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TOURISTS, a novel by Steve Wheeler, is available at smashwords.com in many formats for free.

When the CIA wants to build a secret air strip in bear country north of Ottawa, the deal is arranged in a van on the the Rideau Canal during Winterlude, Ottawa’s famous winter festival..
George Gilroy, a successful lobbyist, has won the job of negotiating the deal. George has a family in Ottawa and another on a farm outside the city.
The land the CIA has chosen is in the middle of The Wilds, a thousand acres of bush owned by the Taylor brothers, outfitters and hunters. They have travelled to Ottawa to protest the banning of the Spring bear hunt and to visit some strip joints.
Part of the CIA plan is an elaborate ruse to be used in case the deal falls through. It involves the hiring of thieves and a driver for a diamond heist at the conclusion of Winterlude.
Henny, an excon, ex private eye, is hired as the driver. He drives a van all night on the frozen Rideau Canal and unwittingly, as he tries for enough weeks to qualify for unemployment benefits, is caught up in this maelstrom of intrigue.

http://www.grokodile.com/dir/Canada/Ontario/?loc=Ottawa&s=4590

On a pleasant autumn day, Mitch Reynolds stepped out of the Department of Agriculture, his briefcase packed with papers. He attempted to take a deep breath of fresh air, search his jacket for his bicycle clip, descend the stairs, all at the same time. He heard the door open behind him, a voice call his name. He turned, backed into a young woman coming up the stairs.
Suddenly, Mitch was stumbling, falling. The girl retained her balance but scattered her files, all over the steps.
“Oh...oh...sorry...” Mitch crawled around, helped her pick up the files. The woman stuck her silent nose in the air, resumed her climb.
Bob Fagan joined him at the bottom of the stairs, laughing at Mitch’s misfortune. They turned to watch the young woman’s behind.
“Ooh, look at that. Hey nice move, buddy. I’m tellin you Mitch, never get married”
They turned to walk toward the parking lot.
“Hey, how come you’re out early?”
“New job. I finally got an outside assignment. How about you?” Mitch had found his bicycle clip again. Bob watched as Mitch gathered his trousers to apply the clip.
“Beth’s preggers again, I’ve got to take three of the kids to the dentist while she’s at the doctor’s” Bob waited for Mitch to unlock his bike. They walked through the parking lot.
Bob was a big man with five children. Beth was very fertile. Their brood seemed ever expanding.
They parted at Bob’s van, Mitch mounted his bicycle. He took his time pedalling on the bike path, admiring the green fields in the autumn sunlight, giant trees blowing in the breeze. The path led him through the Experimental farm to the barn of The Beef Cattle Exposition.
The barn was surrounded by pens of cattle of different breeds, the office inside it. The walls of the small room were covered with posters about cattle. There was a rack on one wall which contained pamphlets, brochures and magazines about cattle. A small desk, covered with more cattle information, stood, with two chairs, at one end of the room. There was no one around. Mitch saw a door behind the desk which led further into the barn. He stepped through it. A stronger smell of cattle hit him.
Mitch looked down the length of the barn. He saw that most of the stalls were occupied by cattle, one, halfway down, also contained a person. Mitch made his way to it.
The sign on the open stall door read, VENUS. Walter James, the facility manager, stood leaning on one wall of the stall, beside a cow. He was a pleasant looking, balding man, much larger than Mitch, dressed in jeans and a work shirt, holding a brown, paper bag in one hand. He smiled, held out his hand.
“Mr. James?” Mitch, extending his hand. “Walter. You must be Mitch Reynolds. Good to finally see who I’ve been talking about for the past few months” Walter James shook Mitch’s hand with his empty one. He was referring to the many conversations he he’d had with Mitch’s superiors concerning this new project.
“This here’s the star of your show” Walter indicated the cow. “Venus”
Mitch stared at the rear end of the cow. He followed Walter toward the front of her, jumping into a cow pie, when she turned her head toward him.
Walter laughed. Mitch shook his foot in the air.
“Ha. You’ll have to watch out for that. Just scrape your shoe on some straw. Pistachio?” Walter smiled at Mitch, offered the bag.

