Weekly Sonnet, No. 140
bookburn
Sonnet CXL.
BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were, 5
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;-
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;-
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee: 10
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
1609 Quarto, old-fashioned spelling.
I40
BE wise as thou art cruell,do not presse
My toung-tide patience with too much disdaine :
Least sorrow lend me words and words expresse,
The manner of my pittie wanting paine.
If I might teach thee witte better it weare,
Though not to loue,yet loue to tell me so,
As testie sick-men when their deaths be neere,
No newes but health from their Phisitions know.
For if I should dispaire I should grow madde,
And in my madnesse might speake ill of thee,
Now this ill wresting world is growne so bad,
Madde slanderers by madde eares beleeued be.
That I may not be so, nor thou be lyde, (wide.
Beare thine eyes straight , though thy proud heart goe
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:
>The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
>
>Sonnet CXL.
>
>BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
Avoid putting pressure on /
>My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
>Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
what I say may reveal /
>The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
>If I might teach thee wit, better it were, 5
If you will let me show you some wisdom, it
would be better /
>Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;-
even if you don't love me, my dear, to say you
do all the same, /
>As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
as a man who is ill, if he is bad-tempered, then
when he is dying, /
>No news but health from their physicians know;-
he will be given no bad news by his doctor. /
>For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
Because if I lose hope, I shall become insane, /
>And in my madness might speak ill of thee: 10
and in raving I could rail at you; /
>Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
and in these days, when everyone goes so far in
twisting words to the worst possible meaning /
>Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
people are crazy enough to believe the false
slanders of a madman. /
> That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Do not make me like that, do not get yourself slandered, /
> Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
keep your eyes to the front, even if your heart is too
proud to stop wandering aside. /
By quatrains:
(1) Be kind; do not force me to speak, (2) it would be wiser to
pretend, (3) or I may say false things that will be believed. (c) Act
straight, even if you do not mean it.
The last line links this poem to the ones before. The advice to
pretend goes back to sonnet 138, but the eyes are from 139. The
situation, though, is not the same as either. In 138, love requires a
system of pretences, but the system is spoken of as existing and not
threatened. In 139 the speaker is submissive; here he protests.
That does not mean there is a historical progression of events. This
is not consecutive narrative; it is a series of expressions of states
of mind, told from the point of view of the speaker. That is why we
find out so little about the addressee, or addressees. We have no idea
what they think.
Line 1, 'press'. To us this suggests a figurative kind of pressure,
nowadays so common as to be a dead metaphor. The sonnets seem to be
rather early for that usage. So I feel bound to agree with the
commentators that this is a metaphorical reference to 'peine forte et
dure' which was used when a person accused of a crime refused to
plead. This worked as follows.
(a) The legal system was capable of convicting someone of a crime,
although he did not confess. So there was no need to use torture to
obtain a confession, as happened in some other systems.
(b) On the other hand, a trial could not proceed unless the accused
had entered a plea, of 'guilty' or 'not guilty'. So a guilty person
could frustrate the process simply by remaining silent.
(c) To discourage that, there was a procedure not unlike the
continental torture, though less often used and fully prescribed by
law. The accused was stretched out on the prison floor, under a board,
and weights were added to the board one by one until either he
consented to plead or he died.
(d) If he held out, keeping silent until he died, then he was not a
convicted criminal. So, for example, there would be no forfeiture of
his goods. A prisoner might resolve to suffer 'pressing to death'
rather than let his family be reduced to penury.
Line 6, 'love'. I go with bookburn's punctuation, which is the usual
one. But Katherine Duncan-Jones (Arden) paraphrases "It would be
better, though you are unable or unwilling to love me, at least to
take pleasure in telling me that you do". That is probably the best
that can be done with the Quarto punctuation, but it will not do.
(a) He wants her to do it; whether she takes pleasure in (loves) doing
it is not the point - it is a distraction.
(b) Telling someone to do something makes sense. Does it make sense to
tell them to take pleasure in it? Is this something one can give
orders about?
(c) 'Though not to love, yet love to tell' in this interpretation
stands for 'Though not to love, yet <to> love to tell'. This is
difficult. It may look like a typical Shakespearian variation, but in
detail it is hard to work out that the two expressed instances of 'to'
are different, but there is an extra, understood one that is the same
as the first.
Line 7, 'testy'. Not that illness makes people bad-tempered, but that
bad-tempered people, when they are ill, tend not to be told the truth
if it is uncongenial.
Line 10, 'might speak ill of thee'. This means 'abuse, rail at, rave
against' rather than 'make measured statements including facts to your
discredit'.
Katherine Duncan-Jones says 'if the sonnets are read sequentially, ...
he has already spoken ill of her in the preceding sonnets, in which
she is depicted as ugly and promiscuous'. Now, first I say that the
sonnets should be read sequentially; they have been put in their
present order deliberately for that purpose. Secondly though, that
does not imply a consecutive narrative, one thing after another.
Thirdly, she has not been depicted as ugly. 'In the old age, black was
not counted fair' is not calling her ugly at all. Fourthly, the
accusations of bad faith are those of a jealous speaker, not news that
we must take seriously. Fifthly, a sonnet is a public statement, but
of a different kind, on a different level from the ravings he
describes here - this is not a description of sonnets.
Lines 9-12 (the third quatrain). This is not a threat, but a warning.
Not 'I will do such things ...', but 'this is what may happen'. Hence
in line 13 the first thing mentioned is 'That I may not be so',
equivalent to 'Do not do this to me'.
Line 14, 'Bear thine eyes straight'. This is not to be taken purely
literally, implying that he is precisely, directly in front of her as
he speaks. It turns the imagery of sonnet 139 into metaphor; 'be
straight, be loyal, do not turn aside'.
>
>
>1609 Quarto, old-fashioned spelling.
...
> If I might teach thee witte better it weare,
> Though not to loue,yet loue to tell me so,
...
Art Neuendorffer
> Sonnet CXL.
>
> BE wise as thou art cruel;
-------------------------------------------------------------
Love's Labour's Lost Act 5, Scene 2
MARIA Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
As foolery in the wise, when wit doth DOTE;
--------------------------------------------------------------
``I see,'' said Wamba, after a short pause, ``that
the fool must be still the fool, and put his neck
in the venture which wise men shrink from. You
must know, my dear cousins and countrymen, that
I more russet before I wore motley, and was bred
to be a friar, until a BRAIN-fEVER came upon me
and left me just wit enough to be a fool.''
-- _Ivanhoe_ by Sir Walter Scott
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As You Like It Act 5, Scene 1 The forest.
WIL[]L. I sir, I haue a prettie wit.
to[UC]h. Why, thou saist well. I do now remember a say-
ing: The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman
knowes himselfe to be a Foole.
-------------------------------------------------------------
L[CU]LIW ABCDEFGHIJKLM EREVIV WIZARD EVIL
O[XF]ORD ZYXWVUTSRQPON VIVERE DRAZIW VERO
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_Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen_
http://www.bartleby.com/27/18.html
by William Hazlitt
<<"Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily;
"but they were not persons-not persons."
"Not persons," said Ayrton, looking wise and foolish
at the same time, afraid his triumph might be premature.>>
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*REVEREND WARD*
E D W A R D V E R E
R
N
E R N : a *PLEDGE* ; akin to Gael. EARLAS,
PLEDGING 2 plays a-year [for 18 years]
EDWARD VERE earned £1,000 a-year: [June 26, 1586 - June 24, 1604]
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GONERIL As you are old and REVEREND, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder'd, so DEBOSH'd and bold,
---------------------------------------------------------------
"he was not a company keeper lived in ShoreDITCH, wouldn't
be DEBAUCHED, & if invited to writ: he was in paine."
---------------------------------------------------------------
DEBAUCH, v. t. & i. [F. D['E]BAUCHER,
OF. BAUCHE, bauge, hut,
cf. F. bauge LAIR OF A WILD BOAR]
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The Halliwell or Regius MS
Began first the *craft of masonry* ;
The clerk Euclid on this wise it found,
This craft of geometry in Egypt land.
In Egypt he taught it full wide,
*In DI-VERS lands on EVERy side* ;
----------------------------------------------------------
<<Whenever a town was founded a round hole would first be dug.
In the bottom of it a stone, LAPIS manalis, which represented
a gate to the Underworld, would then be embedded.
On August 23rd, this stone would be removed
to permit the Manes to pass through.>>
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August 23, 1600, Shakespeare 1st appears in Stationer's Register
when *ANDREW WYSE* enters "II Henry IV"
and "Much Ado About Nothing".
II Henry IV Act 4, Scene 1
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ... and concludes in hearty *PR(a)YER(s)*
That your attempts may *OVERLI[VE] (the) HAZARD*
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*OLIVER HAZARD PERRY*
August 23, 1819 d. Orinoco River, [VE]nezuela,
August 23, 1785 b. South Kingstown, RI,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1631 => Andrew WISE, Grand Prior/Knights of Malta, dies
7 Feb 1631 => Gabriel Harvey dies
31 Mar 1631 => John Donne dies after his own funeral sermon
Jun 1631 => Captain John Smith dies in London
19 Aug 1631 => John Dryden born
1631 => John WeEVER _Ancient Funerall Monuments
1631 => Ben Jonson's play Bartholomew Fair
Ursula: "A Bottle of Ale to quench me, rascal"
1631 => Harriot's postumous algebra tract published
17 Sep 1631 => Gustavus' ADOLPHUS defeats Tilly at Breitenfeld
7 Nov 1631 => Mercury TRANSIT
6 Dec 1631 => Venus TRANSIT
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Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act 5, Scene 1
First Clown What is he that builds stronger than either
the MASON, the shipwright, or the CARPENTER?
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ISAIAH 44:13 The CARPENTER stretcheth out his RULE; he marketh
it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it
out with the COMPASS, and maketh it after the figure of a man,
according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.
He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the CYPRESS and the oak,
-------------------------------------------------------------
ISAIAH 14:7 So the CARPENTER encouraged the goldsmith,
and he that smootheth with the hammer
him that smote the ANVIL, saying, It is ready for the
sodering: and he fastened it with NAILS, that it should
not be moved. But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob
whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,
and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said
unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee,
and not cast thee away.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for
I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help
thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the RIGHT HAND of my
righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed
against thee shall be ASHAMED & CONFOUNDED: they shall be
as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish.
Thou shalt seek them, and SHALT NOT FIND THEM,
even them that contended with thee: they that war
against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of
nought. For I the LORD thy God will hold THY RIGHT HAND,
saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
Fear not, THOU WORM Jacob, and ye men of
Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD,
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"The village CARPENTER . . . lays out his work by
EMPIRICAL rules learnt in his apprenticeship." --H. SPENCER.
----------------------------------------------------------------
<<[the CARPENTER] forthwith with all the indifferent
promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle
and took Queequeg's measure with great accuracy,
regularly chalking Queequeg's person as he shifted the RULE
"Ah! POOR FELLOW! he'll have to die now,"
ejaculated the Long Island sailor.
Going to his vice-bench, the CARPENTER for
convenience sake and general reference, now
TRANSFERRINGLY MEASURED ON
it the exact length the coffin was to be, and then made the
transfer permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities.>>
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<<transferringly measured on>>
s
r o g e r m a n n e r s, e. r u t l a n d
f
i
y
*SUFIY* - wise, PIOUS
1623 AD: Shake-speare, at length thy PIOUS fellowes give
The world thy Workes : thy Workes, by which, out-live
Thy Tombe, thy name must when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Moniment,
623 AD: <<45 men of Makka took *OATH OF FIDELITY* to the
doctrines of the prophet (PBUH) and formed a community
of property and to perform daily religious practices.
They added the title of fakir because of renouncing
attractions of this world, because Mohammed said (pbuh)
"Al fakru fakhri" - POVERTY IS MY GLORY.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
'And I have only to add, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, now thoroughly
angry, 'that I consider you a rascal, and a--a--ruffian--and--
and worse than any man I EVER saw, or heard of, except that
PIOUS and sanctified VAGABOND in the MULBERRY LIVERY.'
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1623 Folio only: << and more strange return. hamlet >>
h
a
m
r o g e r m a n n e r s, e. r u t l a n d
e
t
t
-------------------------------------------------------------
1 in a million chance of finding the 20 letters:
"roger manners, e. rutland"
within a consecutive string of 23 letters like:
"nd more strange return. haml"
---------------------------------------------------------
"Al fakru fakhri" - POVERTY IS MY GLORY.
---------------------------------------------------------
*Open Secret - versions of Rumi by John Moyne and Coleman Barks
SUF: wool, woolly; a hair cloth used by penitents
in the early days of Islam
SUFIY - wise, pious
SUFI- woolen
SAFA- purity
SAFI- pure
623 AD: <<45 men of Makka took *OATH OF FIDELITY* to the
doctrines of the prophet (PBUH) and formed a community
of property and to perform daily religious practices.
They added the title of fakir because of renouncing
attractions of this world, because Mohammed said
"Al fakru fakhri" - POVERTY IS MY GLORY.>>
During Mohammed's life, [A]bu [B]akr (1st Khalifa)
and Ali (4th Khalifa) established zikrs.
http://www20.brinkster.com/mubai/articles/art12.htm
Introduction to Sufism by Ibrahim Spiegel
<<What is sufism?
It is a path to Allah through the heart,
and the way through the heart is Love.
The sufi opens his hands to the universe
and gives away each instant, free.
Unlike someone who begs on the street
for money to survive,
a dervish begs to give you his life.*
Sufism is not a religion but a discipline that adjusts to the needs
of the individual, the time and the place. Sufism is like the story
of the blind men who discover an unknown animal and proceed to
identify it. One feels it's hide and says, "It is like a rhino."
Another feels a section and says, "It has wings." The third says,
"It must be a large snake." An elephant is difficult to describe
if you only look at the parts. Sufism is for those who seek a
deeper understanding of Life, for those who ask the hard questions:
Who am I? Why am I here?
What is life and death? Why is there suffering?
It is through everyday experiences that deeper understanding occurs,
and if these experiences are understood in their widest context
then an awareness begins to form: It is all from Allah, therefore
everything has a purpose. When I mention the name Allah,
I am referring to God. God the Creator, who has no gender,
who has no beginning, no end, Who exists everywhere in everything,
and who is Greater than you can imagine. The methods of teaching
in Sufism are contradictory because how can you standardize
something that adapts and needs to be flexible?
It is this nature of sufism that makes it impossible
to define except for how it applies to this moment.>>
-------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Rita
> On Thu, 27 Feb 2003 19:31:07 -0800, "bookburn" <book...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
> >
> >Sonnet CXL.
> >
> >BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
> You are unkind now: be reasonable instead.
are high-handed'. He isn't really asking her to be reasonable, he's
asking her to consider her own best interests. The implication is
that an appeal to self-interest will work whereas one to her 'better
nature' might fail?
<snip>
> Katherine Duncan-Jones says 'if the sonnets are read sequentially, ...
> he has already spoken ill of her in the preceding sonnets, in which
> she is depicted as ugly and promiscuous'. Now, first I say that the
> sonnets should be read sequentially; they have been put in their
> present order deliberately for that purpose. Secondly though, that
> does not imply a consecutive narrative, one thing after another.
> Thirdly, she has not been depicted as ugly. 'In the old age, black was
> not counted fair' is not calling her ugly at all.
I agree. There is nothing in the sonnets which implies the woman is
physically unattractive, only that her style of beauty is not the
current norm.
Rita
Robert Stonehouse
>ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote in message news:<3e605ca...@news.cityscape.co.uk>...
>> On Thu, 27 Feb 2003 19:31:07 -0800, "bookburn" <book...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> >The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
>> >
>> >Sonnet CXL.
>> >
>> >BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
>> You are unkind now: be reasonable instead.
>
>I always felt this was to be understood more as 'Be as politic as you
>are high-handed'. He isn't really asking her to be reasonable, he's
>asking her to consider her own best interests. The implication is
>that an appeal to self-interest will work whereas one to her 'better
>nature' might fail?
><snip>
commentators say what you suggest: Blakemore Evans quoting Booth
"(1) as wise as (2) wise, since".
My difficulty with that is that he is apparently asking her to be kind
and cruel, _both at once_. I don't see how that is possible. So I
tried to devise a way he could be asking her to change from one to the
other, by taking the imperative as referring to the future and the
indicative to the present. So it becomes equivalent to "Be kind (from
this moment on) as thou art (at this moment) cruel".
bookburn
latitude to imagine a complicated occasion for it. This involves
emphasizing a dramatic monologue mode of regard in which a
particular situation is referred to.
I see the speaker talking to the addressee about a drawing room
setting in which a dramatic scene took place, involving speaker,
addressee, and others who are jealous of getting the addressee's
favorable glance, and doubly critical of the speaker's presence:
why, might be due to their different positions in society; an
already noticed preference for the speaker; some specific dislike
for him; etc..
While this hypothesis helps pin down some of the allusions, I still
find the speaker's tones ambiguous, as if he were both amused,
critically disdainful, and disappointed.
The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
Sonnet CXL.
1. BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
2. My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
3. Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
4. The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
The being "cruel" in l.1 can be understood as a manner of managing
favorites attending the addressee, who are paying court in some
manner or other, perhaps in some salon-like setting. In
deliberately not noticing the speaker, she is cruel; but he
understands she is protecting him from contumely and derision, or
worse, that would result from being ranked by others present, if she
were to "communicate" with him, especially by a certain kind of eye
contact.
The speaker is saying "be wise" in the sense of not over-doing the
"avoiding eye contact" bit, because his "sorrow" and "pain" overflow
his "patience," as the poem now shows. In other words, he
understands what she is doing and loves her for it, but is dismayed
by the need for artifice.
5. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, 5
6. Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;-
7. As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
8. No news but health from their physicians know;-
In comparing "wit" to "love," the speaker does a clever dance,
evidently to the effect that it were wise to tell him she loves him,
even if not so, to supply a physic to his love sickness.
9. For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
10. And in my madness might speak ill of thee: 10
11. Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
12. Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
Extending love sickness to love madness, the speaker goes so far as
to threaten "speak(ing) ill of thee," as something typical in "this
ill-wresting world"; but even my imagined situation centering upon a
drawing room-like setting hardly explains this. Is he joking?
13. That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
14. Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
Support for my drawing-room analogue occurs in l.14, where keeping
the "eyes straight" is metaphor for a kind of demeanor in a dramatic
situation; but just what demeanor, I'm not sure. Could be a return
to the "cruel" lack of notice referred to in l.1; could be just
modest and demure look of polite interest; could be "not feigned" at
all. But allusion by contrast to more liberal "proud heart"
suggests a certain duplicity, anyway.
So here, as in other witty dramatic situations, the poet gets into
identity issues in terms of comparing appearances with realities.
And what kind of love does S think can survive in an "ill-wresting
world"? ("Is it a world to hide virtues in?")
bookburn
Rita
> On 3 Mar 2003 16:14:46 -0800, nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) wrote:
> >ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote in message news:<3e605ca...@news.cityscape.co.uk>...
> >> On Thu, 27 Feb 2003 19:31:07 -0800, "bookburn" <book...@yahoo.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
> >> >
> >> >Sonnet CXL.
> >> >
> >> >BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
> >> You are unkind now: be reasonable instead.
> >
> >I always felt this was to be understood more as 'Be as politic as you
> >are high-handed'. He isn't really asking her to be reasonable, he's
> >asking her to consider her own best interests. The implication is
> >that an appeal to self-interest will work whereas one to her 'better
> >nature' might fail?
> ><snip>
> I thought about this, but then concealed the evidence. The
> commentators say what you suggest: Blakemore Evans quoting Booth
> "(1) as wise as (2) wise, since".
>
> My difficulty with that is that he is apparently asking her to be kind
> and cruel, _both at once_. I don't see how that is possible.
But he isn't asking her to be kind, he's asking her to be 'wise'.
Anyway,I can't take this as a serious attempt to influence the
behaviour of a particular woman. The 'Dark Lady' sonnets might be
nominally addressed to a woman, but surely the intended
audience/readership was male? And as the sonnet develops it seems he
isn't expecting her to be kind, either in the usual sonnet-sense or
the modern meaning of the word. Kindness (in the modern sense) is
something she clearly doesn't do. He takes it for granted that she
will continue to behave with selfish disdain, and not deny herself any
pleasure merely for the sake of sparing his feelings. All he asks -
with polite irony, surely? - is that she carry on less flagrantly.
Otherwise she might drive him so far he'll start telling a few tales,
and then her reputation will suffer.
But it's all a pose, a game, a clever variation on the usual
masochistic crouching you get in sonnets. The man is always the
helpless victim of his lady's ability to overwhelm his senses, make
him her slave etc etc. He suffers frustrated agonies uncomplainingly.
It's his job.
Rita
Robert Stonehouse
>ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote in message news:<3e6483bd...@news.cityscape.co.uk>...
>> On 3 Mar 2003 16:14:46 -0800, nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) wrote:
>> >ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote in message news:<3e605ca...@news.cityscape.co.uk>...
>> >> On Thu, 27 Feb 2003 19:31:07 -0800, "bookburn" <book...@yahoo.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
>> >> >
>> >> >Sonnet CXL.
>> >> >
>> >> >BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
>> >> You are unkind now: be reasonable instead.
>> >
>> >I always felt this was to be understood more as 'Be as politic as you
>> >are high-handed'. He isn't really asking her to be reasonable, he's
>> >asking her to consider her own best interests. The implication is
>> >that an appeal to self-interest will work whereas one to her 'better
>> >nature' might fail?
>> ><snip>
>> I thought about this, but then concealed the evidence. The
>> commentators say what you suggest: Blakemore Evans quoting Booth
>> "(1) as wise as (2) wise, since".
>>
>> My difficulty with that is that he is apparently asking her to be kind
>> and cruel, _both at once_. I don't see how that is possible.
> <snip>
>But he isn't asking her to be kind, he's asking her to be 'wise'.
have 'do not press .. with disdain', and later 'pity-wanting'. I
suppose it depends partly on whether we think 'cruel' means her state
of mind or her actions - I support the actions.
>Anyway,I can't take this as a serious attempt to influence the
>behaviour of a particular woman.
No: its purpose is to express the speaker's experience. It is not
really an exhortation to her.
>The 'Dark Lady' sonnets might be
>nominally addressed to a woman, but surely the intended
>audience/readership was male?
Why? This had not occurred to me. At court, or around a leading
nobleman, there would be a mixture, surely. I would see the first
performance as being given in front of a mixed audience, and the
readership of the publication much the same.
