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Answers to questions from

A Brief History of the Sonnet

contributed by Joyce Lewis, August 2004

4.  From “A Brief History of the Sonnet”: Jot down your best guess for these questions:

·         What is the "problem" stated in the first 8 lines?

Francis Petrarch’s Sonnet, Gli occhi di chi’io parlai si caldamente, is a poem of grief and of change.  In the first 8 lines he shares with the reader that the depth and breadth of his love for this woman were so great as to change him.  It made him a “stranger” in his own romance and set him apart from his “well-trodden ways”.    Because of his love for her, he saw her as so beautiful her glance would move the world in “paradisal dance”.   Her eyes, body, hair, and her very presence all moved him to praise.    In line 8, we are confronted with her death.   This woman that had captured his heart and his love to such a degree it fundamentally changed him has passed on.  The problem, then, is where does he go from here?  The love of his life has died and he now must live without her.

• In what sense is the problem "resolved" in the last 6 lines?

The problem is somewhat resolved in that he decides he will no longer write love songs.  But, it is deeper than that choice.  Resolution is seen in his moving through the stages of grief. He seems to be straddling anger, manifested in this sense as “self-contempt”, and acceptance.   He is lost in a storm of emotions and grief when he declares “No more love songs, then, I have done with such;”. His “self-contempt” is shown with this line and with the next; “My old skill now runs thin at each attempt,”.   We see hints of acceptance in his acknowledgement of “tears”.   The impact of losing his “light”, this woman he loved so deeply, is his inability to write love songs.  He grieves for her and can no longer find the words to express the love that he can no longer share with his beloved.

• So what shift in attitude seems to occur in lines 8-9 of the sample (the end of the second "stanza" and the opening of the third)?

In lines 1-8 he is talking about her.  In line 9, he clearly shifts to talking about himself.  In the opening of the poem, his life, actions, and behaviors were all resulting from her beauty and from his love for her.  There is a sense of praise and of sadness.  In the final six lines, he is talking about himself.  The tone also shifts from praise and sadness to a self-directed sense of anger and loss.  He grieves not only for her, but also for losing the ability to express love. 

• Theme: What relationship among love, beauty, time, and mortality is depicted by this poem (the sample “Italian” sonnet)?

While beauty may not see love, love always sees beauty.  In this sonnet, we hear a woman’s beauty praised with the soaring language of love.  Her gleaming hair is “golden”.  She was like an “angel” with a glance that moved the world to “dance”.   Was she really this beautiful? The reality is it doesn’t matter.  His eyes, looking through love’s glasses, saw in her a beauty worthy of his praise and songs of love. 

Time, given a love this strong, changes two people into one.  But, just as time deepens the love of one for another, it is also a road that marches without pause toward death.  And when death takes away one of the two, time becomes a breeding ground for grief and anger and, perhaps, for eventual healing.  And yet, in this sonnet, we sense that time will not heal all wounds.  In losing his love, he can no longer write his “love songs”.  It wasn’t only his woman that died but a part of him also died.  Death took away both his beloved and his sense of love, leaving behind anger and tears. 

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