p. 101

le sonnet à la Pétrarque :

« The sonnet had been accepted for a long time in Italy as the most suitable for a love-poem. The mediaeval poet Petrach had used the sonnet consistently to adress his beloved Laura. With Petrach the sonnet had fourteen lines and was divided into two parts – the octave, containing eight lines ; the sestet, containing six lines. The octave expressed the first half of an idea, the sestet the second half ; the octave posed the question, the sestet gave the answer ; the octave expressed a theme, the sestet contradicted it. With the Italians, the rhyme-scheme was strict : octave – abba ; abba ; sestet – cde, cde or cdc, dcd, or any other combination of two or three rhymes. »

p. 104

Puritains : « A sense of guilt seems to permeate all pleasure, and this has continued to the present day. The English Sunday – everything closed and nowhere to go except church – was, till very recently, one of the many living monuments to Puritan rule. Another perhaps, is the Englisman's peculiar restraint – the coldness that repels so many Africans and Asians, an unwillingness to ‘let oneself go’. »

6 janvier 2000