>And as the sonnet develops it seems he
>isn't expecting her to be kind, either in the usual sonnet-sense or
>the modern meaning of the word. Kindness (in the modern sense) is
>something she clearly doesn't do. He takes it for granted that she
>will continue to behave with selfish disdain, and not deny herself any
>pleasure merely for the sake of sparing his feelings.
All this is "as seen through the eyes of ...". At least, that is my
view - I think yours is beginning to look different. I would not take
any of this as an accurate record of facts - it is El Greco, not Van
Eyck. (Now I'm showing my ignorance of painting too!)
>All he asks -
>with polite irony, surely? - is that she carry on less flagrantly.
>Otherwise she might drive him so far he'll start telling a few tales,
>and then her reputation will suffer.
I don't think polite irony fits at all. This is, internally only,
subjectively, impassioned and agonised.
>But it's all a pose, a game, a clever variation on the usual
>masochistic crouching you get in sonnets. The man is always the
>helpless victim of his lady's ability to overwhelm his senses, make
>him her slave etc etc. He suffers frustrated agonies uncomplainingly.
>It's his job.
Would we bother with the sonnets if they were just a lot of
masochistic crouching? The speaker's state of mind, as seen from
within, is not properly described as masochistic. The same words might
be, if they were public, visible to the addressee. But this is not
part of a conversation.
Rita
> >> >> >
> >> >> >Sonnet CXL.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
> >> >> You are unkind now: be reasonable instead.
> >> >
> >> >I always felt this was to be understood more as 'Be as politic as you
> >> >are high-handed'. He isn't really asking her to be reasonable, he's
> >> >asking her to consider her own best interests. The implication is
> >> >that an appeal to self-interest will work whereas one to her 'better
> >> >nature' might fail?
> >> ><snip>
> >> I thought about this, <snip>
> >> My difficulty with that is that he is apparently asking her to be kind
> >> and cruel, _both at once_. I don't see how that is possible.
> > <snip>
> >But he isn't asking her to be kind, he's asking her to be 'wise'.
> In this line, that is the word he uses, yes. But in the next line we
> have 'do not press .. with disdain', and later 'pity-wanting'. I
> suppose it depends partly on whether we think 'cruel' means her state
> of mind or her actions - I support the actions.
Her actions are the consequence of her disposition. She's depicted as
by nature a heartless flirt. So I think he's saying: Be as shrewd as
you are callous: don't do x, or y may follow... I would take 'shrewd'
or 'politic' or 'prudent' as meanings of 'wise' here, but I still
don't see 'kind'.
<snip>
>
> >The 'Dark Lady' sonnets might be
> >nominally addressed to a woman, but surely the intended
> >audience/readership was male?
> Why? This had not occurred to me. At court, or around a leading
> nobleman, there would be a mixture, surely. I would see the first
> performance as being given in front of a mixed audience, and the
> readership of the publication much the same.
Don't Sonnets 135 and 136 seem to beg a masculine audience? Also, the
fact that the bulk of these sonnets are more about male friendship
than male/female love perhaps implies that female interests aren't
being equally catered for.
When I first read the sonnets I believed they were completely
autobiographical, virtually rhyming letters, addressed either to a
particular man and or a particular woman. Now I think they were poetic
fictions, but maybe with some basis in reality. I do think the male
addressee was real enough, although Shakespeare may have fictionalised
his relationship with him a little. After all, if poets like Daniel
and Drayton could, for literary purposes, feign to be 'in love' with
female patrons, I don't see why Shakespeare couldn't feign 'intimate
friendship' with some nobleman whose friend he perhaps could not truly
be.
I do feel the need to imagine some kind of regular semi-public
readings. The sheer number of sonnets Shakespeare wrote means he must
have produced them over a sustained period, and though each is
generally able to stand alone, often it seems as if one links on in
natural progression to another: as if Shakespeare were pursuing a
theme over several sonnets (e.g. 109 - 114). If there were predictable
or semi-regular occasions for which he knew he would need to produce
some six or so sonnets, that would explain this.
Still - yes, we are developing different theories about these
poetry-readings. You picture them as being court-based, and I as
being Inns-of-Court-based. I'm in thrall to the idea that irritates
Jim - of Shakespeare having connections with the intellectual/literary
circle that included John Donne, John Davies, Richard Martin,
Christopher Brooke etc. Or maybe I just hope that's what it was,
because any one of those men had more going on between his ears than
my lord of Southampton. But, taking Meres' comment seriously, men of
that rank might more properly be described as Shakespeare's 'private
friends': whereas I think a nobleman would be above such a
description.
I'm influenced too by tantalizing references to the so-called 'Mermaid
Club' and the emergence of that kind of group in general. I know
regular social gatherings of men with shared interests, like the
Society of Antiquaries, were developing then. But it's all nebulous
and hunch-based and I admit what you suggest is equally possible. If
it were a court-based group then yes, a mixed audience would be
likely.
<snip>
>
> >But it's all a pose, a game, a clever variation on the usual
> >masochistic crouching you get in sonnets. <snip>
> Would we bother with the sonnets if they were just a lot of
> masochistic crouching? <snip>
No I didn't mean Shakespeare's sonnets were masochistic crouching,
just that more pedestrian Elizabethan sonnets come across that way.
This seems like a refreshing take on that whole tired attitude.
Rita
KQKnave
sonnets, it's superiority to the sonnets of others is
plain. The words cruel, despair, disdain, heart, pain, sorrow
are in the vocabulary of most sonneteers of his time, but
they are not used with the originality and felicity of phrase
that Shakespeare is able to command. Two examples makes this
clear:
Barnes (1593)
SONNET 59
Ah me ! sweet beauty lost returns no more.
And how I fear mine heart fraught with disdain !
Despair of her disdain casts doubt before,
And makes me thus of mine heart's hope complain.
Ah me ! nor mine heart's hope, nor help. Despair !
Avoid my Fancy ! Fancy's utter bane !
My woes' chief worker ! Cause of all my care !
Avoid my thoughts ! that Hope may me restore
To mine heart's heaven, and happiness again !
Ah, wilt thou not ? but still depress my thought !
Ah, Mistress ! if thy beauty this hath wrought,
That proud disdainfulness shall in thee reign.
Yet think ! when in thy forehead wrinkles be,
Men will disdain thee then, as thou dost me.
Daniel 40 (1592)
Tears, vows, and prayers win the hardest heart:
Tears, vows, and prayers have I spent in vain;
Tears, cannot soften flint, nor vows convert,
Prayers prevail not with a quaint disdain.
I lose my tears, where I have lost my love,
I vow my faith, where faith is not regarded;
I pray in vain, a merciless to move:
So rare a faith ought better be rewarded.
Yet though I cannot win her will with tears,
Though my souls Idoll scornth all my vows;
Though all my prayers be to so deaf ears:
No favor though the cruel fair allows.
Yet will I weep, vow, pray to cruel she;
Flint, Frost, disdain, wears, melts, and yields we see.
Even Shakespeare's "eyes" and "ears" are put to better use
by him than by Barnes, for example:
Barnes SONNET 87
Burn on, sweet fire ! For I live by that fuel,
Whose smoke is as an incense to my soul !
Each sigh prolongs my smart. Be fierce and cruel,
My fair PARTHENOPHE ! Frown and control !
Vex ! torture ! scald ! disgrace me ! Do thy will !
Stop up thine ears ! with flint immure thine heart !
And kill me with thy looks, if they would kill !
Thine eyes, (those crystal phials which impart
The perfect balm to my dead-wounded breast !)
Thine eyes, the quivers whence those darts were drawn
Which me to thy love's bondage have addresst.
Thy smile, and frown ! night star, and daylight's dawn !
Burn on ! Frown on ! Vex ! Stop thine ears ! Torment me !
More, for thy beauty borne, would not repent me.
Apart from vocabulary, some similar ideas are expressed in
Spenser's sonnet 43:
SONNET. XLIII.
SHALL I then silent be or shall I speak?
And if I speak, her wrath renew I shall:
and if I silent be, my heart will break,
or choked be with overflowing gall.
What tyranny is this both my heart to thrall,
and eke my tongue with proud restraint to tie?
that neither I may speak nor think at all,
but like a stupid stock in silence die.
Yet I my heart with silence secretly
will teach to speak, and my just cause to plead:
and eke mine eyes with meek humility,
love-learned letters to her eyes to read.
Which her deep wit, that true hearts thought can spell,
will soon conceive, and learn to construe well.
Shakespeare 140:
BE wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;-
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;-
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
See my demolition of Monsarrat's RES paper!
http://hometown.aol.com/kqknave/monsarr1.html
The Droeshout portrait is not unusual at all!
http://hometown.aol.com/kqknave/shakenbake.html
Agent Jim
KQKnave
Although this sonnet is not one of the great Shakespearean
sonnets, its superiority to the sonnets of others is
plain. The words cruel, despair, disdain, heart, pain, sorrow
are in the vocabulary of most sonneteers of his time, but
they are not used with the originality and felicity of phrase
that Shakespeare is able to command. Two examples make this
clear:
Barnes (1593)
SONNET 59
Daniel 40 (1592)
Though my souls Idoll scorneth all my vows;
Robert Stonehouse
>ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote in message news:<3e67009a...@news.cityscape.co.uk>...
>> >But he isn't asking her to be kind, he's asking her to be 'wise'.
>
>> In this line, that is the word he uses, yes. But in the next line we
>> have 'do not press .. with disdain', and later 'pity-wanting'. I
>> suppose it depends partly on whether we think 'cruel' means her state
>> of mind or her actions - I support the actions.
>
>Her actions are the consequence of her disposition. She's depicted as
>by nature a heartless flirt. So I think he's saying: Be as shrewd as
>you are callous: don't do x, or y may follow... I would take 'shrewd'
>or 'politic' or 'prudent' as meanings of 'wise' here, but I still
>don't see 'kind'.
Yes, I can see the disposition. He is still asking her to act kindly,
but it does not necessarily mean she is also acting cruelly. That
seems to solve my problem.
><snip>
>> >The 'Dark Lady' sonnets might be
>> >nominally addressed to a woman, but surely the intended
>> >audience/readership was male?
>
>> Why? This had not occurred to me. At court, or around a leading
>> nobleman, there would be a mixture, surely. I would see the first
>> performance as being given in front of a mixed audience, and the
>> readership of the publication much the same.
>
>Don't Sonnets 135 and 136 seem to beg a masculine audience?
Those two in particular seem to me to be meant for the addressee? 140
looks like subjective meditation, while 135-136 are social raillery?
>Also, the
>fact that the bulk of these sonnets are more about male friendship
>than male/female love perhaps implies that female interests aren't
>being equally catered for.
I agree it needs explaining, but I explain it rather by the
circumstances of patronage and dedication. Perhaps that is a more
superficial level of 'catering for', but (for the moment - these
things are not constant!) I would see the deep purpose of the poems as
being to say what they say, and any element of 'catering for' as being
superficial anyway.
>
>When I first read the sonnets I believed they were completely
>autobiographical, virtually rhyming letters, addressed either to a
>particular man and or a particular woman. Now I think they were poetic
>fictions, but maybe with some basis in reality. I do think the male
>addressee was real enough, although Shakespeare may have fictionalised
>his relationship with him a little. After all, if poets like Daniel
>and Drayton could, for literary purposes, feign to be 'in love' with
>female patrons, I don't see why Shakespeare couldn't feign 'intimate
>friendship' with some nobleman whose friend he perhaps could not truly
>be.
I go with that. But every time I think I have got it, some sonnet
comes up to overturn it. It may be necessary to say, in the end, that
some sonnets are different from others.
>
>I do feel the need to imagine some kind of regular semi-public
>readings. The sheer number of sonnets Shakespeare wrote means he must
>have produced them over a sustained period, and though each is
>generally able to stand alone, often it seems as if one links on in
>natural progression to another: as if Shakespeare were pursuing a
>theme over several sonnets (e.g. 109 - 114). If there were predictable
>or semi-regular occasions for which he knew he would need to produce
>some six or so sonnets, that would explain this.
Most obviously 1-17, I think.They all, or nearly all, have theatrical
openings. The idea that Shakespeare did them all during the
celebrations of someone's 17th birthday is definitely attractive.
>
>Still - yes, we are developing different theories about these
>poetry-readings. You picture them as being court-based, and I as
>being Inns-of-Court-based. I'm in thrall to the idea that irritates
>Jim - of Shakespeare having connections with the intellectual/literary
>circle that included John Donne, John Davies, Richard Martin,
>Christopher Brooke etc. Or maybe I just hope that's what it was,
>because any one of those men had more going on between his ears than
>my lord of Southampton. But, taking Meres' comment seriously, men of
>that rank might more properly be described as Shakespeare's 'private
>friends': whereas I think a nobleman would be above such a
>description.
I picture 1-125 as based at the house of some young nobleman (yes, I
do think it must be Southampton) who has a circle amounting to a
miniature court of his own. He is a patron of many arts: painting
(sonnet 16) music (sonnet 8) astronomy (14) horology (12) scent-making
(5) as well as literature. The thing about his poet is how little he
depends on other poets - this poet is his own man to an extent unique
(I would guess) at the time.
>
>I'm influenced too by tantalizing references to the so-called 'Mermaid
>Club' and the emergence of that kind of group in general. I know
>regular social gatherings of men with shared interests, like the
>Society of Antiquaries, were developing then. But it's all nebulous
>and hunch-based and I admit what you suggest is equally possible. If
>it were a court-based group then yes, a mixed audience would be
>likely.
The Shorter Oxford dates this use of 'club' to 1670. I thought Aubrey
took it back earlier, but not to Shakespeare's time. Indeed he has
Shakespeare down as an 'unclubable' man, "he was not a company
keeper". He might even find other poets irritating company? That
fellow Jonson, roaring about trivial pedantries? Dry Drayton, feeble
Fletcher, convoluted Donne? though Donne would probably be above such
company.
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>
>I picture 1-125 as based at the house of some young nobleman (yes, I
>do think it must be Southampton) who has a circle amounting to a
>miniature court of his own. He is a patron of many arts: painting
>(sonnet 16) music (sonnet 8) astronomy (14) horology (12) scent-making
>(5) as well as literature.
I can't believe I'm still seeing these things repeated at this late date
in our study of the sonnets. Please explain to me how Shakespeare's
sonnet 16 shows that the beloved is a patron of painting. You can't
seem to divorce yourself from the same fallacy that confuses biographers of
Shakespeare. They can't seem to understand that if a particular topic
is brought up in Shakespeare, either Shakespeare must have been
a practitioner of that topic or the person he is (fictionally) describing
must have been. The use of painting and drawing in the sonnets is
just a conceit, like the use of legal terms, and is found in just about
every major sonnet sequence in one form or another, and originates
in the sonnets of Sidney, whose sonnets were written before he died in
1586.
>The thing about his poet is how little he
>depends on other poets - this poet is his own man to an extent unique
>(I would guess) at the time.
[sigh...] How many times are we going to have to show that Shakespeare
borrowed liberally from just about any source at hand? Would he have
written Venus and Adonis had not Marlowe's Hero and Leander and
Lodge's Scylla's Metamorphoses come first? Portions of Holinshed
copied nearly verbatim for use in H5? Shakespeare "depends" on other
poets quite heavily, in the sense that he borrows conceits and ideas.
He has his own superior style in expressing those ideas.
I am going to provide examples for all of those quoted by Stonehouse
above, but this post will cover only Shakespeare's sonnet 16:
Shakespeare 16
But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
To give away your self, keeps your self still,
And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.
Daniel, in 1592, expressed a nearly identical sentiment:
Sonnet XXXIIII.
VVhen Winter snows upon thy golden hairs,
And frost of age hath nipped thy flowers near:
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withred that was held so deer.
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a Pencil not all unworthy:
Here see the gifts that God and nature lent thee;
Here read thy selfe, and what I suffered for thee,
This may remain thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterity may cherish:
These colours with thy fading are not spent;
These may remain, when thou and I shall perish.
If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby;
They will remaie, and so thou canst not die.
And notice how Spenser, in the following sonnet,
like Shakespeare, uses the words pen, pencil and skill,
and like Shakespeare, says that no painting or drawing can
capture the reality of the subject:
Spenser SONNET. XVII.
THE glorious portrait of that Angels face,
Made to amaze weak mens confused skill:
and this worlds worthless glory to embase,
what pen, what pencil can expresse her fill?
For though he colours could devize at will,
and eke his learned hand at pleasure guide:
least trembling it his workmanship should spill,
yet many wondrous things there are beside.
The sweet eye-glances, that like arrows glide,
the charming smiles, that rob sense from the heart:
the lovely pleasance and the lofty pride
cannot expressed be by any art.
A greater craftsman's hand thereto doth need,
that can express the life of things indeed.
(See also Spenser's other sonnet relating his lady's
skill at drawing, below)
Other sonneteers like Barnes played with the painting/drawing
conceit as well:
Barnes MADRIGAL 4 (1593)
There, had my ZEUXIS place and time, to draw
My Mistress' portrait; which on platane table,
(With Nature matching colours), as he saw
Her leaning on her elbow; though not able,
He 'gan with vermil, gold, white, and sable
To shadow forth; and with a skilful knuckle
Lively set out my fortunes' fable.
On lips, a rose; on hand, a honeysuckle.
For Nature framed that arbour in such orders
That roses did with woodbines buckle;
Whose shadow trembling on her lovely face
He left unshadowed. There Art lost his grace!
And that white lily leaf, with fringèd borders
Of angels' gold, veiled the skies
Of mine heaven's hierarchy, which closed her eyes.
Barnes SONNET 14
Then him controlling, that he left undone,
Her eyes' bright circle thus did answer make:
"Rest's mist, with silver cloud, had closed her sun,
Nor could he draw them till she were awake."
"Why then," quoth I, "were not those leaves' dark shade
Upon her cheeks depainted as you see them?"
"Shape of a shadow cannot well be made!"
Was answered "for shade's shadows, none can eye them!"
This reason proves sure argument for me
That my grief's image I can not set out;
Which might with lively colours blazèd be.
Wherefore since nought can bring the means about,
That thou, my sorrow's cause, should view throughout;
Thou wilt not pity me! But this was it!
ZEUXIS had neither skill nor colours fit.
Giles Fletcher's beloved is also involved with painting,
it appears:
Fletcher SONNET VI. (1593)
My love amazed did blush herself to see,
Pictured by Art, all naked as she was.
"How could the Painter know so much by me,
Or Art effect what he hath brought to pass?
It is not like he naked me hath seen,
Or stood so nigh for to observe so much."
No, Sweet; his eyes so near have never been,
Nor could his hands by Art have cunning such;
I showed my heart, wherein you printed were,
You, naked you, as here you painted are;
In that, my Love, your picture I must wear,
And show't to all, unless you have more care.
Then take my heart, and place it with your own;
So shall you naked never more be known.
And Fletcher in his Sonnet 30 combines painting and
flowers, as does Shakespeare, and his beloved is also
learned as well:
Fletcher SONNET 30 (1593)
I do compare unto thy youthly clear,
Which always bides within thy flow'ring prime,
The month of April, that bedews our clime
With pleasant flowers, when as his showers appear.
Before thy face shall fly false cruelty,
Before his face the doly season fleets;
Mild been his looks, thine eyes are full of sweets;
Firm is his course, firm is thy loyalty.
He paints the fields through liquid crystal showers,
Thou paint'st my verse with Pallas' learnèd flowers;
With Zephirus' sweet breath he fills the plains,
And thou my heart with weeping sighs dost wring;
His brows are dewed with morning's crystal spring,
Thou mak'st my eyes with tears bemoan my pain.
Strange coincidence that Spenser also has a lady friend who draws:
Spenser SONNET. LXXI.
I joy to see how in your drawen work,
Your self unto the Bee ye do compare;
and me unto the Spider that doth lurk,
in close await to catch her unaware.
Right so your self were caught in cunning snare
of a dear foe, and thralled to his love:
in whose straight bands ye now captived are
so firmely, that ye never may remove.
But as your work is woven all above,
with woodbind flowers and fragrant Eglantine:
so sweet your prison you in time shall prove,
with many dear delights bedecked fine.
And all thenceforth eternal peace shall see
between the Spider and the gentle Bee.
Sidney's use of painting is more along the metaphorical
lines of Shakespeare and Daniel. Since Sidney's sonnets
came first (written before 1586, pub. 1591 and again in
1598), his sonnets were really the model for others to
follow. Notice how the word "painted" in
line 2 leads to "drawn" in line 9. Are we to suppose
that Stella was somehow involved in painting or drawing,
or that she was a "patron" of these arts?
Sidney XLV
Stella oft sees the very face of woe
Painted in my beclouded stormy face,
But cannot skill to pity my disgrace,
Not though thereof the cause herself she know:
Yet, hearing late a fable which did show
Of lovers never known, a grievous case,
Pity thereof gate in her breast such place,
That, from that sea deriv'd, tear's spring did flow.
Alas, if Fancie, drawn by imag'd things
Though false, yet with free scope, more grace doth breed
Than servants wrack, where new doubts honour brings;
Then think, my dear, that you in me do read
Of lovers ruin some thrice-sad tragedy.
I am not I: pity the tale of me.
Later, in one of the songs included in Sidney's sequence,
music and drawing are combined in a discussion of the face:
For Beautie beautifies
With heau'nly hue and grace
The heau'nly harmonies;
And in this faultless face
The perfect beauties be
A perfect harmony.
Music more loftly swells
In speeches nobly plac'd;
Beauty as far excells,
In action aptly grac'd:
A friend each party draws
To countenance his cause.
And Sidney again combines painting and music in Sonnet 70:
LXX
My Muse may well grudge at my heau'nly joy,
If still I force her in sad rhymes to creep:
She oft hath drunk my tears, now hopes to enjoy
Nectar of mirth, since I Ioves cup do keep.
Sonnets be not bound Prentice to annoy;
Trebles sing high, so well as bases deep;
Grief but Loves winter-liverie is; the boy
Hath cheeks to smile, so well as eyes to weep.
Come then, my Muse, shew thou height of delight
In well-raised notes; my pen, the best it may,
Shall paint out joy, though in but black and white.
Cease, eager Muse; peace, pen, for my sake stay,
I giue you here my hand for truth of this,
Wise silence is best music vnto bliss.
Again, from these metaphorical uses of the words are we to
assume that the beloved was a musician or made drawings?