Winterlude the setting on the Rideau Canal, Ottawa, Canada. TOURISTS the novel by Steve Wheeler on smashwords.com. Type tourists steve wheeler in the search box on smashwords.com.
TOURISTS is available in to upload at no cost in many formats.

http://www.grokodile.com/dir/Canada/Ontario/?loc=Ottawa&s=4590

I firs met Bubba an Stone one midnight when dey was gettin chased across de Interprovincial Bridge by Andre St. Pierre an is karate club. Dey flag me down an I elp em out, giv em a lif. I booted er to Ottawa, lef a buncha drunk black belts pantin an cursin at de moon. What dey did in de tavern to piss off de karate club, I dunno, but I seen St. Pierre an is boys get some guys, after a few beer one night, an it weren’t no pretty sight. So I give em a lif an we ad a few beer in de Market. I never see em again till las mont when dey come in de club on Elgin Street where I work behine de bar.
“Frenchie!” Bubba roar an crush my an like a big, drunk bear. E’s even bigger now dan den. Stone, got a black eye but, as usual, e got a good lookin girl wit im an cement on is boots. I don tink Bubba an Stone learnt much in school excep ow to drink an fight an play football.
Dey could play football cause dey were real tough an Bubba strong like a bull an mean when e put on de pads. Stone, e was jus mean alla time.
After dey cripple some guys in university ball an fail all deir courses, dey end up in de construction business. Stone learn ow to build ouses from is fadder, got is own company. Bubba started out as a labourer for de city. Now dey give im is own truck. Dey’re bot pissed off at de wedder dis winter an, like mos people, dey’re about to crack aroun de end of Fevrier. Dey want to go to Florida an look up an ole football buddy. Dey invite me along dat night at de club. An I say yes.
Tabernac.
Stone, e bin through a couple marriages an lotsa udder women an got some kids scattered aroun. E says e can handle everyting excep women. Bubba got no kids an e’s fightin wit is girlfrien. De one Stone call “de douche” when Bubba can’t ear im. I shoulda known better when Stone tole me to bring an extra suitcase. One of is wives got all deir luggage an Bubba’s girlfren got de cops to keep im away from de apartment.
My brudder, Guillaume, e’s smart, but e’s stupid. Smart wit money, stupid wit women. E always know ow to make a buck but insteada bein appy wit a nice little business in ull, e get tangle up wit a good lookin woman from Montreal. E moved down dere an got busted wit six keys o toot. I figured my brudder won’t be needin is suitcase for a while. I get it from my mudder’s an bring it along. It was a Monday mornin, not too early. We bin on a tour of de otels upriver in de Pontiac since we lef ull some time Saturday mornin. So our stomachs not de bes when we jump in Bubba’s new Corvette an ead for de border. Wit me an de suitcase in de back seat.
Bubba, e’s big and tough, but e loves is Corvette. Is girlfren’s mad at im cause e spent money on de car e was spose to spen on er. He yell an take a slap at me an Stone if we spill somethin in de Corvette. Bubba can eat tree family size bags o chips, while e’s drivin, witout spillin a crumb. E takes a big paw fulla chips an stuff de whole ting in is mout while we ‘re bootin it outta town. De boys are ungry when we get to Kemptville an we all need a beer so we stop at de otel dere to join de farmers an rednecks in de tavern. Dey make de good meatball sandwich in de otel in Kemptville. Pretty soon, Stone gets inna game a pool wid some rednecks. De waitress, Katie, she’s stoppin longer to talk to me at de table, every time she bring de beer. It ain’t so bad bein small an French wit de long eyelash. Women love de long eyelash an get real mudderly when dey’re bigger dan you an tryna speak French. So dey usually come onto me firs. Sometime, it work, sometime, it don. Dis one came onto me firs. Definitely. Me? I’m small,

It’s Poetry Friday and, since I’ve been pushed beyond my limits by members of the book industry’s dark side, we present a poem I wrote back in the spring of 2005 to lament the loss of CBC Ottawa’s much loved afternoon host, Brent Bambury.

