Chapter 3a: Social Justice in Sonnet Form, 1910-1919
The sonnet is one of the most persistent and popular European poetic forms. Traditionally, sonnets have fourteen lines, fixed meter (often ten syllables to a line in English sonnets), and a fixed rhyme scheme. Since the early modern period – and perhaps due in part to the popularity of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the sonnet form has also been associated with expressions of romantic love or desire. The most common English sonnet form has fourteen lines, grouped into three rhyming groups of four lines (quatrains) and a final two lines (couplet); this is also called the Elizabethan sonnet, as it was favored by Shakespeare. Alongside the Elizabethan sonnet, many poets use the Petrarchan sonnet format, which consists of a group of eight lines and six lines, with a somewhat different rhyme scheme.
Some sonnets in the African American tradition do follow these patterns, but others break the pattern in various ways. One important innovation in African American poetry is the frequent use of the sonnet form in poems focused on social justice and racial justice themes. Black poets from this period used this very conventional -- but also flexible -- European form to celebrate revolutionary and militant figures like Toussaint L'Ouverture or John Brown, or to condemn racialized violcence. This pattern is not new to the 1910s, though it is perhaps in this decade when the African American racial justice sonnet really begins to take off.
Here is a representative example of a politicized sonnet
H. Cordelia Ray, Toussaint L’Ouverture (1910)
To those fair isles where crimson sunsets burn,
We send a backward glance to gaze on thee,
Brave Toussaint! thou wast surely born to be
A hero; thy proud spirit could but spurn
Each outrage on thy race. Couldst thou unlearn
The lessons taught by instinct? Nay! and we
Who share the zeal that would make all men free,
Must e'en with pride unto thy life-work turn.
Soul-dignity was thine and purest aim;
And ah! how sad that thou wast left to mourn
In chains 'neath alien skies. On him, shame! shame!
That mighty conqueror who dared to claim
The right to bind thee. Him we heap with scorn,
And noble patriot! guard with love thy name.
Cordelia Ray is praising the Haitian leader, Toussaint L’Ouverture, who led the Haitian revolution against French rule – and established the first Black-majority free nation in the western hemisphere. Ray is clearly alluding to some ambivalence or criticisms of Toussaint expressed over the years (the Haitian revolution was a bloody event, and Toussaint is for some historians a controversial figure), though her target is not Toussaint himself but his former enslaver, the “mighty conqueror who dared to claim / The right to bind thee.” Her main goal appears to be to prize the ‘big-picture’ goals of Toussaint’s struggle: “soul-dignity was thine and purest aim” – in other words, the aspiration was to live life as a free person with dignity and full agency. While the sonnet is technically focused on Toussaint, many of the points Ray is making here could be equally applicable to the struggle for Black freedom in the U.S. itself throughout the nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth.
Here is a second sonnet that is a tribute to a great historical figure – this one Carrie Williams Clifford’s sonnet on the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass:
Carrie Williams Clifford, "Frederick Douglass (In honor of the centenary of his birth—February 1817-1917.)" (1917)
A century of mighty thoughts has passed,
Of mighty deeds and Merlin-magic years,
Since first his infant wail assailed the ears
That knew not how prophetic was the blast!
Then swiftly sped the years into the vast
Store-house of time! The bitter vale-of-tears
Was vanquished, and the dark abyss-of-fears;
The thing, transformed, became a Soul at last!
Search noble history's most stirring page,
And tell what life excelled his in the race;
Trace deeds of daring men in every age
And say if one out-rivalled this dark face.
Great Douglass--slave and fugitive and Man,
With the immortal host, thou art in the van!
(Note: the meaning of “van” in the final line is a little different from what readers might expect – meaning being in the forefront or the leadership of a group.)
This sonnet – which follows the Elizabethan pattern (3 groups of four lines followed by a final pair or couplet) – is dedicated to the legendary abolitionist writer and activist Frederick Douglass, who was born in slavery but rose to become one of the leading public figures of his day. Alongside telling his own personal story, the poet is gesturing towards some of the big historical events he lived through in the nineteenth century, including the moment of emancipation (“The bitter vale-of-tears / Was vanquished”).
One interesting theme in the poem might be linked to two capitalized concepts, “Soul” and “Man.” First, Clifford notes that through emancipation, Douglass became a “Soul at last.” And later, as she follows his progress (“slave and fugitive and Man”), we see the use of “Man” reserved for the moment at which Douglass escaped slavery and became free. Clifford seems to be suggesting that these concepts are only fully available to people who are free.
Finally, let’s look at a more traditional example of a sonnet from this period by Alice Dunbar-Nelson, a well-known and accomplished writer who had been married to the famously troubled poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (after eloping in 1898, they separated in 1902, and Dunbar died in 1906 from tuberculosis). In 1910, she married Henry A. Callis, a doctor and a professor at Howard University. The following sonnet dates from 1910, around the time of her second marriage:
Alice Dunbar-Nelson, “A Sonnet” (1910)
I had not thought of violets of late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in rapturous sweet,
The thought of violets meant florists’ shops,
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops,
And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.
So far from the sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made,--
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.
And now–unwittingly, you’ve made me dream
Of violets and my soul’s forgotten gleam.
This sonnet also uses a Petrarchan structure (eight lines with one rhyme scheme followed by six lines with another). Note the way the poet uses the change of rhyme scheme in the ninth line to also change the direction of the poem. In poetics, this change of direction is known as a “volta” (an Italian word that means, simply “turn”).
In terms of theme, the poem seems to contrast the joyous feeling of young love in a natural setting – “wistful April days, when lovers mate” – against the more urban and unnatural settings that have characterized her experience in adulthood (“cabarets and songs, and deadening wine”). After the volta, the poet returns to a memory of “sweet real things,” that the love interest has inspired her to consider.
Readers interested in a deeper dive into the symbolism of the violet in the poem might want to compare Dunbar-Nelson’s use of it (it largely symbolized innocence here) to Shakespeare’s use of it in his own sonnets and plays (this essay might be a good place to start)
Additional sonnets to check out from the 1910s:
Angelina Weld Grimke, "To the Dunbar High School" (July 1917)
Georgia Douglas Johnson, “A Sonnet: to the Mantled” (1917)
And here are a couple of sonnets to check out from other decades:
Carrie Williams Clifford, “Tercentenary of the Landing of Slaves at Jamestown 1619-1919” (1922)
Georgia Douglas Johnson, “A Sonnet in Memory of John Brown” (1922)
See our full collection of African American Sonnets here.