Or are they simply the typical conceits of the sonneteers?
Nigel Davies
news:20030309134904...@mb-ft.aol.com...
> In article <3e6b03a7...@news.cityscape.co.uk>, ew...@bcs.org.uk
(Robert
> Stonehouse) writes:
>
> >
> >I picture 1-125 as based at the house of some young nobleman (yes, I
> >do think it must be Southampton) who has a circle amounting to a
> >miniature court of his own. He is a patron of many arts: painting
> >(sonnet 16) music (sonnet 8) astronomy (14) horology (12) scent-making
> >(5) as well as literature.
>
> I can't believe I'm still seeing these things repeated at this late date
> in our study of the sonnets. Please explain to me how Shakespeare's
> sonnet 16 shows that the beloved is a patron of painting. You can't
> seem to divorce yourself from the same fallacy that confuses biographers
of
> Shakespeare. They can't seem to understand that if a particular topic
> is brought up in Shakespeare, either Shakespeare must have been
> a practitioner of that topic or the person he is (fictionally) describing
> must have been. The use of painting and drawing in the sonnets is
> just a conceit, like the use of legal terms, and is found in just about
> every major sonnet sequence in one form or another, and originates
> in the sonnets of Sidney, whose sonnets were written before he died in
> 1586.
I think you've partly answered your own query here.
Shakespeare didn't uniquely "borrow liberally from just about any source at
hand" - it is natural for any artist to be inspired by and gain content
matter from his peers and predecessors so it is common to find like subject
matter in all artists' works. When Michelangelo painted the "Creation of
Adam" in the Sistine Chapel he inspired Titian's painting of Bacchus in
"Bacchus and Ariadne" who in turn inspired Rubens "Judgement of Paris" and
Poussin's "Cephalus and Aurora". The arts are rife with inspiration like
this, it is not a practice confined to only a few, or even one.
In Shakespeare's subject matter it is surely highly likely that the message
would have meaning to their addressee and not be merely conceits, whether
the author is talking about the tables he gave away or paintings. Especially
the first 17 that are clearly a coherent set with a single addressee (I
hardly think that there were potentially 17 young men who were separately
and simultaneously being encouraged to father children). As there is a
consistent thread of fathering through these 17 sonnets the other subjects
of horology, painting, music must have had some significance to their
addressee or their presentation. I am convinced that their presentation
influenced their content matter as a means of conveying the central theme of
siring children, however it is unreasonable to expect that if the addressee
were a patron of the arts that these art-orientated subjects would be lost
on him.
If there was a sonnet about trout-fishing and the addressee had no interest
in trout-fishing then it would be hardly well received, but writing sonnets
to someone who was a patron of the arts about subject matter of artistic and
intellectual interest of the time is entirely to be expected. I cannot
believe that all the sonnets that contain references to music, astronomy,
painting, et al are merely conceits that everyone happened to be turning
out. During the English Renaissance, with addressees eager to be seen to be
patrons, they are clearly going to be practitioners and/or appreciators of
these arts themselves.
________________________________________________________________________
NigelDav...@Virgin.net
KQKnave
<NigelDav...@Virgin.net> writes:
I think you need to think a little more about how your first paragraph
contradicts
your second paragraph.
>Especially
>the first 17 that are clearly a coherent set with a single addressee (I
>hardly think that there were potentially 17 young men who were separately
>and simultaneously being encouraged to father children).
I hardly think that there was a young man whose interests coincidentally
coincided with the conceits of just about every sonnet sequence, including
those written in French fifty years earlier.
>As there is a
>consistent thread of fathering through these 17 sonnets the other subjects
>of horology, painting, music must have had some significance to their
>addressee or their presentation. I am convinced that their presentation
>influenced their content matter as a means of conveying the central theme of
>siring children, however it is unreasonable to expect that if the addressee
>were a patron of the arts that these art-orientated subjects would be lost
>on him.
I am convinced that Shakespeare simply emphasized another idea
that other sonneteers such as Daniel used, who also urged their beloved
to procreate to pass on their beauty. I'm not going to get into the issue
of whether or not the subjects in question are actually there. For example,
Stonehouse seems to believe that astronomy was one of the subjects
involved, but in fact it was astrology. Music is present in so many sonnets
that it won't be possible to cover them all in one post.
>If there was a sonnet about trout-fishing and the addressee had no interest
>in trout-fishing then it would be hardly well received,
That's nonsense, unless the adressee was an idiot. Think about it.
Wouldn't any intelligent person love to see a clever sonnet written
with the language of say, tin mining? Isn't that the whole point
of a conceit in the first place?
>but writing sonnets
>to someone who was a patron of the arts about subject matter of artistic and
>intellectual interest of the time is entirely to be expected. I cannot
>believe that all the sonnets that contain references to music, astronomy,
>painting, et al are merely conceits that everyone happened to be turning
>out.
But they *were* turned out by every practitioner of the sonnet form, most
of which were addressed to women who were unlikely to be interested
in, for example, horology. But is horology really present in sonnet 12,
as Stonehouse suggests? Just because Shakespeare mentions the
word "clock" in a sonnet numbered 12? Or is it just a clever pun?
>During the English Renaissance, with addressees eager to be seen to be
>patrons, they are clearly going to be practitioners and/or appreciators of
>these arts themselves.
I would say that any educated person would be familiar with the basic
vocabulary of those arts. Please find for me some art mentioned in the
sonnets that is unique to those sonnets only. Most of the addressees
of sonnets were women, not likely in those days to be practitioners
of anything.
Rita
> In article <3e6b03a7...@news.cityscape.co.uk>, ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert
> Stonehouse) writes:
>
> >
> >I picture 1-125 as based at the house of some young nobleman (yes, I
> >do think it must be Southampton) who has a circle amounting to a
> >miniature court of his own. He is a patron of many arts: painting
> >(sonnet 16) music (sonnet 8) astronomy (14) horology (12) scent-making
> >(5) as well as literature.
>
> I can't believe I'm still seeing these things repeated at this late date
> in our study of the sonnets. Please explain to me how Shakespeare's
> The use of painting and drawing in the sonnets is
> just a conceit, like the use of legal terms, and is found in just about
> every major sonnet sequence in one form or another, and originates
> in the sonnets of Sidney, whose sonnets were written before he died in
> 1586.
Congratulations Jim - a really interesting spread of sonnets.
So - the question we have to decide is, did sonneteers choose at
random from the same common stock of poetic conceits? Or did they
sometimes tailor their choices to suit their intended audience?
If the former is true, we can't tell anything about the supposed
addressee(s) of the Shakespeare cycle.
If the latter is true, we can build up a profile of the addressee(s)
of the sonnets and deduce some of his/her interests.
But there's another question to consider first, which is whether the
addressees of Elizabethan sonnet cycles were real people, or not.
Unfortunately the answer appears to be 'both'. Some sonnet cycles were
based on lightly-fictionalized but essentially real relationships
(Spenser/ Elizabeth Boyle): some were conventionally-stylized versions
of the relationship between poet and patroness (Drayton /Ann Goodere):
and probably some were pure fiction from start to finish.
You've shown convincingly that many different contemporary poets used
conceits based on the same subjects, be it law, painting, music or
whatever. You therefore propose (I think) that the choice of conceit
was always a kind of pot luck. The poet picked whichever conceit
appealed to him, or was fashionable, or gave him the best opportunity
to show off his skills: but the choice was his. It wasn't determined
by the addressee.
My position (and I think Robert's and Nigel's) is that the choice of
conceit is very likely to reflect the tastes/interests of the
addressee where, of course, the addressee is real.
I actually think the Spenser sonnet you quoted illustrates this. He
published his sonnets shortly after marrying Elizabeth Boyle. In this
one she's shown as engaged in 'drawn work', creating the image of a
spider and a bee, and Spenser uses this to kick off a conceit of
himself as hunter/wooer and her as prey/wooed. You call this a stock
'painting' conceit, but surely it's not? Surely this 'drawn work'
she's doing isn't painting, but embroidery? And while I don't actually
know if Elizabeth Boyle was a whiz with her needle she probably
wouldn't mind if people thought so, which - I think - may partly be
what prompted Spenser to choose this particular conceit. It showed
his lady in a very flattering light, undertaking a genteel,
high-status activity. It reflects, if not her real talents and
behaviour, the sort of persona she and Spenser wanted the reading
public to see. I don't think this is a conceit Shakespeare would ever
have chosen for his male friend, because embroidery has never been
considered a worthy pursuit for men. So, to some extent, the tastes
and perhaps self-image of the real Elizabeth Boyle have predisposed
Spenser to choose that conceit.
You're right that no single conceit should, on its own, be seized on
as a biographical clue, especially if it's of a type that most other
sonneteers employ. But the repeated use for example of legal conceits
certainly suggests to me that the main intended audience of these
sonnets was someone familiar with legal terms. Otherwise he wouldn't
have welcomed yet another poem playing on them. (Donne says in his
Satires that he pities girls who have to listen to horrendous 'legal'
sonnets.)
Rita
> Spenser SONNET. LXXI.
>
> I joy to see how in your drawen work,
> Your self unto the Bee ye do compare;
> and me unto the Spider that doth lurk,
> in close await to catch her unaware.
> Right so your self were caught in cunning snare
> of a dear foe, and thralled to his love:
> in whose straight bands ye now captived are
> so firmely, that ye never may remove.
> But as your work is woven all above,
> with woodbind flowers and fragrant Eglantine:
> so sweet your prison you in time shall prove,
> with many dear delights bedecked fine.
> And all thenceforth eternal peace shall see
> between the Spider and the gentle Bee.
<snip>
KQKnave
nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>
>My position (and I think Robert's and Nigel's) is that the choice of
>conceit is very likely to reflect the tastes/interests of the
>addressee where, of course, the addressee is real.
>
>I actually think the Spenser sonnet you quoted illustrates this. He
>published his sonnets shortly after marrying Elizabeth Boyle. In this
>one she's shown as engaged in 'drawn work', creating the image of a
>spider and a bee, and Spenser uses this to kick off a conceit of
>himself as hunter/wooer and her as prey/wooed. You call this a stock
>'painting' conceit, but surely it's not? Surely this 'drawn work'
>she's doing isn't painting, but embroidery?
Yes, that word concerns embroidery, my mistake for not
reading it closely enough. Spenser's sonnet 17 is enough
for the drawing/painting example in his sequence.
>And while I don't actually
>know if Elizabeth Boyle was a whiz with her needle she probably
>wouldn't mind if people thought so, which - I think - may partly be
>what prompted Spenser to choose this particular conceit. It showed
>his lady in a very flattering light, undertaking a genteel,
>high-status activity. It reflects, if not her real talents and
>behaviour, the sort of persona she and Spenser wanted the reading
>public to see. I don't think this is a conceit Shakespeare would ever
>have chosen for his male friend, because embroidery has never been
>considered a worthy pursuit for men.
But making perfume is?
>So, to some extent, the tastes
>and perhaps self-image of the real Elizabeth Boyle have predisposed
>Spenser to choose that conceit.
>
>You're right that no single conceit should, on its own, be seized on
>as a biographical clue, especially if it's of a type that most other
>sonneteers employ. But the repeated use for example of legal conceits
>certainly suggests to me that the main intended audience of these
>sonnets was someone familiar with legal terms.
I don't think so. I think the intended audience is any educated person
who can read. You are not going to make any money selling books
of sonnets to just lawyers.
>Otherwise he wouldn't
>have welcomed yet another poem playing on them. (Donne says in his
>Satires that he pities girls who have to listen to horrendous 'legal'
>sonnets.)
I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense. I know next to nothing
about painting, astrology and perfumery but I can still appreciate the
sonnets which use those metaphors. Think about the "drawen" sonnet
that Spenser has written. What makes it different from Shakespeare's
sonnets that Stonehouse claims show the talents of the subject? In
the first place, the sequence was written to a real woman, and in
the second place, she is depicted as *doing* that particular activity.
It's thus much more reasonable (though still not neccessary) to assume
that she embroidered in real life. Otherwise we will have to assume that
she must have been interested in the science of war as well:
SONNET. XI.
Daily when I do seek and sue for peace,
And hostages do offer for my truth:
she cruel warriour doth her self address,
to battle, and the weary war renew'th.
Ne wilbe moov'd with reason or with ruth,
to grant small respite to my restless toil:
but greedily her fell intent pursew'th,
Of my poor life to make unpitied spoil.
Yet my poor life, all sorrows to assoyle,
I would her yield, her wrath to pacify:
but then she seeks with torment and turmoil,
to force me live and will not let me die.
All pain hath end and every war hath peace,
but mine no price nor prayer may surcease.
This war theme moreover appears in many of Spenser's
sonnets (11, 12, 14, 52, 57 are just some), so
she must have been very interested in the science
of war.
...and blacksmithing:
Sonnet. XXXII.
The painful smith with force of fervent heat,
the hardest iron soon doth mollify:
that with his heauy sledge he can it beat,
and fashion to what he it list apply.
Yet cannot all these flames in which I fry,
her heart more hard then iron soft awhit;
ne all the plaints and prayers with which I
do beat on th' anvil of her stubborn wit:
But still the more she fervent sees my fit:
the more she freezeth in her wilfull pride:
and harder grows the harder she is smit,
with all the plaints which to her be applied.
What then remains but I to ashes burn,
and she to stones at length all frozen turn?
...and medicine:
SONNET. L.
Long languishing in double malady,
of my hearts wound and of my bodies grief:
there came to me a leech that would apply
fit medicines for my bodies best relief
Vain man (quod I) that hast but little priefe:
in deep discovery of the minds disease,
is not the heart of all the body chief?
and rules the members as it self doth please.
Then with some cordials seek first to appease,
the inward languour of my wounded heart,
and then my body shall have shortly ease:
but such sweet cordials pass Physician's art.
Then my life's Leech do you your skill reveale,
and with one salve both heart and body heal.
...and astronomy:
SONNET. LX.
They, that in course of heavenly sphears are skilled,
To every planet point his sundry year:
in which her circles voyage is fulfilled,
as Mars in three score years doth run his sphear
So since the winged God his planet clear,
began in me to move, one year is spent:
the which doth longer unto me appear,
then all those forty which my life outwent.
Then by that count, which lovers books invent,
the sphear of Cupid forty years contains:
which I have wasted in long languishment,
that seemd the longer for my greater pains.
But let me love's fair Planet short her ways
this year ensuing, or else short my days.
...and hunting:
SONNET. LXVII.
Like as a huntsman after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escaped away:
sits down to rest him in some shady place,
with panting hounds beguiled of their prey.
So after long pursuit and vain assay,
when I all weary had the chase forsook,
the gentle deer returned the self-same way,
thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.
There she beholding me with milder look,
sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide:
till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
and with her own goodwill her firmly tied.
Strange thing me seemed to see a beast so wild,
so goodly won with her own will beguiled.
...and birdwatching:
SONNET. LXXXIX.
Like as the Culver on the bared bough,
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate;
and in her songs sends many a wishfull vow,
for his return that seemes to linger late.
So I alone now left disconsolate,
mourn to my self the absence of my love:
and wandring here and there all desolate,
seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove.
Ne joy of ought that under heauen doth hove,
can comfort me, but her owne joyous sight:
whose sweet aspect both God and man can move,
in her unspotted pleasance to delight.
Dark is my day, whiles her fair light I miss,
and dead my life that wants such lively bliss.
Remarkable woman.
Nigel Davies
> >I think you've partly answered your own query here.
> >
> >Shakespeare didn't uniquely "borrow liberally from just about any source
at
> >hand" - it is natural for any artist to be inspired by and gain content
> >matter from his peers and predecessors so it is common to find like
subject
> >matter in all artists' works. When Michelangelo painted the "Creation of
> >Adam" in the Sistine Chapel he inspired Titian's painting of Bacchus in
> >"Bacchus and Ariadne" who in turn inspired Rubens "Judgement of Paris"
and
> >Poussin's "Cephalus and Aurora". The arts are rife with inspiration like
> >this, it is not a practice confined to only a few, or even one.
> >
> >In Shakespeare's subject matter it is surely highly likely that the
message
> >would have meaning to their addressee and not be merely conceits, whether
> >the author is talking about the tables he gave away or paintings.
>
> I think you need to think a little more about how your first paragraph
> contradicts
> your second paragraph.
No. My first paragraph is contesting your apparent suggestion that
Shakespeare almost uniquely plagiarised his content from others. I was
pointing out that it is a commonplace in the arts for artists to be inspired
and influenced by others although there is considerable originality in the
sonnets that you will find nowhere else and is one of the reasons for their
lasting appeal and longevity. Can you name any other sequence of sonnets to
compare to the 1-17 series, the self-punning 135, the lust-riddled 129?
My second paragraph was explaining the fact that patrons financed and
encouraged the arts during these periods. The Italian Renaissance is flooded
with religious paintings not necessarily due to any piety of the artist but
because a principal patron was the church. The new world was being
discovered, world trade was expanding, Galileo was reversing erroneous
conventional thinking on the solar system, the Italian Renaissance had
massively advanced what could be achieved in painting, etc. All these
factors would find representation in the arts and by patrons who were active
in these fields and/or wanted to be seen to be appreciative of the arts,
either genuinely or pretensiously.
> >Especially
> >the first 17 that are clearly a coherent set with a single addressee (I
> >hardly think that there were potentially 17 young men who were separately
> >and simultaneously being encouraged to father children).
>
> I hardly think that there was a young man whose interests coincidentally
> coincided with the conceits of just about every sonnet sequence, including
> those written in French fifty years earlier.
"just about every sonnet sequence"?
> >As there is a
> >consistent thread of fathering through these 17 sonnets the other
subjects
> >of horology, painting, music must have had some significance to their
> >addressee or their presentation. I am convinced that their presentation
> >influenced their content matter as a means of conveying the central theme
of
> >siring children, however it is unreasonable to expect that if the
addressee
> >were a patron of the arts that these art-orientated subjects would be
lost
> >on him.
>
> I am convinced that Shakespeare simply emphasized another idea
> that other sonneteers such as Daniel used, who also urged their beloved
> to procreate to pass on their beauty. I'm not going to get into the issue
> of whether or not the subjects in question are actually there. For
example,
> Stonehouse seems to believe that astronomy was one of the subjects
> involved, but in fact it was astrology. Music is present in so many
sonnets
> that it won't be possible to cover them all in one post.
Of course, Shakespeare was in competition with others, hence the Rival Poet
series; he parodied others with ease to belittle them and show off his wn
talents; he reworked Petrarch and Horace; he wrote series of sonnets like
Sidney and Wroth; he also wrote highly original sonnets that have no equal.
I would not call 1-17 merely "emphasising" what Daniel did. It's a landmark
series of sonnets by any standards. I also think his mere 2 music sonnets
are the better of how ever many you want to wheel out. Quality beats
quantity any time.
>
> >If there was a sonnet about trout-fishing and the addressee had no
interest
> >in trout-fishing then it would be hardly well received,
>
> That's nonsense, unless the adressee was an idiot. Think about it.
> Wouldn't any intelligent person love to see a clever sonnet written
> with the language of say, tin mining? Isn't that the whole point
> of a conceit in the first place?
I'm not sure you're serious here but if you are I maintain that if you wrote
me a sonnet on rat-catching and I had no interest in rat-catching it would
be a fair waste of each other's time. If I were an Elizabethan patron of the
arts, mixed in a circle of pretentious or serious intellectuals and was
interested in Galileo's ground-breaking astrological theories and you wrote
me a sonnet on astrology I'd be most pleased.
>
> >but writing sonnets
> >to someone who was a patron of the arts about subject matter of artistic
and
> >intellectual interest of the time is entirely to be expected. I cannot
> >believe that all the sonnets that contain references to music, astronomy,
> >painting, et al are merely conceits that everyone happened to be turning
> >out.
>
> But they *were* turned out by every practitioner of the sonnet form, most
> of which were addressed to women who were unlikely to be interested
> in, for example, horology. But is horology really present in sonnet 12,
> as Stonehouse suggests? Just because Shakespeare mentions the
> word "clock" in a sonnet numbered 12? Or is it just a clever pun?
I think its presentation by reference to a clock augmented its relevance. I
think there's nothing challenging expecting the addressee to have benefited
from an extensive education, perhaps the Grand Tour, to mix in competitively
intellectual social circles, and have a stately home replete with all sorts
of works of art that were consistent with these sonnets' content matter.
>
> >During the English Renaissance, with addressees eager to be seen to be
> >patrons, they are clearly going to be practitioners and/or appreciators
of
> >these arts themselves.
>
> I would say that any educated person would be familiar with the basic
> vocabulary of those arts. Please find for me some art mentioned in the
> sonnets that is unique to those sonnets only. Most of the addressees
> of sonnets were women, not likely in those days to be practitioners
> of anything.
If the addressee was Wriothesley then we know that he was a patron of
letters, was educated at Cambridge and gained favour at the court of Queen
Elizabeth I. He was a generous patron of several writers such as Barnabe
Barnes, Thomas Nash, and John Florio. He accompanied Essex on military and
naval expeditions and was interested in colonial explorations and was a
member of the Virginia Company and of the British East India Company. He was
a privy councillor. Whatever anyone else's basic vocabulary of the arts was
he was a clearly active do-er type of person and was active in financing the
arts and the sonnets are entirely compatible with him being the
addressee...and no mention of trout-fishing.
Rita
<snip - absolutely massive snip>
> letters, was educated at Cambridge and gained favour at the court of Queen
> Elizabeth I. He was a generous patron of several writers such as Barnabe
> Barnes, Thomas Nash, and John Florio. He accompanied Essex on military and
> naval expeditions and was interested in colonial explorations and was a
> member of the Virginia Company and of the British East India Company. He was
> a privy councillor. Whatever anyone else's basic vocabulary of the arts was
> he was a clearly active do-er type of person and was active in financing the
> arts and the sonnets are entirely compatible with him being the
> addressee...and no mention of trout-fishing.
I would agree with all the above, only with two exceptions. First,
there is no evidence Southampton was a patron of Nashe, whereas there
is evidence to the contrary: and second, Southampton was above all
keen on the military. So why are there no sonnets referring to
military matters, other than the 'painful warrior famoused for fight'
one? Shakespeare included lots of military men in his plays, and he
evidently knew the jargon. The difficulty can't have been in him. Can
you think of anything that would have pleased young Southampton more
than a reference to his prowess in the tiltyard and future glory on
the field? Honestly Nigel, this is the dog that doesn't bark.
