One Hundred Love Sonnets:

 BY PABLO NERUDA

TRANSLATED BY MARK EISNER

 

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

 

 

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio

o flecha de clavelas que propagan el fuego:

te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,

secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva

dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,

y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo

el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,

te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:

así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,--+٣٣

tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,

tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

 

 

Although the Italian sonnet is also labelled Petrarchan, as the English sonnet also bears the name of Shakespearian, nothing could be more erroneous. It was in fact created by Giacomo da Lentini, (1188-1240) head of thirteen other notaries who formed the Sicilian School of Court Poetry (14 total) and later the Neo-Sicilian School (1235-1294) when he moved to Tuscany. There he started writing in his own language which was Italian, and wrote almost 300 sonnets. Other members of this school included Dante Alighieri (1235-1321) and Guido Cavalcanti (1250-1300).

The most famous user of this form was Francesco Petrarcha (1304-1374) whose sonnets became popular throughout Europe. Petrarcha actually revived a lagging form and gave it even more life.

At this point it should be emphasised that the form had been deliberately created with 14 lines, whether it was because of the number of the school or a spiritual and mathematical formula of 8 and 6, is still being argued, but the fact is that it was a ratio of 8 and 6, a statement and volta or turning point, making a 14 line poem.

The Spanish form follows the Italian form and is merely an Italian Octave with a Sicilian Sestet. The French also liked the Italian octave, but decided they would make the volta more explosive and made it a couplet with a following a quatrain and a similar pattern to the previously used quatrain, thus making it a definite change rather than casual one or ignoring a change completely, whilst still maintaining the 8/6 ratio.

During his ambassadorial travels through the courts of France, Spain and Italy, Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 - 1542) was without doubt, privy to the sonnets that abounded there and later it is alleged that his sonnet "Whoso list to hunt" was about having to give up his love for Anne Boleyn and was based around Petrarch's Rhyme 190. He is credited with introducing the English sonnet form and translating some of Petrarch's poetry. He was also an admirer of Chaucer innovative languages, but it took 15 years after his death before any of his work was published. Looking at some of his work, a true Petrarchan can be seen originally, however with his later work a deviation becomes apparent where he still follows the Italian octave, but the volta uses a quatrain using the same rhyme scheme and a couplet. It can be hypothesised that the next step was using three quatrains and a couplet, and called the English Sonnet, being English they would ignore the reasons for 8/6.

Up to this point no meter was stated but it was natural the English of the time to use a form we now know as Iambic Pentameter, that had been created by Chaucer.

Geoffrey Chaucer - Linguistic. Chaucer wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre, a style which had developed since around the twelfth century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre. (Court Poetry). Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, (writing in English) inventing the Rime Royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, the iambic pentameter, in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him. His most famous use was in the Canterbury Tales.

Edmund Spenser's sonnet is based on the Petrarchan sonnet and still follows the 8/6 pattern, however whilst following the conclusion idea it does so by use of a quatrain and a couplet which had finally been adopted by English poets.

The form still evolving, William Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, wrote poetry and drama in iambic pentameter. There is some debate over whether works such as Shakespeare's were originally performed with the rhythm prominent, or whether it was embedded in the patterns of normal speech as is common today. In either case, when read aloud, such verse naturally follows a beat.

 

started 1 MAY 2010                 email : info@ila-magazine.com

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