, actually the operative mathematical relationship in this particular verse form and the prototype for proportionality. The prominence of the ratio 4/3 becomes even more assertive when we look at the arrangement of Giacomo's sonnet as it appears in the earliest (and only pre-modern) version that we have, a manuscript text in Vaticano Latino 3793 dating from the late thirteenth century:

lomagio posto jncore adio servire. comio potesse gire jmparadiso.                 b
alsanto loco cagio audito dire oue simantiene sollazo gioco eriso.                  b
sanza lamia donna nonui voria gire. quella ca lablondda testa elclaro viso.      b
chesanza lei nomporzeria gaudera. estando dalamia don(n)a diviso.              b

Manolodico atale jntendimento. perchio pecato ciuellesse fare.                       d
seno(n)vedere losuo hello porttamento. Elohello viso . elrnorhido squardare.                                                                                                               d
chelomi teriajngrande comsolarne(n)to. vegiendo lammia don(n)ajnghiora stare.                                                                                                      d

In this version, a manuscript within a half-century of Giacomo himself and the only authoritative text, there are seven lines of double hendecasyllabic verse. The a rhymes are internalized in the first four lines, and the c rhymes are internalized in the last three lines. We may schematize the result as follows:

a                               b
a                               b
a                               b
a                               b

c                               d
c                               d
c                               d

In what we must take as the original arrangement of Giacomo ' s verse form, the octave and sestet of the modern version are collapsed into a quatrain and tercet, and the numbers four and three are obtruded by the four b rhymes and the three d rhymes, respectively.

This arrangement of seven double hendecasyllabic lines was preferred
also by Petrarch for his quatorzains. In Vaticano Latino 3195, which is the most authoritative manuscript of the Canzoniere because it contains Petrarch 's final revision of the 366 items and is largely in Petrarch's autograph, the 317 quatorzains are all inscribed as seven double hendecasyllabic lines. Drawing upon the evidence for Giacomo's practice in Vaticano Latino 3793 and for Petrarch 's practice in Vaticano Latino 3195, then, the two preeminent manuscripts for the earliest history of the sonnet, we must conclude that the seven-line version represents its earliest form.

Because Petrarch sophisticated the rather simple pattern of Giacomo's
rhymes, however, the rhyme scheme of Petrarch 's seven-Iine version does not conform to that of Giacomo's prototype diagramed above. Rut fours and threes are still prominent in Petrarch's modification. Although the sestet in Petrarch 's quatorzains varies in rhyme, the most frequent arrangement is as follows:

a b

b a

a b

b a

c d

e c

d e

This rhyme scheme displays some of the same fascination with permutations that we observe more rigorously pursued in the sestina.

So what do we make of these salient numbers four and three in the quatorzain's form, and of their arrangement into a proportion 4/3? Here I propose we resort to the commonest symbolism of the pythagorean-platonic tradition, even as it had been Christianized. Four is the mundane number–the number of the four basic qualities (hot, cold, moist, dry), of the four elements that comprise the macrocosm, of the four humours that comprise the microcosm, of the four seasons that comprise the annual unit of time, of the four ages that comprise the full human life, of the cardinal winds that comprise the wind-rose, and so on. In short, four is the number of the tetrad, the form that underlies all the systems that make up our natural universe (see pages 41-43 above). We can interpret the number four as not only pertaining to, but also confined to, the realm we know from our daily lives. Four signifies this world.

To interpret the number three, we need merely recall that in the pla-
tonic-Christian tradition it is the sacred number, the number of the Trinity. Three signifies the deity. Furthermore, it implies the mystery of three-in-one, the miracle of multeity subsumed in the holy One. In the terza rima and tripartite division of the Divina commedia, Dante exemplifies how a devout poet can use this number in the construction of a monumental edifice with pointed theological import.

Now, I believe, the significance of the proportion 4/3 becomes evident:
four represents this world, while three represents divinity. Moreover, the sum of these integers, seven, represents the entire range of human experience from lowest to highest. Of course, seven has been assigned special meaning in most systems of number symbolism, but the one operative here is defined by Agrippa: "The Pythagorians call it the Vehicuilum of mans life. . . for the body consists of four Elements, and is endowed with four qualities. Also the number three respects the soul"; and Agrippa concludes: "The number seaven therefore, because it consists of three, and four, joyns the soul to the body". The proportion 4/3, then, encapsulates the relation of body to soul, reflecting the relation between the mundane and celestial in the macrocosm. And as readers proceed through the sonnet, passing from quatrain to tercet (or from octave to sestet in the fourteen-line scheme), they proceed from this world toward heaven.

The pattern is described more systematically by Augustine, who delineates seven "degrees" of the soul, "expounding the soul's power in the body, its power in itself, its power before God." The final stage results in the soul's perfection: "At length, in the vision and contemplation of truth, we come to the seventh and last step, not really a step, but a dwelling place to which the previous steps have brought us"; and Augustine dissolves into rapturous silence: "What shall I say are the delights, what the enjoyment, of the supreme and true God; what breath of undisturbed peace and eternity". At the static stage of beatitude, the soul reaches beyond
the efficacy of signifiers. So the sonnet carries its readers along this trajectory toward blessedness, and after completing its seven-part form they eventually arrive in the presence of the deity, like Dante at the end of the Paradiso and Spenser at the end of Fowre Hymnes. Or like the worshiper in a church, who enters the main portal, traverses the nave (the "ship" that symbolizes the voyage of our life), reaches the holy point of the crossing where the altar stands, and peers forward into the inner sanctum of the choir. The form represented by the proportion 4/3 leads inexorably toward heaven, toward arrival in the presence of God, toward salvation. To corroborate this interpretation of the number symbolism, recall that seven is the number of the heptaemeron, which culminates in the sabbath.

Finally, note that the form alone makes this statement, quite apart from
the semantics of the verbal system. Regardless of what the language of the sonnet might say, its form guarantees redemption and proves the forcefulness of providence. The form of the quatorzain is unmitigatedly optimistic.