Rita
Rita
Be fair - Sonnet 5 has a reference to distillation but doesn't imply
the young man himself does it, whereas in the Spenser sonnet we're
clearly told Elizabeth is responsible for the embroidery. Not every
reference to every activity can imply the addressee is a practitioner;
but it may suggest he has a knowledge or interest in it. Especially
if it occurs more than once.
<snip>
> >
> >You're right that no single conceit should, on its own, be seized on
> >as a biographical clue, especially if it's of a type that most other
> >sonneteers employ. But the repeated use for example of legal conceits
> >certainly suggests to me that the main intended audience of these
> >sonnets was someone familiar with legal terms.
>
> I don't think so. I think the intended audience is any educated person
> who can read. You are not going to make any money selling books
> of sonnets to just lawyers.
Ah, now that's a whole nother problem: in what circumstances, and with
what end in mind, did Shakespeare create his sonnet sequence. Your
comment above seems to imply he began writing them with the ultimate
aim of publishing for money. Is that your opinion? It isn't mine.
If he wrote them with the intention of making money out of a popular
form of poetry, why did he address them to a man - not an obvious
selling point - and why did he publish so late?
>
> >Otherwise he wouldn't
> >have welcomed yet another poem playing on them. (Donne says in his
> >Satires that he pities girls who have to listen to horrendous 'legal'
> >sonnets.)
>
> I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense. I know next to nothing
> about painting, astrology and perfumery but I can still appreciate the
> sonnets which use those metaphors. Think about the "drawen" sonnet
> that Spenser has written. What makes it different from Shakespeare's
> sonnets that Stonehouse claims show the talents of the subject? In
> the first place, the sequence was written to a real woman,
- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
> and in
> the second place, she is depicted as *doing* that particular activity.
> It's thus much more reasonable (though still not neccessary) to assume
> that she embroidered in real life. Otherwise we will have to assume that
> she must have been interested in the science of war as well:
>
> SONNET. XI.
> Daily when I do seek and sue for peace,
> And hostages do offer for my truth:
> she cruel warriour doth her self address,
> to battle, and the weary war renew'th.
> Ne wilbe moov'd with reason or with ruth,
> to grant small respite to my restless toil:
> but greedily her fell intent pursew'th,
> Of my poor life to make unpitied spoil.
> Yet my poor life, all sorrows to assoyle,
> I would her yield, her wrath to pacify:
> but then she seeks with torment and turmoil,
> to force me live and will not let me die.
> All pain hath end and every war hath peace,
> but mine no price nor prayer may surcease.
No, this isn't an equal comparison. We know that Elizabethan ladies
often embroidered: we don't know of any who took up arms against their
wooers. So, we have no difficulty distinguishing an actual activity
from a metaphorical one, and hence no difficulty distinguishing a
piece of biographical detail from a conceit. Deducing biographical
detail on Shakespeare's addressee is harder, but we get a few slight
clues. Sonnet 7 tells us he listened to music seriously, and we also
infer he knew enough about musical theory to follow the conceit. (And
if you could fully understand at a glance the technical language used
in all these varying sonnets then good on you, Jim. I needed
footnotes.)
Sonnet 16 line 8 strongly suggests, I think, that the addressee owned
a self-portrait. (I also take the 'Time's pencil' reference to be an
allusion to Hilliard, though I'm not sure this implies Hilliard
painted the portrait.) Sonnet 47 tells us that Shakespeare also owned
a picture of his friend. You can say this might be a mere fiction
invented so Shakespeare could wheel on a 'painting' conceit: and so it
might. But even the use of such conceits tells us something about the
personae of both poet and addressee. The impression we get is of a
cultured milieu in which people owned and valued portraits, listened
carefully to music, made careful notes in their tables, knew about
mathematics and trends in funeral architecture and understood legal
terms.
All that's missing is the absence of anything much about war -
Elizabeth Boyle gets more - weapons, and hunting.
<snip several amoretti>
Rita
KQKnave
<NigelDav...@Virgin.net> writes:
>> >"KQKnave" <kqk...@aol.comcrashed> wrote in message
>>...
>> >I think you've partly answered your own query here.
>> >
>> >Shakespeare didn't uniquely "borrow liberally from just about any source
>at
>> >hand" - it is natural for any artist to be inspired by and gain content
>> >matter from his peers and predecessors so it is common to find like
>subject
>> >matter in all artists' works. When Michelangelo painted the "Creation of
>> >Adam" in the Sistine Chapel he inspired Titian's painting of Bacchus in
>> >"Bacchus and Ariadne" who in turn inspired Rubens "Judgement of Paris"
>and
>> >Poussin's "Cephalus and Aurora". The arts are rife with inspiration like
>> >this, it is not a practice confined to only a few, or even one.
>> >
>> >In Shakespeare's subject matter it is surely highly likely that the
>message
>> >would have meaning to their addressee and not be merely conceits, whether
>> >the author is talking about the tables he gave away or paintings.
>>
>> I think you need to think a little more about how your first paragraph
>> contradicts
>> your second paragraph.
>
>No. My first paragraph is contesting your apparent suggestion that
>Shakespeare almost uniquely plagiarised his content from others.
It was not my suggestion that Shakespeare "uniquely plagiarised".
Those are your own word from your own post. I said:
How many times are we going to have to show that Shakespeare
borrowed liberally from just about any source at hand? Would he have
written Venus and Adonis had not Marlowe's Hero and Leander and
Lodge's Scylla's Metamorphoses come first? Portions of Holinshed
copied nearly verbatim for use in H5? Shakespeare "depends" on other
poets quite heavily, in the sense that he borrows conceits and ideas.
He has his own superior style in expressing those ideas.
> I was
>pointing out that it is a commonplace in the arts for artists to be inspired
>and influenced by others although there is considerable originality in the
>sonnets that you will find nowhere else and is one of the reasons for their
>lasting appeal and longevity. Can you name any other sequence of sonnets to
>compare to the 1-17 series, the self-punning 135, the lust-riddled 129?
There is considerable originality in Sidney, Spenser and Daniel as well.
All of these sonnet sequences have unique aspects. But Shakespeare
expanded on a tradition. The points I am making are to counter the
idea that there must be some biographical knowledge in the sonnets
concerning either Shakespeare or the addressee. Stonehouse thinks
that if Shakespeare mentions a clock in one sonnet, that the addressee
must be real and must have been interested in horology. I think that's
ridiculous. There isn't anything *exactly* like the lust riddled 129, but
lust is certainly discussed (by Spenser and Barnes, just off the top
of my head). The subject of 1-17 is not *exactly* like anything else,
but they are very close to Daniel's sonnets where he urges his beloved
to "love" before time erases her beauty.
>My second paragraph was explaining the fact that patrons financed and
>encouraged the arts during these periods. The Italian Renaissance is flooded
>with religious paintings not necessarily due to any piety of the artist but
>because a principal patron was the church. The new world was being
>discovered, world trade was expanding, Galileo was reversing erroneous
>conventional thinking on the solar system, the Italian Renaissance had
>massively advanced what could be achieved in painting, etc. All these
>factors would find representation in the arts and by patrons who were active
>in these fields and/or wanted to be seen to be appreciative of the arts,
>either genuinely or pretensiously.
But there is no patron of the sonnets.
>> >Especially
>> >the first 17 that are clearly a coherent set with a single addressee (I
>> >hardly think that there were potentially 17 young men who were separately
>> >and simultaneously being encouraged to father children).
>>
>> I hardly think that there was a young man whose interests coincidentally
>> coincided with the conceits of just about every sonnet sequence, including
>> those written in French fifty years earlier.
>
>"just about every sonnet sequence"?
Yes, taken together.
Wroth is?
> he also wrote highly original sonnets that have no equal.
>I would not call 1-17 merely "emphasising" what Daniel did. It's a landmark
>series of sonnets by any standards.
Actually, those are the most conceit-ridden and therefore the most traditional
of the sequence.
> I also think his mere 2 music sonnets
>are the better of how ever many you want to wheel out. Quality beats
>quantity any time.
The issue is not whether Shakespeare's sonnets are better. Of course,
he wrote more good sonnets than the others. He was a great writer.
It was part of his style to take ideas from others and phrase them
incomparably. The issue here is one of biography.
>>
>> >If there was a sonnet about trout-fishing and the addressee had no
>interest
>> >in trout-fishing then it would be hardly well received,
>>
>> That's nonsense, unless the adressee was an idiot. Think about it.
>> Wouldn't any intelligent person love to see a clever sonnet written
>> with the language of say, tin mining? Isn't that the whole point
>> of a conceit in the first place?
>
>I'm not sure you're serious here but if you are I maintain that if you wrote
>me a sonnet on rat-catching and I had no interest in rat-catching it would
>be a fair waste of each other's time.
I would say that a great sonnet on rat-catching is a great sonnet, period,
and those who can't appreciate such things don't have any business
judging poetry. Are you telling me you have a great interest in urging
young men to marry and have children?
>If I were an Elizabethan patron of the
>arts, mixed in a circle of pretentious or serious intellectuals and was
>interested in Galileo's ground-breaking astrological theories and you wrote
>me a sonnet on astrology I'd be most pleased.
If I were Shakespeare I would write sonnets for their own sake. There is
no known patron of the sonnets. If there was, he must have also wanted sonnets
about a dark lady, especially one with a housewife trying to catch
a chicken.
>> >but writing sonnets
>> >to someone who was a patron of the arts about subject matter of artistic
>and
>> >intellectual interest of the time is entirely to be expected. I cannot
>> >believe that all the sonnets that contain references to music, astronomy,
>> >painting, et al are merely conceits that everyone happened to be turning
>> >out.
>>
>> But they *were* turned out by every practitioner of the sonnet form, most
>> of which were addressed to women who were unlikely to be interested
>> in, for example, horology. But is horology really present in sonnet 12,
>> as Stonehouse suggests? Just because Shakespeare mentions the
>> word "clock" in a sonnet numbered 12? Or is it just a clever pun?
>
>I think its presentation by reference to a clock augmented its relevance. I
>think there's nothing challenging expecting the addressee to have benefited
>from an extensive education, perhaps the Grand Tour, to mix in competitively
>intellectual social circles, and have a stately home replete with all sorts
>of works of art that were consistent with these sonnets' content matter.
Including the housewife chasing the chicken? Why isn't there another
"horology" sonnet numbered 24? Isn't it possible that *everyone* knew
what a clock was, and it's relationship to the number 12?
>>
>> >During the English Renaissance, with addressees eager to be seen to be
>> >patrons, they are clearly going to be practitioners and/or appreciators
>of
>> >these arts themselves.
>>
>> I would say that any educated person would be familiar with the basic
>> vocabulary of those arts. Please find for me some art mentioned in the
>> sonnets that is unique to those sonnets only. Most of the addressees
>> of sonnets were women, not likely in those days to be practitioners
>> of anything.
>
>If the addressee was Wriothesley then we know that he was a patron of
>letters, was educated at Cambridge and gained favour at the court of Queen
>Elizabeth I. He was a generous patron of several writers such as Barnabe
>Barnes, Thomas Nash, and John Florio. He accompanied Essex on military and
>naval expeditions and was interested in colonial explorations and was a
>member of the Virginia Company and of the British East India Company. He was
>a privy councillor. Whatever anyone else's basic vocabulary of the arts was
>he was a clearly active do-er type of person and was active in financing the
>arts and the sonnets are entirely compatible with him being the
>addressee...and no mention of trout-fishing.
In that case the sonnets are entirely compatible with about 10,000 nobleman
and wealthy commoners (with the possible exception of the chicken sonnet).
Let's see, this person would have to have been aware of 1)astrology 2)clocks
3)painting/drawing 4)music. Notice that I don't say he had to have been
familiar with Titian or Michelangelo, he just had to know what the words
"draw", "pen" and "pencil" meant. In other words, anyone who could read.
Let's look at the example of Spenser. He wrote his sonnets to a real person,
his future wife, Elizabeth Boyle. The conceits in this sonnet sequence
cover embroidery, painting, battles/war, blacksmithing, hunting, medicine
and birdwatching. And these topics are not alluded to by the use of
single word, as in Shakespeare's "clock" sonnet, the subjects are fully
elaborated. Now, do you really believe that Elizabeth Boyle was interested
in both embroidery AND blacksmithing? Or is blacksmithing just a conceit?
Here is a description of a "conceit" as it applies to sonnets from my edition
of Spenser's sonnets, edited by Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott:
"English love poets...were struck by Petrarch's...use of the "conceit" (an
ingenious and elaborate metaphor central to the structure of the poem) as
an instrument with which to convey love's paradoxical nature, by his
significant repetitions or puns, by his sense of a divided self, and perhaps
by his association of political concerns with the discourse of erotic
longing."
But even if there were a patron for Shakespeare's sonnets, did things really
work in the simplistic manner that you and others propose? Here is
the dedication of Spenser's sonnets:
"Sir Robart Needham Knight
SIr, to gratulate your safe return from Ireland,
I had nothing so readie, nor thought any thing so
meete, as these sweete conceited Sonets, the deede
of that wel deseruing gentleman, maister Edmond Spenser:
whose name sufficiently warranting the worthinesse of the
work: I do more confidently presume to publish it in his
absence, vnder your name to whom (in my poore opinion) the
patronage therof, doth in some respectes properly appertaine.
For, besides your iudgement and delighte in learned poesie:
This gentle Muse for her former perfection long wished for
in Englande, nowe at the length crossing the Seas in your
happy companye, (though to your selfe vnknowne) seemeth to
make choyse of you, as meetest to giue her deserued
countenaunce, after her retourne: entertaine her, then,
(Right worshipfull) in sorte best beseeming your gentle
minde, and her merite, and take in worth my good will
herein, who seeke no more, but to shew my selfe yours
in all dutifull affection.
W. P."
So the patron, Robert Needham, apparently doesn't know either
Spenser or Elizabeth Boyle, who is traveling on a ship with him.
Instead this W.P. is handling the paperwork, much as I imagine
it happens in modern-day corporations, where the president of
the company merely signs off on the donation to PBS without
being aware of the details arranged by underlings. I believe that
even in the cases we know about (V&A and Lucrece) Shakespeare
probably had no personal interaction with Southampton.
John W. Kennedy
> No, this isn't an equal comparison. We know that Elizabethan ladies
> often embroidered: we don't know of any who took up arms against their
> wooers. So, we have no difficulty distinguishing an actual activity
> from a metaphorical one, and hence no difficulty distinguishing a
> piece of biographical detail from a conceit.
Whoa! Don't go galloping quite so fast along what may be the wrong way
of a one-way street.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only
the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots
would fight a war on twelve fronts"
-- "Babylon 5"
KQKnave
But that is how Stonehouse reads it, and that's what this argument
is about.
> whereas in the Spenser sonnet we're
>clearly told Elizabeth is responsible for the embroidery. Not every
>reference to every activity can imply the addressee is a practitioner;
>but it may suggest he has a knowledge or interest in it. Especially
>if it occurs more than once.
><snip>
>> >
>> >You're right that no single conceit should, on its own, be seized on
>> >as a biographical clue, especially if it's of a type that most other
>> >sonneteers employ. But the repeated use for example of legal conceits
>> >certainly suggests to me that the main intended audience of these
>> >sonnets was someone familiar with legal terms.
>>
>> I don't think so. I think the intended audience is any educated person
>> who can read. You are not going to make any money selling books
>> of sonnets to just lawyers.
>
>Ah, now that's a whole nother problem: in what circumstances, and with
>what end in mind, did Shakespeare create his sonnet sequence. Your
>comment above seems to imply he began writing them with the ultimate
>aim of publishing for money. Is that your opinion?
I'm sure he hoped to make *something*, but I was speaking in general
terms about all the sonneteers, especially the ones who published at
the height of the craze after Sidney's sonnets were published.
> It isn't mine.
>If he wrote them with the intention of making money out of a popular
>form of poetry, why did he address them to a man - not an obvious
>selling point - and why did he publish so late?
He published late because he was perfecting and rewriting them.
I don't think he in particular was especially concerned with money
in this case, but more concerned for an audience.
>>
>> >Otherwise he wouldn't
>> >have welcomed yet another poem playing on them. (Donne says in his
>> >Satires that he pities girls who have to listen to horrendous 'legal'
>> >sonnets.)
>>
>> I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense. I know next to nothing
>> about painting, astrology and perfumery but I can still appreciate the
>> sonnets which use those metaphors. Think about the "drawen" sonnet
>> that Spenser has written. What makes it different from Shakespeare's
>> sonnets that Stonehouse claims show the talents of the subject? In
>> the first place, the sequence was written to a real woman,
>
>- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
I can't, but neither can it be proved that he was real. The point is
that conceits are conceits, not biographical clues.
I think you mean 8, and I don't see why he has to listen to music
"seriously" to use words like "tuned", "string" and "sing", or for
his audience to be particularly knowledgeable about music to
appreciate the conceit.
> and we also
>infer he knew enough about musical theory to follow the conceit. (And
>if you could fully understand at a glance the technical language used
>in all these varying sonnets then good on you, Jim. I needed
>footnotes.)
I don't know what you mean. There isn't much technical in the sonnets.
I have trouble with archaic words that are no longer used, technical
or not.
>
>Sonnet 16 line 8 strongly suggests, I think, that the addressee owned
>a self-portrait.
Fictional addresees can also "own" a portrait. Or real persons may
not own a portrait, but the conceit stands as is on its own. Here's
another beloved's "counterfeit":
Thomas Watson (1593)
SONNET 46
My Mistress seeing her fair counterfeit
So sweetly framed in my bleeding breast
On it her fancy she so firmly set,
Thinking her self for want of it distressed.
Envying that any should enjoy her Image
Since all unworthy were of such an honor:
Though 'gain she me command to leave my gage,
The first end of my joy, last cause of dolor.
But it so fast was fixed to my heart,
Joined with unseparable sweet commixture,
That nought had force or power them to part:
Here take my heart quoth I, with it the picture.
But oh coy Dame intolerable smart,
Rather than touch my heart or come about it,
She turned her face and chose to go without it.
>(I also take the 'Time's pencil' reference to be an
>allusion to Hilliard, though I'm not sure this implies Hilliard
>painted the portrait.)
Now you have it down to a specific artist? Rather than just
a metaphor? I think the "pencil" reference is to Spenser's
sonnet 17 and Daniel's sonnet 33.
>Sonnet 47 tells us that Shakespeare also owned
>a picture of his friend. You can say this might be a mere fiction
>invented so Shakespeare could wheel on a 'painting' conceit: and so it
>might. But even the use of such conceits tells us something about the
>personae of both poet and addressee.
What it tells us is that, as I have demonstrated with the examples
I gave earlier, that Shakespeare was aware of the tradition of
the conceit of painting.
>The impression we get is of a
>cultured milieu in which people owned and valued portraits, listened
>carefully to music, made careful notes in their tables, knew about
>mathematics and trends in funeral architecture and understood legal
>terms.
I don't get any such impression. For one thing, the references in
the sonnets are vague and unspecialized. The only impression
that I get is that Shakespeare read his predecessors well.
>All that's missing is the absence of anything much about war -
>Elizabeth Boyle gets more - weapons, and hunting.
She gets more weapons and hunting probably because Spenser
saw that the wooing of a woman had some qualities of a fight,
which naturally leads to metaphors on that topic. Likewise, she
gets a sonnet on blacksmithing because at times he felt she
had a hard heart. What's one thing that's hard? Iron.
Iron------->blacksmith. It's imagination, not autobiography.
Nigel Davies
II's re-emergence at the time of the Essex rebellion is certainly seen as an
inspiration to have rallied the troops. Surely a play is a better vehicle
for this than a 14-line sonnet? And the sonnet you mention is a discreet tip
of the hat to the man who has gained fame through not hob-nobbing.
"Rita" <nash...@postmaster.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com...
Nigel Davies
> In article <NeMba.931$dl4.1...@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net>, "Nigel
Davies"
> <NigelDav...@Virgin.net> writes:
>
> It was not my suggestion that Shakespeare "uniquely plagiarised".
> Those are your own word from your own post. I said:
>
> How many times are we going to have to show that Shakespeare
> borrowed liberally from just about any source at hand? Would he have
> written Venus and Adonis had not Marlowe's Hero and Leander and
> Lodge's Scylla's Metamorphoses come first? Portions of Holinshed
> copied nearly verbatim for use in H5? Shakespeare "depends" on other
> poets quite heavily, in the sense that he borrows conceits and ideas.
> He has his own superior style in expressing those ideas.
We know that Shakespeare borrowed from other sources, that is a given, just
as others did from him and others. Dr. Faustus wasn't unique to Marlowe -
Marlowe lifted that story from elsewhere and embedded a lot of the errors
from
his source into his own work as he copied verbatim. Equally, Shakespeare was
original in parts.
> There is considerable originality in Sidney, Spenser and Daniel as well.
> All of these sonnet sequences have unique aspects. But Shakespeare
> expanded on a tradition. The points I am making are to counter the
> idea that there must be some biographical knowledge in the sonnets
> concerning either Shakespeare or the addressee. Stonehouse thinks
> that if Shakespeare mentions a clock in one sonnet, that the addressee
> must be real and must have been interested in horology. I think that's
> ridiculous. There isn't anything *exactly* like the lust riddled 129, but
> lust is certainly discussed (by Spenser and Barnes, just off the top
> of my head). The subject of 1-17 is not *exactly* like anything else,
> but they are very close to Daniel's sonnets where he urges his beloved
> to "love" before time erases her beauty.
Of course, these themes will appear elsewhere just as they appear in popular
music and other art forms. That they can only be reduced to being conceits
and have no relevance to their subject matter though is surely equally
ridiculous. We can all appreciate the "Mona Lisa" but that it was painted
for a purpose and for a specific person gives that painting added value than
for the rest of us. We can all appreciate Beethoven's "Eroica" but that it
was written for Napoleon gives it more gravitas for that person than it does
for us. We can all appreciate Sonnets 18 or 116 as a commonplace at weddings
but that they were written for a specific addressee gives them far greater
significance to the target audience they was written for. And Sidney's
sonnets about Lady Rich. A principal motive for creating art is that there
is a specific audience, commissioner, beneficiary, driving force and we
cannot divorce those motives and products by simply thinking that
Elizabethan England was full of superficial conceit writers with no greater
depth and meaning just because conceit writing was also going on at the
time.