I’ve loved doing Just One More Book!! and it will be sad to turn my back on it.

While I’m reflecting on the future of what has been a huge part of our family, every single day for more than three years, I thought it was appropriate to share this era-ending poem (read by its recipient, Brent Bambury).

A Capital Lament — by Andrea Ross, May 2005.

That April day, infused by May, seemed clearly heaven sent,
The Gomery mess couldn’t bug us less — we’re listening to Brent!
Big news from Rome, then Pow! our own calamitous event,
We’d lost our man, and thus began our Capital Lament.

In two aught two, when Brent was new, our cautious ears we lent,
But soon his pace, words, voice and taste led to enravishment.
Who know his stint would be a glint? That Go! would lead to went?
And we’d be left a town bereft, despite all blandishments.

Robert Fontaine, comedien, now who will he torment?
Will Lucy sob? Or grab the job? To whom will Laurence vent?
We’re sure of this, we’ll sorely miss our host omniloquent.
You’re lane to fame is Hog Town’s gain. Best luck and Thank you, Brent.

Read Mark’s post about Just One More Book!! as a member of our family: The baby, the bathwater, or both?

for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color. Poems by Elizabeth Alexander & Marilyn Nelson, Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. Wordsong, 2007. In 1832 Prudence Crandall, a Quaker schoolteacher and head of The Canterbury Female Boarding School in Canterbury, Connecticut admitted her first Black student. The town's people, who had been very pleased with her running the school up until then, were

Three highlights of my February vacation week!



I signed books and met some fantastic readers at Barnes and Noble in South Burlington, Vermont yesterday afternoon.  Thanks to everyone who came out to pick up copies of Spitfire and say hello.  I was especially happy to meet Marje VanOlsen from the South Burlington Community Library in person. We've been emailing for a few weeks, and I'll be presenting a summer program at her library in July. 

Earlier in the vacation week, my family enjoyed the last weekend of Winterlude in Ottawa.  It's a fantastic winter festival with outdoor entertainment, ice sculptures, and best of all -- skating!



As soon as Ottawa's Rideau Canal freezes, it turns into the world's longest skating rink -- literally.  Those world record folks at Guinness made it official this year. 



We had a beautiful day and enjoyed the full 7.8 km.  Of course, we did make a few stops along the way -- most notably to indulge in a Beaver Tail or two.



If  you're ever in Ottawa, this decadent delicacy is a must-have.  A beaver tail pastry is a very thin strip of fried dough shaped like, well, the flat tail of a beaver.  It's dusted with cinnamon and sugar or drizzled with maple syrup (my favorite). 

I even managed to get some work done in between skating and scarfing down pastries.  I've been asked to do a couple presentations this spring, talking about my upcoming book Champlain & the Silent One, which comes out next fall.  That means going back to the places where I did some of my research to gather photographs and other resources for my school visits.

Ottawa's Canadian Museum of Civilization is featuring Samuel de Champlain in an exhibit about people who shaped Canada's history.



This was especially fun to see...



It's a navigational tool called an astrolabe, and historians believe it might have belonged to Champlain himself.  According to documents, Champlain lost his astrolabe near a place called Green Lake when he was traveling up the Ottawa River in 1613.  In 1867, a boy named Edward Lee was helping his father clear trees in that area and came upon the instrument pictured above, right where Champlain supposedly dropped it 254 years earlier.

And here's a quiz for particularly astute blog readers.  Look at this statue of Champlain with his astrolabe at Ottawa's Nepean point.


There's something wrong.  Do you know what it is? 

