Note 1. Since the preliminary essay on American Sonnets and Sonneteers was written, my attention has been directed to a set of sonnets, few in number, but of exquisite beauty, by Edmund C. Stedman of New York. They are to be found in his two volumes of poetry, “Poems Lyrical and Idyllic,” published by Mr. Charles Scribner of New York, and “Alice of Monmouth, with Other Poems,” published by Mr. Carleton of the same city. There are but four of these sonnets in all. Two of them are constructed according to the true Italian model. The other two end with rhyming couplets, and therefore have that epigrammatic termination which the Italian masters considered fatal to the beauty of the sonnet. Mr. Stedman is nevertheless a genuine sonneteer in spirit, if not always in form; and a little further study of the peculiar structure of this species of poem will place him in the front rank of sonnet-writers. Indeed, I shall not attempt to decide whether the sonnets hereafter quoted have not already won him that position. [back]