> >My second paragraph was explaining the fact that patrons financed and
> >encouraged the arts during these periods. The Italian Renaissance is
flooded
> >with religious paintings not necessarily due to any piety of the artist
but
> >because a principal patron was the church. The new world was being
> >discovered, world trade was expanding, Galileo was reversing erroneous
> >conventional thinking on the solar system, the Italian Renaissance had
> >massively advanced what could be achieved in painting, etc. All these
> >factors would find representation in the arts and by patrons who were
active
> >in these fields and/or wanted to be seen to be appreciative of the arts,
> >either genuinely or pretensiously.
>
> But there is no patron of the sonnets.
You really think that 1-17 weren't commissioned and are just an example of
some idle conceit writing?
<snip>
Sidney's niece. Her "The Countess of Mountgomery's Urania" is patterned on
Sidney's "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia". She had an affair with
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, with whom she had 2 children. In her
sonnet sequence "Pamphilia to Amphilanthus", the first sonnet sequence ever
published by an English woman, she pleads for her lover's constancy and puns
on their names in the process.
> > he also wrote highly original sonnets that have no equal.
> >I would not call 1-17 merely "emphasising" what Daniel did. It's a
landmark
> >series of sonnets by any standards.
>
> Actually, those are the most conceit-ridden and therefore the most
traditional
> of the sequence.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that.
> > I also think his mere 2 music sonnets
> >are the better of how ever many you want to wheel out. Quality beats
> >quantity any time.
>
> The issue is not whether Shakespeare's sonnets are better. Of course,
> he wrote more good sonnets than the others. He was a great writer.
> It was part of his style to take ideas from others and phrase them
> incomparably. The issue here is one of biography.
I don't question that Shakespeare's biography is not necessarily in these
particular sonnets (1-17) but I can not reconcile their content with them
having no relevance or significance to their subject. Just as 128 is surely
written to a woman who could play a keyboard. Take a look at Holbein's
"Ambassadors" of 1533. Those 2 corpulent ambassadors in their garments of
new-fangled ill. They look so pleased with themselves staring out at the
viewer surrounded by artefacts of music, navigation aids, astronomical
globes, etc. These people loved to be associated with the intelligentsia of
the day. Patrons of the arts did. It strikes me as absurd that although one
can find sonnets on music and painting that in the context of the person to
whom 1-17 were addressed, those items referred to had no particular
relevance to the subject. It certainly cannot be discounted.
> >>
> >> >If there was a sonnet about trout-fishing and the addressee had no
> >interest
> >> >in trout-fishing then it would be hardly well received,
> >>
> >> That's nonsense, unless the adressee was an idiot. Think about it.
> >> Wouldn't any intelligent person love to see a clever sonnet written
> >> with the language of say, tin mining? Isn't that the whole point
> >> of a conceit in the first place?
> >
> >I'm not sure you're serious here but if you are I maintain that if you
wrote
> >me a sonnet on rat-catching and I had no interest in rat-catching it
would
> >be a fair waste of each other's time.
>
> I would say that a great sonnet on rat-catching is a great sonnet, period,
> and those who can't appreciate such things don't have any business
> judging poetry. Are you telling me you have a great interest in urging
> young men to marry and have children?
If I were commissioned to and I made my living out of writing and selling
literature and I had gone to extent of writing my own version of Venus and
Adonis making if particularly apposite to the subject and that V&A's content
matched that of 1-17 then I would. Particularly in the 16th. century when
these things were a big deal. The fact that there are no known sonnets on
rat-catching shows that there is no subject to whom that has any relevance
and that no poet has been motivated nor commissioned to waste their time on
such an exercise.
<snip>
Look at Holbein's "Ambassadors" and you've identified 2 people of that type
in an instant.
> Let's look at the example of Spenser. He wrote his sonnets to a real
person,
> his future wife, Elizabeth Boyle. The conceits in this sonnet sequence
> cover embroidery, painting, battles/war, blacksmithing, hunting, medicine
> and birdwatching. And these topics are not alluded to by the use of
> single word, as in Shakespeare's "clock" sonnet, the subjects are fully
> elaborated. Now, do you really believe that Elizabeth Boyle was interested
> in both embroidery AND blacksmithing? Or is blacksmithing just a conceit?
It might have had relevance to its subject justifying its presence. There's
no verse about dishcloths in there so I suppose like millions of other
objects it had no place, but what is there has to have some relevance and
purpose, particularly to sonnets that we know are addressed to a particular
someone. It's normal to buy a present for someone that has relevance so
writing a sonnet to someone that has relevance to them has to be fairly
normal.
> Here is a description of a "conceit" as it applies to sonnets from my
edition
> of Spenser's sonnets, edited by Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott:
>
> "English love poets...were struck by Petrarch's...use of the "conceit" (an
> ingenious and elaborate metaphor central to the structure of the poem) as
> an instrument with which to convey love's paradoxical nature, by his
> significant repetitions or puns, by his sense of a divided self, and
perhaps
> by his association of political concerns with the discourse of erotic
> longing."
>
> But even if there were a patron for Shakespeare's sonnets, did things
really
> work in the simplistic manner that you and others propose?
But that doesn't make every sonnet a conceit. It's like those who say
sonnets are love songs and can only be that. Sonnet 129 is not a love song.
Some people seem to create their own straight-jackets instead of accepted
the fairly innocuous reality that many sonnets were written with meaning and
relevance.
KQKnave
<NigelDav...@Virgin.net> writes:
>Of course, these themes will appear elsewhere just as they appear in popular
>music and other art forms. That they can only be reduced to being conceits
>and have no relevance to their subject matter though is surely equally
>ridiculous. We can all appreciate the "Mona Lisa" but that it was painted
>for a purpose and for a specific person gives that painting added value than
>for the rest of us. We can all appreciate Beethoven's "Eroica" but that it
>was written for Napoleon gives it more gravitas for that person than it does
>for us.
The Eroica may have been dedicated to Napoleon, but what in it is
specific to him? Most commentators believe it is an idependent work
of art. Who was the 6th symphony written for? The 5th?
>We can all appreciate Sonnets 18 or 116 as a commonplace at weddings
>but that they were written for a specific addressee gives them far greater
>significance to the target audience they was written for.
But if they were written for a particular person, that particular person
could be anyone, not just Southampton.
>And Sidney's
>sonnets about Lady Rich. A principal motive for creating art is that there
>is a specific audience, commissioner, beneficiary, driving force and we
>cannot divorce those motives and products by simply thinking that
>Elizabethan England was full of superficial conceit writers with no greater
>depth and meaning just because conceit writing was also going on at the
>time.
But conceits aren't superficial. The are interesting in themselves, they
are part of the genre. It's like saying that playwrights wrote Senecan
plays with violence scenes in them not because they were part of
the genre but because they themselves witnessed that kind of violence.
The facts are:
1) There is no known patron of Shakespeare's sonnets.
2) Much of what Stonehouse refers to as subject matter isn't really
there, for instance, "horology". All Shakespeare is doing is using
the word "clock" in a poem about the passing of time. Sonnet 12
is another of the sonnets based on Daniel's sonnets: urging the
beloved to "use" their beauty before time takes it away (see
Daniel's sonnet 31 below).
3) Most of the subject matter of the sonnets appears in one form
or another in other sequences of the time. The likeness is not
merely that of subject matter. Shakespeare echoes lines and
words in similar contexts (see the examples below).
4) If I see the same or similar conceits in other sonnet sequences
before Shakespeare, I have to assume that they are part of
the genre, not that coiincidentally the objects of the sonnets
(some of which are fictional) all had the same interests.
5) Even if there was some topic that really was of interest
to an addressee, there is no way to distinguish an interest
from a conceit. Even the embroidery example in Spenser's
sonnet could simply be a generic reference to things that
women did at that time. One of the sonnets in his sequence
(#8 "More than most fair, full of the living fire/...")
existed in manuscript long before he met Elizabeth Boyle,
so we know for sure that that one is not related to her interests,
and it's quite possible that others in the sequence were written
purely as poems or to another woman. As the editor of my
Spenser edition writes: "Any poet with Spenser's ambitions
was likely to try his hand at love sonnets". In other words,
it's a genre to test your talents as a poet, not some utilitarian
fulfillment for a patron.
This sonnet by Daniel is very close to Shakespeare's theme
in the first 17:
Sonnet XXXI.
Look Delia how we steem the half-blown Rose,
The image of thy blush and Summer's honor:
Whilst in her tender green she doth enclose
That pure sweet beauty, Time bestows upon her.
No sooner spreads her glory in the air,
But straight her full-blown pride is in declining;
She then is scorn'd that late adorn'd the fair:
So clouds thy beauty, after fairest shining.
No April can revive thy withered flowers,
Whose blooming grace adorns thy glorie now:
Swift speedy Time, feathered with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
O let not then such riches waste in vain;
But love whilst that thou may'st be lov'd again.
Here are six sonnets by Daniel (1592) on the theme
of eternity and verse.
30
I once may see when years shall wreck my wrong,
When golden hairs shall change to silver wire:
And those bright rays, that kindle all this fire
Shall fail in force, their working not so strong.
Then beauty , now the burthen of my song,
Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire;
Must yield up all to tyrant Times desire:
Then fade those flowers which decked her pride so long.
When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass,
Which then presents her winter withered hue;
Go you my verse, go tell her what she was;
For what she was she best shall find in you.
Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,
But phoenix like shall make her live anew.
Here Daniel refer's to "tyrant time", and the
"phoenix", while in Shakespeare's #19, he refers
to "devouring time", (the exact phrase used
by Spenser in his sonnet 58, below) and also brings in the
word "phoenix", for a different purpose.
**
34
When Winter snows upon thy golden hairs,
And frost of age hath nipped thy flowers near:
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was held so dear.
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a pencil not all unworthy:
Here see the gifts that God and nature lent thee;
Here read thy self, and what I suffered for thee,
This may remain thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterity may cherish:
These colors with thy fading are not spent;
These may remain, when thou and I shall perish.
If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby;
They will remain, and so thou canst not die.
Compare Daniel's "This may remain thy lasting monument"
with Shakespeare's "Your monument shall be my gentle verse"
(#81). Also, Daniel's "Which happily posterity may cherish"
with Shakespeare's "Even in the eyes of all posterity/...
You live in this..." (#55). Note also that "monument" and
"posterity" appear in Shakespeare's #55 and this sonnet.
**
35
Thou canst not die whilst any zeal abound
In feeling hearts, that can conceive these lines:
Though thou a Laura hast no Petrarch found,
In base attire, yet clearly beauty shines.
And I, though born in a colder clime,
do feel mine inward heat as great, I know it:
He never had more faith, although more rhyme ,
I love as well, though he could better show it.
But I may add one feather to thy fame,
To help her flight throughout the fairest Isle:
And if my pen could more enlarge thy name,
Then shouldst thou live in an immortal style.
But though that Laura better limned be,
Suffice, thou shalt be loved as well as she.
Compare Daniel's "...thy name/ Then shouldst thou live
in an immortal style." with Shakespeare's "Your name
from hence immortal life shall have." (#81)
**
36
O be not grieved that these my papers should,
Betray unto the world how fair thou art:
Or that my wits have showed the best they could,
The chastest flame that ever warmed heart.
think not sweet Delia, this shall be thy shame,
My Muse should sound thy praise with mournful warble:
How many lives the glory of whose name,
Shall rest in ice, when thine is graved in Marble.
Thou mayest in after ages live esteemed ,
unburied in these lines reserved in pureness ;
These shall entombe those eyes, that have redeemed
me from the vulgar, thee from all obscureness .
Although my careful accents never moved thee;
Yet count it no disgrace that I have loved thee.
Compare Daniel's "in after ages" with Shakespeare's
"ages yet to be" (#101). Also compare Daniel's
"Thou mayest in after ages live esteemed/ unburied in
these lines reserved in pureness ;" with Shakespeare's
"When in eternal lines to time thou growest" (#18), and
"His beauty shall in these black lines be seen" (#63).
Also note that Daniel says that his verse "shall entombe
those eyes", while Shakespeare says that his love's eyes
will be "entombed in men's eyes" via verse.
**
46
Let others sing of Knights and Palladines,
In aged accents, and untimely words:
Paint shadows in imaginary lines,
Which well the reach of their high wits records;
But I must sing of thee and those fair eyes,
Authentic shall my verse in time to come,
When yet the unborn shall say, lo where she lies,
Whose beauty made him speak that else was dumb.
These are the Arkes, the trophies I erect,
That fortify thy name against old age,
And these thy sacred virtues must protect,
Against the dark and time's consuming rage.
Though the error of my youth they shall discover,
Suffice they shew I lived and was thy lover.
Compare Daniel's "Authentic shall my verse in time to come"
with Shakespeare's "And yet to time in hope my verse shall
stand" (#60), where "time in hope" means "future times".
Also compare Daniel's "These are the Arkes, the trophies
I erect,/ That fortify thy name against old age," with
Shakespeare's "For such a time do I now fortify/ Against
confounding age's cruel knife," (#63). Daniel speaks of
"time's consuming rage", while Shakespeare uses "devouring
time" in #19.
**
48
None other fame mine unambitious Muse,
Affected ever but to eternize thee:
All other honors do my hopes refuse,
Which meaner prized and momentary be.
For God forbid I should my papers blot,
With mercenary lines, with servile pen:
Praising virtues in them that have them not,
Basely attending on the hopes of men.
No, no, my verse respects nor Thames nor Theaters,
Nor seeks it to be known unto the Great:
But Avon rich in fame, though poor in waters,
Shall have my song, where Delia hath her seat.
Avon shall be my Thames, and she my Song;
I'll sound her name the river all along.
More of the same here, with eternity ("eternize") and
his "lines" reflecting in a general way Shakespeare's
"When in eternal lines to time thou growest" (#18).
*****
Edmund Spenser played on similar themes in his
sequence "Amoretti", published in 1595:
27
FAIR proud now tell me, why should fair be proud,
Sith all worlds glory is but dross unclean:
And in the shade of death it self shall shroud,
How ever now thereof ye little weene.
That goodly Idoll, now so gay beseen,
Shall doff her fleshes borrowed fair attire:
And be forgot as it had never been,
That many now much worship and admire.
Ne any then shall after it inquire,
Ne any mention shall thereof remain:
But what this verse, that never shall expire,
Shall to you purchase with her thankless pain.
Fair be no longer proud of that shall perish,
But that which shall you make immortal, cherish.
58
Weak is th' assurance that weak flesh reposeth,
In her own power and scorneth others aid:
that soonest falls when as she most supposeth,
her self assured, and is of nought afraid.
All flesh is frail, and all her strength unstaid
like a vain bubble blown up with air:
devouring time & changeful chance have preyed,
her glories pride that none may it repair.
Ne none so rich or wise, so strong or fair,
but faileth trusting on his owne assurance:
and he that standeth on the highest stair
falls lowest: for on earth nought hath enduraunce.
Why then do ye proud fair, misdeeme so far,
that to your self ye most assured are.
69
THE famous warriors of the antique world,
Used Trophies to erect in stately wise:
In which they would the records have enrolled,
of their great deeds and valorous emprise.
What trophy then shall I most fit devise,
In which I may record the memory
Of my loves conquest, peerless beauty's prize,
Adorned with honor, love, and chastity.
Even this verse vowed to eternity,
Shall be thereof immortal monument:
And tell her praise to all posterity,
That may admire such worlds rare wonderment.
The happy purchase of my glorious spoil
Gotten at last with labor and long toil.
Both Daniel and Spenser write of "trophies", while
Shakespeare does not, and like Daniel, Spenser uses
"monument" and "posterity" in adjacent lines. Shakespeare
uses those words together in one sonnet but not on
adjacent lines. Compare Spenser's "Even this verse...,/
Shall be thereof immortal monument:/ And tell her praise
to all posterity," with Daniel's "This may remain thy
lasting monument/ Which happily posterity may cherish:"
(#34 above). Note also the "devouring time" in Spenser's
58, and the same phrase in Shakespeare's sonnet 19.
**
Nigel Davies
> In article <xC%ba.400$bD6....@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net>, "Nigel
Davies"
> <NigelDav...@Virgin.net> writes:
>
> >Of course, these themes will appear elsewhere just as they appear in
popular
> >music and other art forms. That they can only be reduced to being
conceits
> >and have no relevance to their subject matter though is surely equally
> >ridiculous. We can all appreciate the "Mona Lisa" but that it was painted
> >for a purpose and for a specific person gives that painting added value
than
> >for the rest of us. We can all appreciate Beethoven's "Eroica" but that
it
> >was written for Napoleon gives it more gravitas for that person than it
does
> >for us.
>
> The Eroica may have been dedicated to Napoleon, but what in it is
> specific to him? Most commentators believe it is an idependent work
> of art.
The manusript of "Eroica" now in the library of the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde in Vienna has the word "Buonaparte" inscribed at the top of the
title-page and "Luigi van Beethoven" at the bottom. It shows that the work
was to be a "Sinfonia Grande Intitulata Bonaparte" (A Great Symphony on
Bonaparte). When published in October 1806, the symphony bore the name
"Eroica" with the subtitle "per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grand Uomo" -
"to celebrate the memory of a great man". Eroica's "Funeral March" resembles
the great funeral compositions of the French Republic. Written lightly in
pencil in Beethoven's own handwriting below his name is the annotation
"Geschrieben auf Bonapart" (written in honour of Bonaparte). On 26 August
1804, Beethoven wrote to publishers Breitkopf and Haertel to offer them "a
grand new symphony...which is really entitled Bonaparte".
To anyone putting on a CD of Eroica in ignorance of the inspiration of the
work they might well think "where is Beethoven in that"? To anyone familiar
with the symphony, composer and the music of the French Republic they would
know that the composition is drenched in references to Bonaparte to the
point of the composer's own hand explicitly stating as such. Regrettably, we
don't have the priceless manuscripts of Shakespeare's sonnets but it is
inconceivable to me that the powerful, self-contained works of art that are
1-17 were not inspired by an occasion and a personality that justified that
level of excellence driving their creation. To call them a set of conceits
merely echoing the themes of other poets is simpy demeaning.
> Who was the 6th symphony written for?
That's the "Pastoral". It's inspiration was nature and the countryside. One
of Beethoven's sketchbooks from 1803 shows him trying to write down the
sound of a stream near Heiligenstadt in musical notation - the 3-bar
fragment of music that resulted bears an unmistakable resemblance to the
flowing figure for two cellos that runs through the Andante of the 6th.
"Pastoral" Symphony. "The broader the stream", he observed, "the deeper the
note". Again, irrefutable evidence of a work of art being inspired and
motivated by something more substantial than a conceit.
> The 5th?
Highly complex and autobiographical in Beethoven wrestling with his demons.
Beethoven said of the opening bars "Thus Fate knocks at the door". Beethoven
was inspired by Haydn in writing this, just as all artists are sensitive to
and are inspired by their peers and predecessors. Again, magnificence out of
drive, force and motivation - not just a playful conceit.
> >We can all appreciate Sonnets 18 or 116 as a commonplace at weddings
> >but that they were written for a specific addressee gives them far
greater
> >significance to the target audience they was written for.
>
> But if they were written for a particular person, that particular person
> could be anyone, not just Southampton.
Indeed, but my argument is that they were inspired by someone to whom they
had resonance, application and relevance. Virtually every great work of art
has a powerful inspiration or motivation at its heart. They weren't just a
Kleenex-type of conceit that could be thrown off and thrown away. The
circumstantial evidence though is strongly in Southampton's favour rather
than, say, Fred Jones of Grimsby who has zero connection.
> >And Sidney's
> >sonnets about Lady Rich. A principal motive for creating art is that
there
> >is a specific audience, commissioner, beneficiary, driving force and we
> >cannot divorce those motives and products by simply thinking that
> >Elizabethan England was full of superficial conceit writers with no
greater
> >depth and meaning just because conceit writing was also going on at the
> >time.
>
> But conceits aren't superficial. The are interesting in themselves, they
> are part of the genre. It's like saying that playwrights wrote Senecan
> plays with violence scenes in them not because they were part of
> the genre but because they themselves witnessed that kind of violence.
Conceits are interesting. But poetry is not confined to just that genre.
There is a world of difference to my mind between the spoof conceit of 130
and series 1-17.
> The facts are:
> 1) There is no known patron of Shakespeare's sonnets.
But ample evidence that they were inspired by personalities that fuelled
their creation: the Young Man; the Rival Poet; the Dark Lady. Had
Beethoven's manuscripts and contemporary testimony not survived we would be
speculating on the identity of the inspiration and dedicatee of Eroica as we
are doing for 1-17. Fortunately we have them in Beethoven's case. Perhaps we
would be saying that Beethoven's 3rd. symphony was merely a conceit if we
hadn't.
> 2) Much of what Stonehouse refers to as subject matter isn't really
> there, for instance, "horology". All Shakespeare is doing is using
> the word "clock" in a poem about the passing of time. Sonnet 12
> is another of the sonnets based on Daniel's sonnets: urging the
> beloved to "use" their beauty before time takes it away (see
> Daniel's sonnet 31 below).
I am sure that the reference to the clock has some significance to the
subject. It is symbolic of passing time and/or is a prop to use in the
sonnet's rendering and/or it is a particularly excellent example of a clock
owned by the subject and/or horology was a subject matter of interest to the
subject so was particularly apposite to him. Shakespeare didn't put in
material such as this as filler - it must added some leverage to the sonnet
which is why it was there. Its position at number 12 in Shakespeare's
"eternal numbers" is an idiot-proof signpost to the clock's presence having
significance.
> 3) Most of the subject matter of the sonnets appears in one form
> or another in other sequences of the time. The likeness is not
> merely that of subject matter. Shakespeare echoes lines and
> words in similar contexts (see the examples below).
Agreed. As do all other poets. When The Beatles brought out "St. Pepper"
everyone was then booking studio time to record their concept album.
Matisse, Tintoretto, Dali, da Vinci et al have all done their versons of
"Leda and the Swan". In all art, artists have always been inspired by their
peers and predecessors and always will be. Art begets art.
> 4) If I see the same or similar conceits in other sonnet sequences
> before Shakespeare, I have to assume that they are part of
> the genre, not that coiincidentally the objects of the sonnets
> (some of which are fictional) all had the same interests.
You need to sort the wheat from the chaff. If I write a love poem, it
doesn't necessarily make it a mere conceit. If it was inspired by the love I
have for my daughter or son or wife then it has vastly more significance
than it resembling the subject mattre of other poets.
