Nature and melancholy in Bowles and Smith's sonnets

18th Century Poetry

Two 18th century sonnets

The poem by W.L. Bowles, "Sonnet VIII. To the River Itchin, near Winton," is less about the rather unfortunately spelled river's outwardly appearance. Instead, the poem's focus is more upon the poet's reflections on this natural wonder, what the river symbolizes to him, and the memories it provokes within his mind. Since Bowles last gazed upon it, he has changed, although the river itself has not. The first stanza of the sonnet is framed as a question: "Itchin, when I behold thy banks again, why feels my heart the shiv'ring sense of pain?" Although the river still looks lovely, it causes him to think of himself playing by its banks as a child, and how his youth's companions have died. He regards the river itself as a long lost, commiserating friend. Interestingly enough, little picture is conveyed of the unique physical beauty of the river itself, the reader gains only a sense of how much the poet has changed since he last visited his home.

Charlotte Smith's poem "To Spring," or Sonnet 8, on the new season of springtime is less self-enclosed than is the male poet's. She begins not with herself but by musing upon the "season of green" around her. Unlike Bowles, who marvels at the sameness of the water, Smith marvels at the change in the greenness of the world around her. But this "season of delight" as she calls it, exists in marked contrast to the melancholy residing in the poet Smith's own breast. Despite the fact that an unnamed (presumably romantic, although this is not stated) sorrow rankles in her breast, the rebirth of the world, she says, kindles a kind of false hope in the possibilities of rebirth of the poet's soul and hope.