Among other things (Jane-related books and articles, friends' manuscripts for critiques, and the occasional new book), I've been reading Bill Bryson's book, Shakespeare: The World as Stage. And the other day I watched the movie Twelfth Night, featuring Gandhi Ben Kingsley as Feste, Imogen Stubbs as Viola and Toby Stephens as Duke Orsino. (S came in part-way through and said "Oh, is this based on She's the Man?" Um, yeah. Or maybe the other way around?) Ever since then, I've been singing "When that I was and a little tiny boy" (or, The Rain, it Raineth Every Day) off and on. But I digress.

And yet it's not a true digression, for all of the bits I just related contribute to explain why I've selected one of Shakespeare's sonnets for today. Master poet, master playwright, creator of words, inventor of myriad characters of delight, Shakespeare really knew his way around a sentence. The particular form of sonnet he used followed this rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. As in most sonnets, the first eight lines set up the poem. Line nine of any sonnet typically contains the volta, or the "turn", where the sonnet moves to a different vantage point (could move inward or outward, or on to a related topic, or flip the poem on its head). And Shakespeare generally employs a turn in his ninth lines as well, and then does one better, because that rhymed couplet left by itself at the end is usually an extra serving of cream that gives the poem still further resonance. In this poem, however, I find there is no real turn until the closing couplet, although I can also see a bit of a shift once you hit lines 11 and 12. See where you think the poem "turns" as you read Sonnet LXXIII.

Sonnet 73
by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Broken down in the crassest of ways, the speaker here spends four lines comparing himself to a tree in winter, another four comparing himself to twilight (with night encroaching), and yet another four in comparing himself to a dying fire, with an overt reference to a death-bed in line 11. The final couplet is, to me, the real volta here, where Shakespeare ceases to speak of "me" and shifts to "thou", and the topic shifts from metaphors for death and aging to a direct address about love and parting. Despite a fairly bleak opening, I find hope in this poem because of its last lines, which speak of love strengthening and which can, I believe, be read in a carpe diem* kind of way.

Many folks read the poem literally as one intended to be "spoken" by an older person to someone much younger, and I have to say I think that's an entirely fair reading. The poem can also be read as being about the speaker's creative life: his work was once compared to the singing of sweet birds, but now is diminished; his star is fading; his creative powers are nearly used up. I have to say that while that second interpretation is one that's very popular with the "write a bullshit essay for school" crowd, I don't believe for moment that Shakespeare intended for the poem to be about his art, even though one can freely analyze it that way and likely get an A on the essay in doing so.

No, my take is that Shakespeare was most likely feeling neglected or a bit unappreciated by a lover and was trying to gain their sympathy (or heap coals upon them) by invoking thoughts of his death. It's all very melodramatic and over the top, and similar to what a lot of teenagers might do (even though Shakespeare was probably in his twenties or thirties when this was written), yet it rings true in a way that making these about Shakespeare's death or dying art do not. First, there's his age to consider - he was not an old man when he wrote this sonnet. Second, there's his art to take into account: he was still growing and writing and succeeding. In either case, personal experience/autobiography seem out of the question. Unless, of course, you believe, as I do, that Will was trying to manipulate someone by preying on their emotions.

Sonnet 73 is part of a quartet of sonnets that deal with aspects of death, and are usually read together. The quarter is composed of sonnets 71-74, and most folks read them as an older man (most believe Shakespeare himself) considering his own mortality, and writing poems for a young male friend he leaves behind him. Why male? Beats me. There's nothing in the poems overtly indicative that such is the case, although references to the other person facing public scrutiny might be taken that way (and many scholars believe that it was Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton and Shakespeare's patron, to whom these poems were addressed). It seems to me far more likely that these lines were written by Shakespeare in order to manipulate a woman he knew, or else written for Southampton so that he could share them with a mistress in order to try to make her feel sorry for him. Or perhaps to try to get Elizabeth I to pardon him for schtupping one of her ladies-in-waiting without her permission or for backing Essex's rebellion against the Queen.