> 5) Even if there was some topic that really was of interest
> to an addressee, there is no way to distinguish an interest
> from a conceit.
Huh? Surely not.
> Even the embroidery example in Spenser's
> sonnet could simply be a generic reference to things that
> women did at that time.
Sure. But we know the sonnet was weriten to an identifable person. It is
entirely reasonable to expect that subject matter to have some relevance to
that addresse.
> One of the sonnets in his sequence
> (#8 "More than most fair, full of the living fire/...")
> existed in manuscript long before he met Elizabeth Boyle,
> so we know for sure that that one is not related to her interests,
> and it's quite possible that others in the sequence were written
> purely as poems or to another woman. As the editor of my
> Spenser edition writes: "Any poet with Spenser's ambitions
> was likely to try his hand at love sonnets". In other words,
> it's a genre to test your talents as a poet, not some utilitarian
> fulfillment for a patron.
Agreed. And the theme of love is so ubiquitous a poem, bracelet, tattoo,
song can be re-purposed should the subject of those affections change. But
1-17 is particularly distinctive. There aren't many eligible 17-year old
noblemen, who should have been married by now, who had V&A dedicated to them
and who could have had a poet commissioned to write a series of magnificent
sonnets to be delivered to him on the occasion of his 17th. birthday.
><snip>
Yes, your examples persuasively show that those sentiments were current of
the time and that Shakespeare was not insular in his approach to
sonnet-writing. The same can be shown in music, painting, sculpture and any
of the other arts before and since.
KQKnave
<NigelDav...@Virgin.net> writes:
I am aware of all of this. Beethoven wrote the work independent of Bonaparte,
and dedicated it to him after he became infatuated with Bonaparte. Later he
disavowed any connection of the symphony with Bonaparte.
>To anyone putting on a CD of Eroica in ignorance of the inspiration of the
>work they might well think "where is Beethoven in that"?
That's utter nonsense. The symphony has Beethoven's unmistakeable
stamp on it. Bonoparte is irrelevant.
>To anyone familiar
>with the symphony, composer and the music of the French Republic they would
>know that the composition is drenched in references to Bonaparte to the
>point of the composer's own hand explicitly stating as such.
More nonsense.
>Regrettably, we
>don't have the priceless manuscripts of Shakespeare's sonnets but it is
>inconceivable to me that the powerful, self-contained works of art that are
>1-17 were not inspired by an occasion and a personality that justified that
>level of excellence driving their creation. To call them a set of conceits
>merely echoing the themes of other poets is simpy demeaning.
No, just the opposite. That a writer could use the genre of the sonnet
sequence to write something so convingingly "real" is a testament
to that writer's power. That's why Nabokov's Lolita disturbs so many
people.
>> Who was the 6th symphony written for?
>
>That's the "Pastoral". It's inspiration was nature and the countryside. One
>of Beethoven's sketchbooks from 1803 shows him trying to write down the
>sound of a stream near Heiligenstadt in musical notation - the 3-bar
>fragment of music that resulted bears an unmistakable resemblance to the
>flowing figure for two cellos that runs through the Andante of the 6th.
>"Pastoral" Symphony. "The broader the stream", he observed, "the deeper the
>note". Again, irrefutable evidence of a work of art being inspired and
>motivated by something more substantial than a conceit.
A 3 note motif *IS* a conceit.
>> The 5th?
>
>Highly complex and autobiographical in Beethoven wrestling with his demons.
And utterly unlike the 3rd, of course.
>Beethoven said of the opening bars "Thus Fate knocks at the door". Beethoven
>was inspired by Haydn in writing this, just as all artists are sensitive to
>and are inspired by their peers and predecessors. Again, magnificence out of
>drive, force and motivation - not just a playful conceit.
Yes, it is a conceit. The 8-note motif which begins the symphony is a conceit,
which is elaborated on at length, and serves as a structural glue for the
piece.
>
>> >We can all appreciate Sonnets 18 or 116 as a commonplace at weddings
>> >but that they were written for a specific addressee gives them far
>greater
>> >significance to the target audience they was written for.
>>
>> But if they were written for a particular person, that particular person
>> could be anyone, not just Southampton.
>
>Indeed, but my argument is that they were inspired by someone to whom they
>had resonance, application and relevance. Virtually every great work of art
>has a powerful inspiration or motivation at its heart.
Your impression of Paul Crowley is astounding.
>They weren't just a
>Kleenex-type of conceit that could be thrown off and thrown away. The
>circumstantial evidence though is strongly in Southampton's favour rather
>than, say, Fred Jones of Grimsby who has zero connection.
>
>> >And Sidney's
>> >sonnets about Lady Rich. A principal motive for creating art is that
>there
>> >is a specific audience, commissioner, beneficiary, driving force and we
>> >cannot divorce those motives and products by simply thinking that
>> >Elizabethan England was full of superficial conceit writers with no
>greater
>> >depth and meaning just because conceit writing was also going on at the
>> >time.
>>
>> But conceits aren't superficial. The are interesting in themselves, they
>> are part of the genre. It's like saying that playwrights wrote Senecan
>> plays with violence scenes in them not because they were part of
>> the genre but because they themselves witnessed that kind of violence.
>
>Conceits are interesting. But poetry is not confined to just that genre.
>There is a world of difference to my mind between the spoof conceit of 130
>and series 1-17.
>
>> The facts are:
>> 1) There is no known patron of Shakespeare's sonnets.
>
>But ample evidence that they were inspired by personalities that fuelled
>their creation: the Young Man; the Rival Poet; the Dark Lady.
You are going in circles. All of these "personalities" could be fictional.
Had
>Beethoven's manuscripts and contemporary testimony not survived we would be
>speculating on the identity of the inspiration and dedicatee of Eroica
No, we wouldn't. No one would care, because the works stand by themselves.
as we
>are doing for 1-17. Fortunately we have them in Beethoven's case. Perhaps we
>would be saying that Beethoven's 3rd. symphony was merely a conceit if we
>hadn't.
>
>> 2) Much of what Stonehouse refers to as subject matter isn't really
>> there, for instance, "horology". All Shakespeare is doing is using
>> the word "clock" in a poem about the passing of time. Sonnet 12
>> is another of the sonnets based on Daniel's sonnets: urging the
>> beloved to "use" their beauty before time takes it away (see
>> Daniel's sonnet 31 below).
>
>I am sure that the reference to the clock has some significance to the
>subject.
Why? Because you say so?
>It is symbolic of passing time and/or is a prop to use in the
>sonnet's rendering and/or it is a particularly excellent example of a clock
>owned by the subject
Have you lost your mind? There is only the word "clock" in that sonnet.
Nothing about what kind or quality of clock.
>and/or horology was a subject matter of interest to the
>subject so was particularly apposite to him. Shakespeare didn't put in
>material such as this as filler - it must added some leverage to the sonnet
>which is why it was there. Its position at number 12 in Shakespeare's
>"eternal numbers" is an idiot-proof signpost to the clock's presence having
>significance.
Astounding. You're completely wrong. Here is what Shakespeare did:
He was writing on the theme of passing on beauty by having children
before the addressee was too old. This led to the theme of time passing
---------->What passes?---------->Hours--------->How do we discern the
hours?---------->With a clock------>How many hours does the clock
show?----------->12. See how imagination works?
>> 3) Most of the subject matter of the sonnets appears in one form
>> or another in other sequences of the time. The likeness is not
>> merely that of subject matter. Shakespeare echoes lines and
>> words in similar contexts (see the examples below).
>
>Agreed. As do all other poets. When The Beatles brought out "St. Pepper"
>everyone was then booking studio time to record their concept album.
>Matisse, Tintoretto, Dali, da Vinci et al have all done their versons of
>"Leda and the Swan". In all art, artists have always been inspired by their
>peers and predecessors and always will be. Art begets art.
>
>> 4) If I see the same or similar conceits in other sonnet sequences
>> before Shakespeare, I have to assume that they are part of
>> the genre, not that coiincidentally the objects of the sonnets
>> (some of which are fictional) all had the same interests.
>
>You need to sort the wheat from the chaff. If I write a love poem, it
>doesn't necessarily make it a mere conceit. If it was inspired by the love I
>have for my daughter or son or wife then it has vastly more significance
>than it resembling the subject mattre of other poets.
Not as far as conceits are concerned. Using a conceit is simply part of
the form, like the rhyme scheme. The sincerity of the sonnet is
irrelevant. In fact, I'm surprised that you haven't tried to imagine
some purpose to the rhyme scheme with respect to Southampton.
Maybe Shakespeare wrote them to the 14 year old Southampton?
>> 5) Even if there was some topic that really was of interest
>> to an addressee, there is no way to distinguish an interest
>> from a conceit.
>
>Huh? Surely not.
No, there is no way. Explain how.
>
>> Even the embroidery example in Spenser's
>> sonnet could simply be a generic reference to things that
>> women did at that time.
>
>Sure. But we know the sonnet was weriten to an identifable person. It is
>entirely reasonable to expect that subject matter to have some relevance to
>that addresse.
>
>> One of the sonnets in his sequence
>> (#8 "More than most fair, full of the living fire/...")
>> existed in manuscript long before he met Elizabeth Boyle,
>> so we know for sure that that one is not related to her interests,
>> and it's quite possible that others in the sequence were written
>> purely as poems or to another woman. As the editor of my
>> Spenser edition writes: "Any poet with Spenser's ambitions
>> was likely to try his hand at love sonnets". In other words,
>> it's a genre to test your talents as a poet, not some utilitarian
>> fulfillment for a patron.
>
>Agreed. And the theme of love is so ubiquitous a poem, bracelet, tattoo,
>song can be re-purposed should the subject of those affections change. But
>1-17 is particularly distinctive. There aren't many eligible 17-year old
>noblemen, who should have been married by now, who had V&A dedicated to them
>and who could have had a poet commissioned to write a series of magnificent
>sonnets to be delivered to him on the occasion of his 17th. birthday.
All of which is sheer fantasy, including the addressee being 17 years old.
>><snip>
>
>Yes, your examples persuasively show that those sentiments were current of
>the time and that Shakespeare was not insular in his approach to
>sonnet-writing. The same can be shown in music, painting, sculpture and any
>of the other arts before and since.
>
Nigel Davies
Can you name your source for this? I have never seen any evidence to support
this notion.
> Later he
> disavowed any connection of the symphony with Bonaparte.
That was motivated by Napoleon appointing himself as Emperor that Beethoven
saw as an opportunity for him to trample on everyone beneath him. His
subsequent renaming of the symphony does not erase its inspiration and
reason for its initial creation.
> >To anyone putting on a CD of Eroica in ignorance of the inspiration of
the
> >work they might well think "where is Beethoven in that"?
>
> That's utter nonsense. The symphony has Beethoven's unmistakeable
> stamp on it. Bonoparte is irrelevant.
I mis-typed "Beethoven" - I meant "where is Bonaparte in that"?
> >To anyone familiar
> >with the symphony, composer and the music of the French Republic they
would
> >know that the composition is drenched in references to Bonaparte to the
> >point of the composer's own hand explicitly stating as such.
>
> More nonsense.
Fine. I withdraw from this conversation then. If you're going to resort to
schoolyard yah-booing instead of cogent argument there's no point in
proceeding.
<snip>
Gary Kosinsky
>> >"KQKnave" wrote:
>> More nonsense.
>
>Fine. I withdraw from this conversation then. If you're going to resort to
>schoolyard yah-booing instead of cogent argument there's no point in
>proceeding.
Which is too bad, really - it was an interesting discussion.
- Gary Kosinsky
bookburn
"Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message
news:3e711953...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
My reaction, too. I was starting to think, Hey, these guys are
really good! But Rita or Robert Stonehouse may yet come to the fore
with more. bookburn
KQKnave
<NigelDav...@Virgin.net> writes:
>>
>> I am aware of all of this. Beethoven wrote the work independent of
>Bonaparte,
>> and dedicated it to him after he became infatuated with Bonaparte.
>
>Can you name your source for this? I have never seen any evidence to support
>this notion.
>
It's not a "notion". Beethoven's method of composition is well known, and
involves the gestation from motifs which he kept in sketchbooks, many
of which survive to this day. I've read the same thing in many places,
but the only source I have on hand now is "Beethoven", by Denis Matthews.
He says:
"...after his return to Vienna, Beethoven was writing to
Breitkopf and Hartel about two sets of variations for piano
that he had composed. 'Both sets' he wrote 'are worked out
in quite a new manner, and each in a separate and different
way.'...The 'new path' already had the Eroica Symphony as
its goal, and rudimentary sketches for it followed
Beethoven's work on the 'Prometheus' variations in the
'Weilhorsky' sketchbook of 1802 and 1803...."
His 'new path' was based on purely musical grounds, and
extramusical considerations did not enter into it, no matter
what he chose to title his works after the fact.
Greg Reynolds
Hope everyone is aware of Nigel's sonnet site:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/4081/SonnetSequence.html
(It looks all new again--I better reread it.)
Good to hear from you, Nigel!
Still in the AER?
Greg Reynolds
Robert Stonehouse
>In article <c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com>,
>nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>>kqk...@aol.comcrashed (KQKnave) wrote in message
>>news:<20030311214140...@mb-cf.aol.com>...
>>> In article <c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com>,
>>> nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>>> > I don't think this is a conceit Shakespeare would ever
>>> >have chosen for his male friend, because embroidery has never been
>>> >considered a worthy pursuit for men.
>>>
>>> But making perfume is?
>>
>>Be fair - Sonnet 5 has a reference to distillation but doesn't imply
>>the young man himself does it,
>
>But that is how Stonehouse reads it, and that's what this argument
>is about.
No, I don't say he did distilling - only that scents were of interest
to him. But that is a clarification of what I said before - there was
not that much detail in it.
So, for example, King George V collected stamps; but he did not print
them - probably never even licked one.
...
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>>>> > I don't think this is a conceit Shakespeare would ever
>>>> >have chosen for his male friend, because embroidery has never been
>>>> >considered a worthy pursuit for men.
>(The Bayeux Tapestry makes an exception.)
>>>>
>>>> But making perfume is?
>>>
>>>Be fair - Sonnet 5 has a reference to distillation but doesn't imply
>>>the young man himself does it,
>>
>>But that is how Stonehouse reads it, and that's what this argument
>>is about.
>
>No, I don't say he did distilling - only that scents were of interest
>to him. But that is a clarification of what I said before - there was
>not that much detail in it.
Well, you said he was interestd in scent *making*, which requires
distillation.
>So, for example, King George V collected stamps; but he did not print
>them - probably never even licked one.
>...
Peter Farey
Rita wrote:
>
Nigel Davies wrote:
>
> <snip - absolutely massive snip>
> > If the addressee was Wriothesley then we know that he was a patron of
> > letters, was educated at Cambridge and gained favour at the court of
Queen
> > Elizabeth I. He was a generous patron of several writers such as Barnabe
> > Barnes, Thomas Nash, and John Florio. He accompanied Essex on military
and
> > naval expeditions and was interested in colonial explorations and was a
> > member of the Virginia Company and of the British East India Company. He
was
> > a privy councillor. Whatever anyone else's basic vocabulary of the arts
was
> > he was a clearly active do-er type of person and was active in financing
the
> > arts and the sonnets are entirely compatible with him being the
> > addressee...and no mention of trout-fishing.
>
> I would agree with all the above, only with two exceptions. First,
> there is no evidence Southampton was a patron of Nashe, whereas there
> is evidence to the contrary:
There is nobody here that I would trust more on matters
concerning Nashe, Rita, but I do find this surprising.
According to the DNB: "In 1594 Thomas Nash described him
(Wriothesley), when dedicating to him his romance of 'Jack
Wilton', as 'a dear lover and cherisher as well of the
lovers of poets as of the poets themselves'. For him Nash
seems to have penned at the same time a lascivious poem
entitled 'The Choosing of Valentines', which opens and
closes with a sonnet to 'Lord S[outhampton].'"
Given that they were also at St. John's, Cambridge,
together for three years or so, they must have known
each other pretty well, so what is the 'evidence to the
contrary' that you mention?
> and second, Southampton was above all
> keen on the military. So why are there no sonnets referring to
> military matters, other than the 'painful warrior famoused for fight'
> one? Shakespeare included lots of military men in his plays, and he
> evidently knew the jargon. The difficulty can't have been in him. Can
> you think of anything that would have pleased young Southampton more
> than a reference to his prowess in the tiltyard and future glory on
> the field? Honestly Nigel, this is the dog that doesn't bark.
>
> Rita
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Rita
The dedication to Southampton in the first edition was withdrawn by
the second, indicating the Earl had told his new admirer not to
bother.
The Choise of Valentines closes with a sonnet to 'Lord S'. It's Lord
Strange.
Nashe was a sizar. He wouldn't get to mix with earls.
Hah! I may be hanging fire a bit in my response to Jim, but my aim is
true.
Rita
Peter Farey
Rita wrote:
>
> Peter Farey wrote:
> >
> > Rita wrote:
> > >
<snip>
> > >
> > > there is no evidence Southampton was a patron of Nashe,
> > > whereas there is evidence to the contrary:
> >
> > There is nobody here that I would trust more on matters
> > concerning Nashe, Rita, but I do find this surprising.
> >
> > According to the DNB: "In 1594 Thomas Nash described him
> > (Wriothesley), when dedicating to him his romance of 'Jack
> > Wilton', as 'a dear lover and cherisher as well of the
> > lovers of poets as of the poets themselves'. For him Nash
> > seems to have penned at the same time a lascivious poem
> > entitled 'The Choosing of Valentines', which opens and
> > closes with a sonnet to 'Lord S[outhampton].'"
> >
> > Given that they were also at St. John's, Cambridge,
> > together for three years or so, they must have known
> > each other pretty well, so what is the 'evidence to the
> > contrary' that you mention?
>
> The dedication to Southampton in the first edition was withdrawn
> by the second, indicating the Earl had told his new admirer not to
> bother.
Which does not *necessarily* indicate that he had refused
to be his patron?
> The Choise of Valentines closes with a sonnet to 'Lord S'.
> It's Lord Strange.
The identification of this as Southampton was the DNB's. Has
new information come to light since then?
> Nashe was a sizar. He wouldn't get to mix with earls.
Not socially, I guess. But my understanding is that sizars
acted as servants to the gentlemen pensioners and other
better-off students - a relationship not unlike that of poet
and patron, in fact?
> Hah! I may be hanging fire a bit in my response to Jim,
> but my aim is true.
It usually is, I must say. Thanks for this.
Peter Farey
I think I may have worked this one out for myself. Earls were
not usually called 'Lord [the place of which they were Earl]'?
Not 'Lord Leicester', 'Lord Essex' or 'Lord Luton', for example.
But 'Lord Burghley', 'Lord Buckhurst', 'Lord Luvvaduck' and
(as you suggest) 'Lord Strange'. So perhaps Barons and lower?
Rita
> Rita wrote:
> >
> > Peter Farey wrote:
> > >
> > > Rita wrote:
> > > >
> <snip>
> > > >
> > > > there is no evidence Southampton was a patron of Nashe,
> > > > whereas there is evidence to the contrary:
> > >
> > > There is nobody here that I would trust more on matters
> > > concerning Nashe, Rita, but I do find this surprising.
> > >
> > > According to the DNB: "In 1594 Thomas Nash described him
> > > (Wriothesley), when dedicating to him his romance of 'Jack
> > > Wilton', as 'a dear lover and cherisher as well of the
> > > lovers of poets as of the poets themselves'. For him Nash
> > > seems to have penned at the same time a lascivious poem
> > > entitled 'The Choosing of Valentines', which opens and
> > > closes with a sonnet to 'Lord S[outhampton].'"
> > >
> > > Given that they were also at St. John's, Cambridge,
> > > together for three years or so, they must have known
> > > each other pretty well, so what is the 'evidence to the
> > > contrary' that you mention?
> >
> > The dedication to Southampton in the first edition was withdrawn
> > by the second, indicating the Earl had told his new admirer not to
> > bother.
>
> Which does not *necessarily* indicate that he had refused
> to be his patron?
Well, that's how Nashe's biographer Nicholl interprets it. And I
can't see myself that Nashe would want (or dare) to snub the patronage
of such a man. If Southampton had given the work his blessing I can't
see that Nashe or his publisher would choose to offend him by
summarily withdrawing the dedication. As it doesn't appear in any but
the first edition, the inference seems to be that the man giving it
the thumbs-down was Southampton.
> > The Choise of Valentines closes with a sonnet to 'Lord S'.
> > It's Lord Strange.
>
> The identification of this as Southampton was the DNB's. Has
> new information come to light since then?
'New', no. Has the DNB ever been revised? R. B. McKerrow pointed out
back in 1906 that the sonnet's reference to a bud of 'the red rose'
was a clear indication 'Lord S' was Lord Strange. (And when you think
about it, you probably wouldn't call the earl 'Lord Southampton',
would you? Sounds wrong.) I was mistaken about the sonnet closing
the poem by the way, it's at the beginning.
(www.members.tripod.com/sicttasd/choise.html)
The 'Valentines' composition date of c. 1592 also fits nicely with the
admiring comments in PP (1592) about Lord Strange. It certainly looks
as if Nashe was trying to break into his circle about this time.
Anyway, I prefer to believe Nashe would offer the gamey 'Valentines'
to a man in his 30s rather than a youth of 19; which shows I don't
really understand youths of 19, I suppose. Or Nashe.
>
> > Nashe was a sizar. He wouldn't get to mix with earls.
>
> Not socially, I guess. But my understanding is that sizars
> acted as servants to the gentlemen pensioners and other
> better-off students - a relationship not unlike that of poet
> and patron, in fact?
I don't actually know to what extent sizars served individuals.
Nicholl just says: 'A sizar was a poorer student who did menial tasks
- 'bed-making, chamber-sweeping and water-fetching' by one account,
also serving at table - in return for free 'sizes' or rations from the
college buttery.' But would boys of Southampton's rank bring servants
with them, d'you think, or muck in with the others? Nicholl describes
the average college arrangements as three/four undergrads living in a
'set' under the eye of a fellow, sleeping in a communal bedchamber
with the fellow in the high bed and the students in truckle beds.
Frankly I can't see an Earl coping with this. I'd guess at other
arrangements for him, but I don't know.
