SOURCE: Duncan, Phillip A. “Patterns of Stasis and Metamorphosis in Musset's First Sonnet.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 16, nos. 1-2 (fall-winter 1987-88): 78-83.

In the following essay, Duncan interprets Musset's sonnet that begins “Que j'aime le premier frisson d'hiver,” emphasizing themes of equilibrium and cyclic change in the poem.

The complexities and subtle resonance of Musset's first sonnet justify multiple readings of this densely woven poetic statement. A recent analysis by Lloyd Bishop virtually exhausts one approach, emphasizing the theme and imagery of inconstancy and examining the poet's ambivalence toward change. “Images of inconstancy, impermanence and change,” he finds, “are coextensive with the text; they provide its formal constant.”¹ An earlier, and likewise very valuable, commentary by James Hewitt stresses also the centrality of the theme of inconstancy, arguing that the poem celebrates “a change of season and a change of heart” and that its “images of inconstancy … combine to...