Sonnet 71 takes a pious martyr-like tone and urges the surviving loved one not to mourn overly much, because it's not the dying person's desire to see him/her unhappy, nor does the speaker want the survivor to be "mocked" for their sentimental mourning: "I'm just thinking of you, dear; I would never want you to be unhappy. When I'm dead." Sonnet 72 reads like a dejected, almost petulant, lover, speaking of how unworthy he is of love and undeserving of praise, and exhorting the survivor (after his death), not to heap praise on the speaker because it would be a lie: "I'm a mutt, a mongrel, unworthy even of being kicked". Sonnet 73 you've just read, and Sonnet 74 talks about how the dead speaker's body may decay, but his spirit will live on with the loved one he addresses, as memorialized in the lines of his poem: "Don't be sad. Even when I'm dead and my body is being devoured by worms, probably because I've been knifed, and I'm unworthy of being remembered by you, you'll have this sonnet about me being dead to remember me by." (Sorry for the overly long description of Sonnet 74, but really, the lines about worms and being knifed and how base the writer is were too good not to mention.)

* seize the day

NOTE TO SELF: WHEN IS CHRISTMAS NOT CHRISTMAS? WHEN IT'S NOT "PC"


Once again as has occurred in the past, Christmas has become a politically un-acceptable word.

The latest is a move by an Ottawa, Canada, elementary school's attempt to remove the word "Christmas" from the song, "Silver Bells" in their annual Christmas concert

Gimme a break!

The move has ignited a controversy that has spread across the country and probably across North America and beyond. Instead, "Frosty the Snowman" replaced "Silver Bells" sung by Grade 2 and Grade 3 students attending Elmdale Public School.

"It was a choice by the choir," said Ottawa-Carleton District School Board spokeswoman Sharlene Hunter. "The teachers are visibly and emotionally upset and don't feel they can conduct that song to the best of their ability."

Elmdale has been inundated with telephone calls and emails after the story broke about teachers at the school changing the word Christmas and replacing it with "festive" in the Christmas carol, "Silver Bells." As in: "silver bells...silver bells...it's festive time in the city..."

Ridiculous!

It's akin to the story where Australian Santas were told not to use the traditional "ho-ho-ho" laugh and use "ha-ha-ha" instead, since it was deemed offensive to women.

It makes one wonder which songs will be deemed un-politically correct in the future. Will radio stations have to bleep out unacceptable words?

"It's beginning to look a lot like festive... Everywhere you go..." or "We wish you a merry festive..."

And a Merry Christmas...um - Festive - whatever, to you too!

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays during which most people try to see or at least speak to family members. Which got me thinking that I'd share a family story for today, the day after Thanksgiving.

Once upon a time, an Italian poet named Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti emigrated to England after he was forced to leave Italy for supporting a nationalist movement. There, he met amd married the daughter of another Italian emigré, and had four children.

Maria Francesca Rossetti, author of The Shadow of Dante: Being an essay towards studying himself, his world, and his pilgrimage, which was published in 1871. I'm currently unclear whether she was referring to Dante Alighieri, of whom I wrote briefly in a past post, or to her brother Gabriel, who used his second middle name, Dante, as part of his nom de plume. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Maria became an Anglican nun in later years.

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, poet, painter, illustrator and translator. While those who knew him called him by his first name, he chose to call himself Dante Gabriel Rossetti when writing because he liked the association with Dante Alighieri. In art and literature, Gabriel tended to prefer mythology and symbolism to real-life depictions. His early art was part of the pre-Raphaelite movement, but he later became quite stylised and was part of the early European Symbolist movement.

He became quite peculiar after his wife's death in childbirth (in part attributable to her laudanum addiction), and became exceedingly fond of wombats. He wrote quite a lot of poetry, some of it marvelous, before succumbing to depression and an addiction to chloral hydrate (which is what happened to the heroine of Edith Wharton's Bleak House. Did anyone else catch this article about evidence that it was suicide, not an accident? But I digress.)

Here's a sonnet by the older Rossetti boy:

Heart's Compass
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music’s visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular—
The evident heart of all life sown and mown.
Even such love is; and is not thy name Love?
Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
All gathering clouds of Night’s ambiguous art;
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.