When Nashe's 'Anatomie of Absurditie', (published 1590 but probably
written 1587) came out, it was dedicated to Sir Charles Blount. I
think if Nashe had already known/been known to Southampton, he'd have
perhaps dedicated this maiden work to him? But it was another five
years or more before he chanced his arm with the Earl, and then of
course that dedication was swiftly withdrawn. I think, on balance,
the evidence runs against the Earl ever being his patron.
Rita
Rita
> In article <c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com>,
> nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>
> >kqk...@aol.comcrashed (KQKnave) wrote in message
> >news:<20030311214140...@mb-cf.aol.com>...
> >> In article <c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com>,
> >> nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
> >>
> >> >My position (and I think Robert's and Nigel's) is that the choice of
> >> >conceit is very likely to reflect the tastes/interests of the
> >> >addressee where, of course, the addressee is real.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >You're right that no single conceit should, on its own, be seized on
> >> >as a biographical clue, especially if it's of a type that most other
> >> >sonneteers employ. But the repeated use for example of legal conceits
> >> >certainly suggests to me that the main intended audience of these
> >> >sonnets was someone familiar with legal terms.
> >>
> >> I don't think so. I think the intended audience is any educated person
> >> who can read. You are not going to make any money selling books
> >> of sonnets to just lawyers.
> >
> >Ah, now that's a whole nother problem: in what circumstances, and with
> >what end in mind, did Shakespeare create his sonnet sequence. Your
> >comment above seems to imply he began writing them with the ultimate
> >aim of publishing for money. Is that your opinion?
>
> I'm sure he hoped to make *something*, but I was speaking in general
> terms about all the sonneteers, especially the ones who published at
> the height of the craze after Sidney's sonnets were published.
>
> > It isn't mine.
> >If he wrote them with the intention of making money out of a popular
> >form of poetry, why did he address them to a man - not an obvious
> >selling point - and why did he publish so late?
>
> He published late because he was perfecting and rewriting them.
For eleven years? So it was his pet project, a cherished, prestige
effort. But why no dedication by the author? No gratulatory verses
by his friends?
> I don't think he in particular was especially concerned with money
> in this case, but more concerned for an audience.
But which audience? In 1609 he wasn't going to wow a literary
audience with a sonnet sequence. The literati had started to sneer at
sonnets by 1597.
> >>
<snip>
> >> I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense. I know next to nothing
> >> about painting, astrology and perfumery but I can still appreciate the
> >> sonnets which use those metaphors. Think about the "drawen" sonnet
> >> that Spenser has written. What makes it different from Shakespeare's
> >> sonnets that Stonehouse claims show the talents of the subject? In
> >> the first place, the sequence was written to a real woman,
> >
> >- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
>
> I can't, but neither can it be proved that he was real.
It's harder to prove, certainly, if you dismiss Thorpe's reference to
Mr. W. H. as a misprint. You do, Bate does, Foster does; but I don't.
> The point is
> that conceits are conceits, not biographical clues.
> >> and in
> >> the second place, (Elizabeth Boyle) is depicted as *doing* that particular > >> activity (embroidery).
8 it was. But it's Shakespeare who says he listens to music 'sadly'.
And you simplify the musical conceit considerably by reducing it to
scattered references to tunes, strings and singing:
'If the true concord of well-tuned sounds
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one one pleasing note do sing.'
> >(And
> >if you could fully understand at a glance the technical language used
> >in all these varying sonnets then good on you, Jim. I needed
> >footnotes.)
>
> I don't know what you mean. There isn't much technical in the sonnets.
> I have trouble with archaic words that are no longer used, technical
> or not.
My brief footnote glosses 'sweet husband to another' as 'tuned in
unison, so that when struck its partner vibrates.' My first unaided
mental image was of somebody strumming several strings at once to make
some sort of, erm...chord. I'm not musical. Even with the footnote,
I'm not entirely clear what Shakespeare is saying here. It's a bit
tekky.
> >Sonnet 16 line 8 strongly suggests, I think, that the addressee owned
> >a self-portrait.
>
> Fictional addresees can also "own" a portrait.
Agreed, fictional addressees can do/be anything. But if Shakespeare's
sonnets are addressed to a real person, and he attributes
portrait-ownership to that person, chances are the real person was of
sufficient status and taste to own a portrait in real life. Phew.
> Or real persons may
> not own a portrait, but the conceit stands as is on its own. Here's
> another beloved's "counterfeit":
>
> Thomas Watson (1593)
> SONNET 46
> My Mistress seeing her fair counterfeit
> So sweetly framed in my bleeding breast
This is not the same thing at all! Obviously Miss Whoever's
'counterfeit' here is not a real painting, or Watson would be dead.
If your point is you don't need a real painting to introduce a
painting conceit - well why did Shakespeare bother? He didn't in 24.
<snip>
>
> >(I also take the 'Time's pencil' reference to be an
> >allusion to Hilliard, though I'm not sure this implies Hilliard
> >painted the portrait.)
>
> Now you have it down to a specific artist? Rather than just
> a metaphor? I think the "pencil" reference is to Spenser's
> sonnet 17 and Daniel's sonnet 33.
'Pencil' for 'artist', yes. But 'this Time's pencil' is a bit more
specific, and is coupled with 'my pupil pen', in that both, according
to Shakespeare, are inadequate to render the friend. 'My pupil pen'
is clearly Shakespeare himself, being characteristically modest about
his own poetic ability. It makes sense to interpret 'this time's
pencil' as meaning 'the best contemporary artist'. Well yes, that
would be Hilliard: though I accept Shakespeare isn't necessarily
saying 'he has tried and failed', because it could as easily mean 'he
would fail if he tried'.
> >Sonnet 47 tells us that Shakespeare also owned
> >a picture of his friend. You can say this might be a mere fiction
> >invented so Shakespeare could wheel on a 'painting' conceit: and so it
> >might. But even the use of such conceits tells us something about the
> >personae of both poet and addressee.
>
> What it tells us is that, as I have demonstrated with the examples
> I gave earlier, that Shakespeare was aware of the tradition of
> the conceit of painting.
Of course. But unlike in the Watson sonnet you quoted, this is
obviously not meant to be a purely metaphorical portrait. Shakespeare
writes as if he literally has a picture of his friend. He may be
fibbing, maybe there was no such picture. But this detail certainly
creates the impression they are both men of sufficient taste and
status to own paintings. If you won't allow it as a biographical
point, you have to accept it as a bit of persona-building.
> >The impression we get is of a
> >cultured milieu in which people owned and valued portraits, listened
> >carefully to music, made careful notes in their tables, knew about
> >mathematics and trends in funeral architecture and understood legal
> >terms.
>
> I don't get any such impression. For one thing, the references in
> the sonnets are vague and unspecialized. The only impression
> that I get is that Shakespeare read his predecessors well.
But you have to get an impression of the friend, or this sequence is a
flop. Even if the whole thing is fictional, that would still be true.
Sonnet sequences are like little dramas. A good poet can't write one
without suggesting the characters of the dramatis personae. You don't
get the impression the Dark Lady is sex-mad, musical, dark-eyed and
married? Of course you do. You don't get the impression the friend
is younger than Shakespeare, gentle by nature, good-looking and of
higher social status? And the fact that Shakespeare draws on certain
conceits (music, art, mathematics, law and above all the passage of
time) but not others (no war, no weapons, no sport, no jousting) -
this has no impact at all on the mental image you have of his friend?
<snip>
Rita
(who just read Auden's essay and nearly gave up on this whole
endeavour.)
bookburn
Rita
> (who just read Auden's essay and nearly gave up on this whole
> endeavour.)
Curious about what's daunting, I find this "sample chapter" on the
Web.
bookburn
(quote)
Lectures on Shakespeare
W. H. Auden
Edited by Arthur Kirsch
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Princeton University Press and
copyrighted, © 2001, by Princeton University Press. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording,
or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing
from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World
Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network
servers. Follow links for Class Use and other Permissions. For more
information, send e-mail to permi...@pupress.princeton.edu
Sonnets
[4 December 1946]
Shakespeare's Sonnets were published in 1609, but the bulk of them
were written between 1593 and 1596, so that's why we're reading them
now. How far are they personal? How far are they technical
exercises? There has been more nonsense written about Shakespeare's
Sonnets than about any other piece of literature extant. Wordsworth
said, "With this key / Shakspeare unlocked his heart," and Browning
said, "`With this same key / Shakespeare unlocked his heart,' once
more! / Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!" In one
sense the artist is always unlocking his heart, in another he is
always dramatic. But actually there must be a difference between
Shakespeare's dramatic works and poems about experiences that were
happening to him. The question we must ask about lyric verse is: how
far is it personal, how far is it dramatic? Most of these sonnets
were addressed to a man. That can lead to a variety of nonsensical
attitudes from exercises in special pleading to discreet
whitewashing. It is also nonsensical, no matter how accurate your
results may be, to waste time trying to identify characters. It is
an idiot's job, pointless and uninteresting. It is just gossip, and
gossip, though it can be exceedingly interesting when the parties
are alive, is not at all interesting when they're dead.
Why should so much poetry be written about sexual love and so little
about eating--which is just as pleasurable and never lets you
down--or about family affection, or about the love of mathematics?
Sexual love has, in very acute form, the double impress of nature
and spirit and is therefore ideally representative of our human
condition. The weak self that desires to be strong is hungry. The
lonely self desires to be attached. The spirit desires to be free
and unattached, and not at the mercy of natural appetite. It also
desires to be important, and that conflicts with its desire for
freedom. The weak self wants other things to exist so it may
encroach on them, the lonely self wants other existences to hold on
to, in extreme cases to be absorbed in. But the spirit wants to be
only "I," wants its attachment to other things to be its free
choice. Consciousness plays the least part in the pleasure of
eating, but it plays some--that's why we recognize gluttony as a
sin. But the element of consciousness is so small that gluttony is a
staple only of comedy--for example, the story of the man who gives
up a beautiful girl to marry an ugly woman who happens to be a good
cook. His choice can't involve difficulty, for eating is a
comparatively innocent occupation. It also has a generalized object
of desire: it doesn't make very much difference what the food is. It
is comic to see an individual overcome by something general. Take
the man who is conversing very elaborately, very beautifully, on
matters of the highest spiritual nature. Suddenly, when no one is
looking, he snatches a cake. As in all natural humor, though, the
amusement to be derived from this sort of situation, where the
individual comes in contact with the universal, is limited. For
example, there's a party. Everyone is waiting expectantly for the
great writer to put in an appearance. He enters. Instead of
producing illuminating conversation, the first thing he does is ask
where the bathroom is. At the other extreme, the passion for
mathematics, though it can be in selected persons quite as intense
as any love affair, is too spiritual. But because mathematicians are
still obstinately people, you can still get a mild comic effect from
the contrast between their interest and their human situation: for
instance, the absent-minded professor who forgets the day of his
wedding.
Sexual love has both nature and spirit and the desire for personal
choice. The desire begins with the individual object but ends in bed
where things are generalized. I think that there's a good American
story to illustrate this point. A man is on a visit to Chicago. He
enters a restaurant. Yes, he sees a very beautiful girl in the
restaurant, exquisitely beautiful, ravishingly beautiful. Yes, she
is friendly, she smiles at him, she talks to him. Yes, her
conversation is very witty, she is very agreeable, she is immensely
entertaining. They go to the opera. Yes, she is very intelligent,
she has a fine appreciation of the beautiful things in life, is
keenly aware of values. They go to a night club. Yes, she is a
wonderful sport, she enters wholeheartedly into the spirit of
things. Later, yes, she responds beautifully to his love-making, is
very understanding, says she loves him too. In the taxi, yes, her
kisses are thrilling. And after that? After that it was like it is
in Cincinnati. You see, any description of the sex act must be
pornographic. To an outsider, to a child watching, it looks like
eating. There is no realization that individuals are concerned. But
they are, even at the last, though the fact may be not be evident.
The nature of the act is that we must not remain self-conscious, it
is destroyed if we do. Of course, to the child the act is comic, but
it is not to the adult because he knows that spirit is involved.
Literature makes people fornicating self- conscious and so violates
the nature of the experience.
Why is love so peculiarly the subject of lyric poetry? War and work
are dealt with dramatically, not lyrically. You often get people
writing poetry when they fall in love who are not moved by their
other equally important experiences to do any writing about them. It
isn't at all because love poetry has any practical value. No one was
ever seduced by a beautiful poem, though a bad one may be effective
on occasion. Work and war are less subjective, they can be imposed
on one for pragmatic reasons. Of course, subjective reasons, the
combative instinct, loving your work, may enter in, but you always
advance pragmatic, causal reasons--I have to defend my country, I
have to earn my living. Now, these reasons are never advanced in
love. The sex drive is enough, and reasons are always inadequate. It
is an entirely personal affair, it is my love. It is a matter of
necessity, I can't help myself. Duty does not enter into falling in
love, though it may later enter into love itself.
Falling in love is the discovery of what "I exist" means. Now here
we see the difference between essence and existence. I can readily
imagine other people's feelings by analogy with my own, but I cannot
readily imagine other people's existence by analogy with my own. My
feelings, desires, etc., can be objects of my knowledge and hence I
can imagine what other people feel. My existence cannot become an
object of knowledge, and hence while, if I have the necessary
histrionic imagination and talent I can act the part of another in
such a way that I deceive his best friends, I can never imagine what
it would be like to be that other person but must always remain
pretending to be him. Falling in love is an intense interest in the
existence of another person. That existence is not alone an object
of knowledge, nor is it exclusively a goal of desire. That is why
people write under these circumstances as they do not at other
times. They are confronted with the question, "What is existence?"
and with a tension between nature and spirit. To illustrate this
tension one common rhetoric, used by Shakespeare, is to contrast the
essential eye and the existential heart. Sonnet 46:
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie
(A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes);
But the defendant doth that plea deny
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impanneled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:
As thus--mine eye's due is thy outward part,
And my heart's right thy inward love of heart.
Also, Sonnet 24:
Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective it is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill
To find where your true image pictur'd lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, wherethrough the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee.
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art--
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
I can talk about "my" feelings but not about "my" existence, as if I
owned and lived outside it. Because you exist, my existence becomes
important--Sonnet 62:
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account,
And for myself mine own worth do define
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chopt with tann'd antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
'Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
Or, one may react, "My feelings give your existence importance"--
Sonnet 141:
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone;
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be.
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
The testimony of the five wits and the five senses are not of
primary importance.
Dr. Johnson refuted determinism by kicking a stone, and that was a
very sound thing, for freedom is the first order of consciousness,
and you can't argue about it. Translated into the rhetoric of love,
that means the lover can say, "You transform the world for me," in
two ways. First, you transform my condition vis-.-vis the world, as
in Sonnet 29:
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to a lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Or, you may transform other objects, as in Sonnet 99:
The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.
The lily I condemned for thy hand;
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair.
And roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,
And to his robb'ry had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet and colour it had stol'n from thee.
Another characteristic extremely important in the Sonnets is the
experience of Time as a perpetual presence by which the past and
future are judged, as set against the experience of a changing
outside world in time. So, fading beauty is immortalized in art. Now
what would be a good poem to illustrate that? Sonnet 65 will do:
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! Where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none! unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love shall still shine bright.
Notice how frequently the concluding couplets of the sonnets are
poor. Unlike many of even the greatest artists, Shakespeare is not
interested in completely flawless wholes. He says what he wants to
say and lets the sonnet end anyhow. But that is the fault of a major
artist, for a minor one always completes the work carefully. For
instance, when we read Dostoevsky, we feel, yes, this is wonderful,
this is marvelous, now go home and write it all over again. And yet
if he did, the effect might well be lost. Most of us, however, can't
get away with that attitude toward our writing.
(unquote)
Peter Farey
Rita wrote:
>
> Peter Farey wrote:
> >
> > Rita wrote:
> > >
<snip>
> > > by the second, indicating the Earl had told his new admirer not to
> > > bother.
> >
> > Which does not *necessarily* indicate that he had refused
> > to be his patron?
>
> Well, that's how Nashe's biographer Nicholl interprets it. And I
> can't see myself that Nashe would want (or dare) to snub the patronage
> of such a man. If Southampton had given the work his blessing I can't
> see that Nashe or his publisher would choose to offend him by
> summarily withdrawing the dedication. As it doesn't appear in any but
> the first edition, the inference seems to be that the man giving it
> the thumbs-down was Southampton.
Farey nuff. My thought was only that the Earl could
have privately approved but expressed a preference
for his name not to be so openly associated with it.
In fact I had forgotten that Nicholl was Nashe's
biographer and that I have only just read his revised
"The Reckoning" in which he says quite clearly that
the 'Lord S' referred to in 'Valentines' was Lord
Strange.
> > > The Choise of Valentines closes with a sonnet to 'Lord S'.
> > > It's Lord Strange.
> >
> > The identification of this as Southampton was the DNB's. Has
> > new information come to light since then?
>
> 'New', no. Has the DNB ever been revised?
Not as far as I know. Isn't Dave Kathman helping them
out with a new version right now?
> R. B. McKerrow pointed out
> back in 1906 that the sonnet's reference to a bud of 'the red rose'
> was a clear indication 'Lord S' was Lord Strange. (And when you think
> about it, you probably wouldn't call the earl 'Lord Southampton',
> would you? Sounds wrong.)
I agree. As you have probably seen by now, I came
to that conclusion myself. 'My Lord *of* Southampton',
perhaps. but not 'Lord Southampton'.
> I was mistaken about the sonnet closing
> the poem by the way, it's at the beginning.
> (www.members.tripod.com/sicttasd/choise.html)
There seems to be one addressed to him both at the
beginning and the end. Thanks for the link (as well
as for publishing the content). Now, if you will
excuse me, I think I need a cold shower.
> The 'Valentines' composition date of c. 1592 also fits nicely with the
> admiring comments in PP (1592) about Lord Strange. It certainly looks
> as if Nashe was trying to break into his circle about this time.
His words in PP 'This renowned Lord, to whom I owe
the utmost powers of my love and duty' together with
his referring to him as 'my friend' in that concluding
sonnet, suggests to me that he had probably already
succeeded in breaking into it by then.
> Anyway, I prefer to believe Nashe would offer the gamey 'Valentines'
> to a man in his 30s rather than a youth of 19; which shows I don't
> really understand youths of 19, I suppose.
I suppose.
> Or Nashe.
Do me a favour!
> > > Nashe was a sizar. He wouldn't get to mix with earls.
> >
> > Not socially, I guess. But my understanding is that sizars
> > acted as servants to the gentlemen pensioners and other
> > better-off students - a relationship not unlike that of poet
> > and patron, in fact?
>
> I don't actually know to what extent sizars served individuals.
> Nicholl just says: 'A sizar was a poorer student who did menial tasks
> - 'bed-making, chamber-sweeping and water-fetching' by one account,
> also serving at table - in return for free 'sizes' or rations from the
> college buttery.' But would boys of Southampton's rank bring servants
> with them, d'you think, or muck in with the others? Nicholl describes
> the average college arrangements as three/four undergrads living in a
> 'set' under the eye of a fellow, sleeping in a communal bedchamber
> with the fellow in the high bed and the students in truckle beds.
> Frankly I can't see an Earl coping with this. I'd guess at other
> arrangements for him, but I don't know.
Nor do I. It is something that I would quite like
to find out more about, though. My gut feel is that
it was rather more egalitarian than you suggest,
(rather like National Service was in my day) but I'll
see what I can discover next time I have the chance.
> When Nashe's 'Anatomie of Absurditie', (published 1590 but probably
> written 1587) came out, it was dedicated to Sir Charles Blount. I
> think if Nashe had already known/been known to Southampton, he'd have
> perhaps dedicated this maiden work to him? But it was another five
> years or more before he chanced his arm with the Earl, and then of
> course that dedication was swiftly withdrawn. I think, on balance,
> the evidence runs against the Earl ever being his patron.
>
> Rita
Yes, it certainly looks like it. Thanks for the info (and
for the poem - Phew!).
KQKnave
Why should there be a dedication by the author? He didn't need patronage,
he was self-employed. The things you mention are not on any of
Shakespeare's publications other than V&A and Lucrece, when
he was just beginning and needed the money. And why is it so
surprising that he would spend 11 years on the work? They are obviously
highly crafted, and you don't turn out things like that overnight.
The versions published in Passionate Pilgrim are probably earlier
drafts. Why did Proust spend the last 13 years of his life writing
and re-writing A La Recherche du Temps Perdu? Why did Beethoven
spend the last 10 years of his life on his 9th symphony? Is it possible
that they wanted to leave something lasting, as well as it could be
done? Is it possible that the problems they attempted to solve
were extremely difficult?
>> I don't think he in particular was especially concerned with money
>> in this case, but more concerned for an audience.
>
>But which audience? In 1609 he wasn't going to wow a literary
>audience with a sonnet sequence. The literati had started to sneer at
>sonnets by 1597.
They sneered at bad sonnet sequences. I don't believe anybody
sneered at Spenser or Sidney.
><snip>
>> >> I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense. I know next to nothing
>> >> about painting, astrology and perfumery but I can still appreciate the
>> >> sonnets which use those metaphors. Think about the "drawen" sonnet
>> >> that Spenser has written. What makes it different from Shakespeare's
>> >> sonnets that Stonehouse claims show the talents of the subject? In
>> >> the first place, the sequence was written to a real woman,
>> >
>> >- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
>>
>> I can't, but neither can it be proved that he was real.
>
>It's harder to prove, certainly, if you dismiss Thorpe's reference to
>Mr. W. H. as a misprint. You do, Bate does, Foster does; but I don't.
Well, then you just believe in another misprint, because Southampton's
initials were H.W., not W.H. And he certainly would not be addressed
as "Master". And the dedication makes no sense unless W.H. is a
misprint for W.SH.
I didn't simplify it, you did. You said that there was "technical"
language used in his sonnet, and that therefore Sh. must have
listened to music "seriously". There aren't, and other "musical" sonnets
by other poets used language that was more esoteric. A conceit
is the use of metaphorical language from some topic other than
love to illustrate a particular facet of the relationship being
described.
>'If the true concord of well-tuned sounds
>By unions married, do offend thine ear,
>They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
>In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
>Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
>Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
>Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
>Who all in one one pleasing note do sing.'
>
>> >(And
>> >if you could fully understand at a glance the technical language used
>> >in all these varying sonnets then good on you, Jim. I needed
>> >footnotes.)
>>
>> I don't know what you mean. There isn't much technical in the sonnets.
>> I have trouble with archaic words that are no longer used, technical
>> or not.