Well-done if you spotted that as an Italianate sonnet (ABBAABBACDDCCD). The various types of sonnets are explained in a much earlier post, and subsequent posts explained some variations, including the Eugene Onegin stanza. But again, I digress.

William Michael Rossetti was a co-founder of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, where he edited their literary magazine and wrote poetry reviews. He also wrote biographies and essays and edited the works of both his poet siblings, as well as contributing to the Encyclopedia Britannica. He married the daughter of painter Ford Madox Brown.

Christina Georgina Rossetti was a poet from the age of 7. She suffered a nervous breakdown when she was 14, and was later swept into a religious fervor within the Church of England, along with her mother and older sister. Because of her religious beliefs, she declined at least two proposals of marriage. At age 31, she published her first collection of poetry, Goblin Market and Other Poems. Coming (as it did) only a few months before the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and being well-received, Rossetti was soon hailed as the new English female laureate. "Goblin Market" is one of her best-known poems. Dedicated to her sister, it tells of the temptations of the fruits of the goblin men, and the ruin that follows when one sister tastes their fruit. The other remains faithful to her way of life and manages to sort things out for them. It's a disturbing and riveting poem, and undoubtedly some sort of commentary on the need for strong religious principles. But again, I digress. (Must be the pumpkin pie hangover.)

One of Christina Rossetti's best-known poems is "In the Bleak Midwinter", which was set to music and popularized as a carol after her death. (You can see/hear a version of the carol sung by Allison Crowe here.) Rossetti also wrote quite a number of sonnets. Below is one of them.

Sonnet
from Monna Innominata
by Christina Rossetti

I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or Winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand—Did one but know!

I expect ALL of you spotted this one as an Italianate sonnet, since it uses precisely the same rhyme scheme as that used by her brother which you just read.

I have no idea whether Papa Rossetti had a favorite child (or, for that matter, whether he was called Papa), but I submit that while Dante had some chops, Christina was the finer poet. If you go back and look at Gabe's sonnet (I'm sure he won't mind if I call him Gabe, right?), you'll see that he only let two lines go without punctuation at the end, and that he usually used line-ending punctuation indicating a pretty significant pause (periods, semicolons and em-dashes). Christina, by contrast, is more subtle. She doubles the number of unpunctuated lines (4), which makes the poem move a bit more swiftly, and her use of commas instead of longer-pausing marks means that you need not hesitate quite so much (particularly as at least two of the line-ending commas are there as part of a list).

Dante also uses formal phrasing (what with the thees and thous and the "est" endings), whereas Christina uses "you." Dante talks of mythological gods where Christina talks of nature; Dante uses Big Important Words, while Christina uses accessible ones.

Take another look at the poems (assuming you've got a moment), and you'll see that they are both writing about love, and that they both reference nature in so doing. The references to nature are probably part of brother Bill's pre-Raphaelite leanings. William Rossetti wrote the guiding principles of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and I think they are reflected in the poetry of his siblings, and more so in Christina's writings than in Dante's (particularly since, between you and me, I think Dante's poem reads as an imitation of those of earlier poets, whereas even now, there's something "fresh" about Christina's):

1. To have genuine ideas to express;
2. To study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. To sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;
4. And most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues (or poems, as the case may be).

Well. Crap. I tried to set this up to post yesterday, and it so didn't. I can't find it on anyone's friends lists, etc. Grr. So here's a replay, if you've seen it, or a little something new if you haven't.

For this week's post, a sonnet by Wordsworth. In the past, I've posted part of his Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood and It is a Beauteous Evening.

Scorn Not the Sonnet
by William Wordsworth

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faeryland
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

In these 14 lines, which he claimed were "composed, almost extempore, in a short walk on the western side of Rydal Lake," Wordsworth has provided a brief bibliography of the masters of the sonnet, beginning with Shakesepare, moving throughout Europe, and ending with John Milton.

Francesco Petrarch was a Renaissance man -- literally. He's known as the father of humanism, in addition to being a scholar and poet. He fell in love with a woman named Laura from afar (while in church, no less), and wrote 366 poems about her, eventually collected by others and called Il Canzoniere. He used a form of the sonnet inherited from Giacamo da Lentini, which became known as the Petrarchan or Italianate sonnet. (Poor Lentini.) I covered the different types of sonnets in an earlier post.

Torquato Tasso was a 16th-century Italian poet most famous for his epic work, Gerusalemme Liberata, an epic poem about the battle between Christians and Muslims for Jerusalem in the First Crusades. He was welcomed by many royal patrons, but suffered from mental illness that prevented his enjoying it. Based on modern psychology, it would seem he was schizophrenic.

Luís de Camões, usually rendered in English as Camöens, was Portugal's greatest poet. Born in the 16th century, he wrote an epic poem called Os Lusídas about the glory of Portugal, along with a significant amount of lyrical poetry, including a great number of sonnets, ranging from a paraphrased version of the book of Job to poems about ideas (akin to what Wordsworth excelled at).

Dante Alighieri's life spanned the transition between the 13th and 14th centuries. His masterwork, La Commedia ("The Divine Comedy"), continues to be a source of inspiration for artists, authors and poets, even seven centuries later. The Commedia was broken into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, and features in part his beloved Beatrice, who was immortalised in another work, La Vita Nuova, from which I quoted in a post after my grandmother's death. (My guess is that the name Beatrice was chosen by Daniel Handler to be Lemony Snicket's unrequited love based on Dante's writings.)

Edmund Spenser was Poet Laureate of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His most famous work is The Faerie Queene, which was essentially a huge sycophantic poem for the Queen and her Tudor ancestry. He was venerated by Wordsworth, Byron and others alive at the turn of the 19th century. For those fans of the 1995 movie version of Sense & Sensibility, the lines which Colonel Brandon reads to Marianne near the end are from The Faerie Queen.

John Milton was a 17th-century poet known for his epic poems written in blank verse*, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. Milton was opposed to the monarchy, and supported the republican ideas of Thomas Cromwell, which went swimmingly for him until the Restoration, when he was forced to go into hiding. He emerged after a general pardon was issued, only to be arrested. He was eventually released, and died a free man. During the course of his life, Milton went blind, probaby from glaucoma; as a result, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were all dictated to others. Although they are frequently construed as religious works, Milton was writing about the revolution and restoration; his religious beliefs were outside the bounds of Christianity. In addition to his work in blank verse, Milton wrote a number of excellent sonnets, which were revered by Wordsworth and others.

*blank verse is the term for unrhymed iambic pentameter, used by Milton in his masterworks, by Shakespeare in his plays, and by many others as well. It remained quite popular as a means of composing verse until at least the late 19th century.

As a Jewish American, Emma Lazarus was particularly concerned with the plight of Jewish refugees who were entering the U.S. at the time in order to escape pogroms in Russia and eastern Europe; beginning in 1882, she began providing technical education to allow immigrants in New York City to become self-sufficient.

In 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet that is literally etched into American history -- it's on a brass plaque affixed to the base of the Statue of Liberty.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

With Memorial Day weekend here in the United States, accompanied by warm weather almost country-wide, folks will be celebrating the unofficial start of summer. But summer doesn't truly arrive for another three weeks or so, and so I thought I'd post a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins to remind us all to enjoy the spring.

Hopkins was a Jesuit priest who wrote in traditional forms during the Victorian era in England. However, he used fresh imagery and techniques like sprung rhythm (echoing actual conversational tones instead of adhering rigorously to iambic pentameter or some other set metre). Here is a lovely sonnet in an italianate or Petrarchan form (abba/abba/cdcdcd) for you:

Spring
Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
&emsp When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
&emsp Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
&emsp The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
&emsp The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
&emsp A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
&emsp Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
&emsp Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

And should you, by chance, prefer something more in keeping with the nature of Memorial Day, once called Decoration Day, and established to remember those who've died in the service of the United States, then I'll point you to some war poems -- even though the poems I'm pointing you to are by men who were English and Canadian.