>
>My brief footnote glosses 'sweet husband to another' as 'tuned in
>unison, so that when struck its partner vibrates.' My first unaided
>mental image was of somebody strumming several strings at once to make
>some sort of, erm...chord. I'm not musical. Even with the footnote,
>I'm not entirely clear what Shakespeare is saying here. It's a bit
>tekky.
It's not tekky, unless you know absolutely nothing about music.
And it's very clear what he's saying: The members of a family
are like the strings on a lute, they work together to create harmony.
>> >Sonnet 16 line 8 strongly suggests, I think, that the addressee owned
>> >a self-portrait.
>>
>> Fictional addresees can also "own" a portrait.
>Agreed, fictional addressees can do/be anything. But if Shakespeare's
>sonnets are addressed to a real person, and he attributes
>portrait-ownership to that person, chances are the real person was of
>sufficient status and taste to own a portrait in real life. Phew.
It's just as likely that even if there were a real addressee, the
reference could be to a hypothetical portrait. I assume that
any addressee could read, was familiar with the concept of
a portrait, etc.
>> Or real persons may
>> not own a portrait, but the conceit stands as is on its own. Here's
>> another beloved's "counterfeit":
>>
>> Thomas Watson (1593)
>> SONNET 46
>> My Mistress seeing her fair counterfeit
>> So sweetly framed in my bleeding breast
>This is not the same thing at all! Obviously Miss Whoever's
>'counterfeit' here is not a real painting, or Watson would be dead.
Using your own argument, why would Watson introduce the
conceit of a portrait unless his addressee had a portrait?
Obviously, his addressee did not have to own a portrait,
and neither did Shakespeare's addressee. The lines in
sonnet 16 are
..many maidens.../With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,/
Much liker than your painted counterfeit/
It can be read as hypothetical. Shakespeare does not say
"you own a portrait". Maidens WOULD bear your living
flowers, which WOULD be more like you than your portrait.
>If your point is you don't need a real painting to introduce a
>painting conceit - well why did Shakespeare bother? He didn't in 24.
What do you mean, why did he bother? Why did Barnes write sonnets
to a woman using legal terminology? You can't divorce yourself
from the idea that these poems are biographical. It's called
"making things up". Setting yourself a problem to solve. "I think
I'll try to write a sonnet using a painting theme, and see what I
can come up with."
><snip>
>>
>> >(I also take the 'Time's pencil' reference to be an
>> >allusion to Hilliard, though I'm not sure this implies Hilliard
>> >painted the portrait.)
>>
>> Now you have it down to a specific artist? Rather than just
>> a metaphor? I think the "pencil" reference is to Spenser's
>> sonnet 17 and Daniel's sonnet 33.
>
>'Pencil' for 'artist', yes. But 'this Time's pencil' is a bit more
>specific, and is coupled with 'my pupil pen', in that both, according
>to Shakespeare, are inadequate to render the friend. 'My pupil pen'
>is clearly Shakespeare himself, being characteristically modest about
>his own poetic ability. It makes sense to interpret 'this time's
>pencil' as meaning 'the best contemporary artist'. Well yes, that
>would be Hilliard: though I accept Shakespeare isn't necessarily
>saying 'he has tried and failed', because it could as easily mean 'he
>would fail if he tried'.
This is just fantasy. "This time's pencil" is just "any contemporary
artist", not "the best contemporary artist". Did the best contemporary
artists work in pencil?
>> >Sonnet 47 tells us that Shakespeare also owned
>> >a picture of his friend. You can say this might be a mere fiction
>> >invented so Shakespeare could wheel on a 'painting' conceit: and so it
>> >might. But even the use of such conceits tells us something about the
>> >personae of both poet and addressee.
>>
>> What it tells us is that, as I have demonstrated with the examples
>> I gave earlier, that Shakespeare was aware of the tradition of
>> the conceit of painting.
>Of course. But unlike in the Watson sonnet you quoted, this is
>obviously not meant to be a purely metaphorical portrait. Shakespeare
>writes as if he literally has a picture of his friend. He may be
>fibbing, maybe there was no such picture. But this detail certainly
>creates the impression they are both men of sufficient taste and
>status to own paintings. If you won't allow it as a biographical
>point, you have to accept it as a bit of persona-building.
I think you are seeing things that are not there, because you've
already decided ahead of time that the addressee was Southampton,
and Shakespeare likewise was a super-sophisticated Renaissance
man. Very much like Oxfordianism.
>> >The impression we get is of a
>> >cultured milieu in which people owned and valued portraits, listened
>> >carefully to music, made careful notes in their tables, knew about
>> >mathematics and trends in funeral architecture and understood legal
>> >terms.
>>
>> I don't get any such impression. For one thing, the references in
>> the sonnets are vague and unspecialized. The only impression
>> that I get is that Shakespeare read his predecessors well.
>
>But you have to get an impression of the friend, or this sequence is a
>flop.
Why? I couldn't care less about the addressee. I like great poetry.
>Even if the whole thing is fictional, that would still be true.
> Sonnet sequences are like little dramas. A good poet can't write one
>without suggesting the characters of the dramatis personae. You don't
>get the impression the Dark Lady is sex-mad, musical, dark-eyed and
>married? Of course you do. You don't get the impression the friend
>is younger than Shakespeare, gentle by nature, good-looking and of
>higher social status? And the fact that Shakespeare draws on certain
>conceits (music, art, mathematics, law and above all the passage of
>time) but not others (no war, no weapons, no sport, no jousting) -
>this has no impact at all on the mental image you have of his friend?
But there are war conceits. See the very sonnet 16 that you are
fantasizing about. The first quatrain. Shakespeare draws on the same
conceits that other sonneteers used, and I don't see these poems
as biographical, I see them as literary objects that reflect and expand
upon a certain tradition. Amazing that all of the addressees of all
of the other sonnet sequences likewise seem to have the same interests
in the passage of time, music, art, law etc. Even Ronsard....
><snip>
>Rita
>(who just read Auden's essay and nearly gave up on this whole
>endeavour.)
I don't agree with everything he says, but he has some perceptive
comments. For a long time it was believed the sonnets were written
1593-96 because of a few allusions to R&J, V&A etc. But more modern
scholarship has shown that they were mostly written around 1598-1601,
with later revision, by comparing their entire vocabulary with the canon.
(By Hieatt and also Foster.)
Rita
> >> >If he wrote them with the intention of making money out of a popular
> >> >form of poetry, why did he address them to a man - not an obvious
> >> >selling point - and why did he publish so late?
> >>
> >> He published late because he was perfecting and rewriting them.
> >
> >For eleven years? So it was his pet project, a cherished, prestige
> >effort. But why no dedication by the author? No gratulatory verses
> >by his friends?
>
> Why should there be a dedication by the author? He didn't need patronage,
> he was self-employed. The things you mention are not on any of
> Shakespeare's publications other than V&A and Lucrece, when
> he was just beginning and needed the money.
The things I mention are not on anything other than the only other
poetry he published. I don't think a dedication was merely made for
the sake of the money the patron dispensed. A carefully-chosen,
high-profile patron raised the status of the work. The First Folio
had patrons (and gratulatory verse).
> And why is it so
> surprising that he would spend 11 years on the work? They are obviously
> highly crafted, and you don't turn out things like that overnight.
The plays are pretty highly-crafted but he never seems to have spent
eleven years on one.
> The versions published in Passionate Pilgrim are probably earlier
> drafts. Why did Proust spend the last 13 years of his life writing
> and re-writing A La Recherche du Temps Perdu? Why did Beethoven
> spend the last 10 years of his life on his 9th symphony? Is it possible
> that they wanted to leave something lasting, as well as it could be
> done? Is it possible that the problems they attempted to solve
> were extremely difficult?
Hmmm. 'His mind and hand went together, and what he thought he uttered
with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his
papers. Except for those bloody sonnets, he was forever crossing them
out and starting again.' (Heminges and Condell)
'...he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he
should be stopped; although, if memory serves, those sonnets took him
a good ten years.' (Jonson)
> >> I don't think he in particular was especially concerned with money
> >> in this case, but more concerned for an audience.
> >
> >But which audience? In 1609 he wasn't going to wow a literary
> >audience with a sonnet sequence. The literati had started to sneer at
> >sonnets by 1597.
>
> They sneered at bad sonnet sequences. I don't believe anybody
> sneered at Spenser or Sidney.
They sneered at sonnets:
'The lovesick poet, whose importune prayer
Repulsed is, with resolute despair
Hopeth to conquer his disdainful dame
With public plaints of his conceived flame.
Then pours he forth in patched sonnetings
His love, his lust, and loathsome flatterings,
As though the staring world hanged on his sleeve,
When once he smiles, to laugh: and when he sighs, to grieve.
Careth the world thou love, thou live or die?
Careth the world how fair thy fair one be?' (Hall, writing before
March 1597)
And Guilpin, 1598, despairing over the girliness of modern poets:
'Another with his supple passion
Meaning to move his Pigsney to compassion,
Makes puny Lucius in a sympathy
In love with's piebald laundress by and by.'
And Marston, in 1598:
'If Laura's painted lips do deign a kiss
To her enamour'd slave, 'O! Heaven's bliss!'
(Straight he exclaims) 'not to be matched with this!'
Blaspheming dolt! go, threescore sonnets write
Upon a picture's kiss, O raving sprite!'
The significant thing is that both Marston and Guilpin mock
sonneteering as something done by wimps. So it seems clear that
though it had once been cool to write sonnets like Sir Phil, by 1600
it wasn't. Hence the jokes at Gullio's expense in the Parnassus
plays, and hence Drayton's self-defensive sonnets 'To the Reader' and
'To the Criticke' when he brought out a revised edition of 'Ideas
Mirrour' in 1599.
Sidney's sonnets were circulating by the late 80s and the Amoretti
were published in 1595. Shakespeare could not set the Thames on fire
with sonnets in 1609.
Rita
PS I'm posting my reply in three sections - doing it in one is too
long.
Rita
> ><snip>
> >> >
> >> >- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
> >>
> >> I can't, but neither can it be proved that he was real.
> >
> >It's harder to prove, certainly, if you dismiss Thorpe's reference to
> >Mr. W. H. as a misprint. You do, Bate does, Foster does; but I don't.
>
> Well, then you just believe in another misprint, because Southampton's
> initials were H.W., not W.H. And he certainly would not be addressed
> as "Master".
I agree. I don't think it was Southampton.
>And the dedication makes no sense unless W.H. is a
> misprint for W.SH.
Really? Why can't it be to a gentleman with the initials W.H., whose
name we don't know?
>
> >> The point is
> >> that conceits are conceits, not biographical clues.
>
>>>>. Sonnet 7 tells us he listened to music seriously,
> >>
> >> I think you mean 8, and I don't see why he has to listen to music
> >> "seriously" to use words like "tuned", "string" and "sing", or for
> >> his audience to be particularly knowledgeable about music to
> >> appreciate the conceit.
> >
> >8 it was. But it's Shakespeare who says he listens to music 'sadly'.
> >And you simplify the musical conceit considerably by reducing it to
> >scattered references to tunes, strings and singing:
>
> I didn't simplify it, you did. You said that there was "technical"
> language used in his sonnet, and that therefore Sh. must have
> listened to music "seriously".
Then I expressed myself badly. I meant Shakespeare is depicting the
young man as listening seriously:
'Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?'
Shakespeare is asking the addressee why, when he is pleasant listening
himself, he hears music 'sadly' - gravely, with serious attention. He
takes this seriousness as suggesting the young man is being disturbed
by the music, as musical harmony is an implicit rebuke to his single
state. But Shakespeare is also giving us an image of a young man who
gives music his considered attention. It suggests a man of
sensibility.
<snip>
> >'Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
> >Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
> >Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
> >Who all in one one pleasing note do sing.'
<snip>
> >
> >My brief footnote glosses 'sweet husband to another' as 'tuned in
> >unison, so that when struck its partner vibrates.' My first unaided
> >mental image was of somebody strumming several strings at once to make
> >some sort of, erm...chord. I'm not musical. Even with the footnote,
> >I'm not entirely clear what Shakespeare is saying here. It's a bit
> >tekky.
>
> It's not tekky, unless you know absolutely nothing about music.
So you agree the young man did know something about it?
> And it's very clear what he's saying: The members of a family
> are like the strings on a lute, they work together to create harmony.
I grasped the overall concept. What I didn't fully understand at
first was the precise detail. Shakespeare was referring to the
courses of a instrument being tuned in unison, so that one string
being touched would cause another to vibrate in sympathy. Did you
really get this straight away? (Be honest).
> >> >Sonnet 16 line 8 strongly suggests, I think, that the addressee owned
> >> >a self-portrait.
> >>
> >> Fictional addresees can also "own" a portrait.
>
> >Agreed, fictional addressees can do/be anything. But if Shakespeare's
> >sonnets are addressed to a real person, and he attributes
> >portrait-ownership to that person, chances are the real person was of
> >sufficient status and taste to own a portrait in real life. Phew.
>
> It's just as likely that even if there were a real addressee, the
> reference could be to a hypothetical portrait.
<snip>
It still wouldn't make any difference. Whether the portrait is real
or not doesn't matter, anymore than whether Elizabeth Boyle
embroidered or not affects the image of his fiance Spenser intended to
create when he wrote Sonnet 71. By showing her embroidering he grants
her the persona of a refined gentlewoman doing needlework for
pleasure, not darning socks. By referring to the possession of
portraits Shakespeare is creating an image of the addressee as a man
of some culture and refinement as opposed to, say, a gong-farmer.
> >> Or real persons may
> >> not own a portrait, but the conceit stands as is on its own. Here's
> >> another beloved's "counterfeit":
> >>
> >> Thomas Watson (1593)
> >> SONNET 46
> >> My Mistress seeing her fair counterfeit
> >> So sweetly framed in my bleeding breast
>
> >This is not the same thing at all! Obviously Miss Whoever's
> >'counterfeit' here is not a real painting, or Watson would be dead.
>
> Using your own argument, why would Watson introduce the
> conceit of a portrait unless his addressee had a portrait?
Because he wants to introduce a conceit about a portrait, and so he
does it without, in this poem, feeling any need to refer to the
mistress owning a portrait - a real portrait, an actual painting, an
object, not a metaphor. And Shakespeare does exactly the same thing
in Sonnet 24 where he refers metaphorically to a portrait being
'stell'd...in table of my heart'. This is quite different from what
he does in Sonnet 16 and again in Sonnets 46 and 47 where he refers to
actual paintings - not metaphors, but paintings. You seem to lump
these references together as if there is no perceptible difference.
Rita
Rita
<snip>
> You can't divorce yourself
> from the idea that these poems are biographical. It's called
> "making things up". Setting yourself a problem to solve. "I think
> I'll try to write a sonnet using a painting theme, and see what I
> can come up with."
I cannot divorce myself from the knowledge that some sonneteers
(Spenser, Sidney) had a biographical basis for their poems. That
they were following a tradition and sometimes reworking shared themes
does not invalidate this. And if true of them, why not Shakespeare?
> ><snip>
> >>
> >> >(I also take the 'Time's pencil' reference to be an
> >> >allusion to Hilliard, though I'm not sure this implies Hilliard
> >> >painted the portrait.)
> >>
> >> Now you have it down to a specific artist? Rather than just
> >> a metaphor? I think the "pencil" reference is to Spenser's
> >> sonnet 17 and Daniel's sonnet 33.
> >
> >'Pencil' for 'artist', yes. But 'this Time's pencil' is a bit more
> >specific, <snip>
>
> This is just fantasy. "This time's pencil" is just "any contemporary
> artist", not "the best contemporary artist". Did the best contemporary
> artists work in pencil?
They didn't work 'in' pencil, they painted with a pencil - it was the
name of a fine paintbrush (see, this is why I needed the footnotes).
If Shakespeare had written 'this time's pencils' I would accept he
meant 'any contemporary artist' but he mentions only one.
<snip>
>
> I think you are seeing things that are not there, because you've
> already decided ahead of time that the addressee was Southampton,
No, I don't think it was Southampton.
> and Shakespeare likewise was a super-sophisticated Renaissance
> man. Very much like Oxfordianism.
No, I definitely don't think the most exciting intellects of the age
were aristocrats. And I don't imagine Shakespeare wafting about art
galleries, wine glass in hand. Some of his friends however were
painters, and a passage in RoL suggests he thought paintings worth
observing closely. I think Mr WH was a young gentleman, richer and
better connected than Shakespeare, but not titled. And I think he too
was interested in poetry, art, music, mathematics, law, history - but
not hunting or war.
> >>
> >> I don't get any such impression. For one thing, the references in
> >> the sonnets are vague and unspecialized. The only impression
> >> that I get is that Shakespeare read his predecessors well.
> >
> >But you have to get an impression of the friend, or this sequence is a
> >flop.
>
> Why? I couldn't care less about the addressee. I like great poetry.
We certainly don't need the addressee's identity to enjoy the poems,
but you do get an impression of him - or at least Shakespeare keeps
claiming it's his intention to create one, which he has done, for me.
<snip>
> But there are war conceits. See the very sonnet 16 that you are
> fantasizing about. The first quatrain.
A 'conceit'?
'But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?'
That's it. After which he slides into an argument about getting
married, ways to perpetuate oneself etc. etc. Even Elizabeth Boyle
got a better 'warrior' sonnet than that. And she was a girl.
> Shakespeare draws on the same
> conceits that other sonneteers used, and I don't see these poems
> as biographical, I see them as literary objects that reflect and expand
> upon a certain tradition. Amazing that all of the addressees of all
> of the other sonnet sequences likewise seem to have the same interests
> in the passage of time, music, art, law etc. Even Ronsard....
Amazing that some of Sidney's or Spenser's sonnets touch on similar
themes, which by your reasoning means they had no biographical basis
either.
> ><snip>
> >Rita
> >(who just read Auden's essay and nearly gave up on this whole
> >endeavour.)
>
> I don't agree with everything he says, but he has some perceptive
> comments. For a long time it was believed the sonnets were written
> 1593-96 because of a few allusions to R&J, V&A etc. But more modern
> scholarship has shown that they were mostly written around 1598-1601,
> with later revision, by comparing their entire vocabulary with the canon.
> (By Hieatt and also Foster.)
I think some methods of more modern scholarship are still too
experimental to trust entirely. I don't see why Shakespeare would
only begin to write sonnets just as literary fashion was abandoning
them.
Rita
David Hugill
<nash...@postmaster.co.uk> writes
>kqk...@aol.comcrashed (KQKnave) wrote in message news:<20030319015342.29077.000
>00...@mb-fu.aol.com>...
>
><snip>
>> ><snip>
>> >Rita
>> >(who just read Auden's essay and nearly gave up on this whole
>> >endeavour.)
>>
>> I don't agree with everything he says, but he has some perceptive
>> comments. For a long time it was believed the sonnets were written
>> 1593-96 because of a few allusions to R&J, V&A etc. But more modern
>> scholarship has shown that they were mostly written around 1598-1601,
>> with later revision, by comparing their entire vocabulary with the canon.
>> (By Hieatt and also Foster.)
>
>I think some methods of more modern scholarship are still too
>experimental to trust entirely. I don't see why Shakespeare would
>only begin to write sonnets just as literary fashion was abandoning
>them.
>
>Rita
Rita; To help you resolve the issues you have debated may I suggest you
just move the time of the sonnets back to 1586/8; [ my pupil pen]. There
is a young man, a Mr W.H in more lofty circles that Shakespeare but not
a lord. There are two portraits dated 1588; one identified as Mr W.H
and one identified as Shakespeare, painted by 'this times pencil'.
Shakespeare started the Sonnets thing early but they were out of fashion
by 1598 - 1600, possibly because there were too many bad ones compared
with Shakespeare's. Mr William Hatcliff is W.H - suggest you read
Leslie Hotson to resolve your struggles.
David Hugill
Rita
<snip>
>
> Rita; To help you resolve the issues you have debated may I suggest you
> just move the time of the sonnets back to 1586/8; [ my pupil pen]. There
> is a young man, a Mr W.H in more lofty circles that Shakespeare but not
> a lord. There are two portraits dated 1588; one identified as Mr W.H
> and one identified as Shakespeare, painted by 'this times pencil'.
> Shakespeare started the Sonnets thing early but they were out of fashion
> by 1598 - 1600, possibly because there were too many bad ones compared
> with Shakespeare's. Mr William Hatcliff is W.H - suggest you read
> Leslie Hotson to resolve your struggles.
>
>
> David Hugill
I have read Hotson's book, though it was some years ago. I remember I
was impressed by his arguments, particularly about the social standing
of anyone addressed as 'Mr'. I also really liked his suggestion that
addressee may have been acting as a 'Christmas prince' or similar at
the time the first 17 sonnets pleading with him to marry were written,
and they should be taken as addressed to his fictional self, not his
real one.
Unfortunately other aspects of his argument didn't carry as much
conviction, and the age gap of only four years between Shakespeare and
Hotson's candidate seems unlikely to me.
I think the inspiration behind these sonnets was a real person, even
though in the sonnets he is represented as an idealised persona rather
than the more rounded and fallible human being he was. I don't think
the relationship between him and Shakespeare was sexual. I think he
was probably a young gentleman of good standing and prospects, fond of
poetry, most likely quite intelligent, most likely with the initials
W.H or H.W. And beyond that, barring sudden discoveries in the
archives, I don't think we'll know any more.
Rita
David Hugill
<nash...@postmaster.co.uk> writes
>David Hugill <da...@smole.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<fi8u3JAiJXe+Ewgf@s
full story of Hotson's researches can only be understood if you also
read the later book, Shakespeare by Hilliard. Taking the whole of
Hotson's work there are probably one hundred connections between
Shakespeare's work, the sonnets and William Hatcliffe, and no other
candidate comes near to matching those links.
David Hugill
David Hugill
<da...@smole.demon.co.uk> writes
that the 'painted counterfeit' of W.H and a picture of Shakespeare are
real and are lodged in the Victoria and Albert museum in London.
--
David Hugill
KQKnave
>
>kqk...@aol.comcrashed (KQKnave) wrote in message
>news:<20030319015342...@mb-fu.aol.com>...
>> In article <c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com>,
>> nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>
>
>> >> >If he wrote them with the intention of making money out of a popular
>> >> >form of poetry, why did he address them to a man - not an obvious
>> >> >selling point - and why did he publish so late?
>> >>
>> >> He published late because he was perfecting and rewriting them.
>> >
>> >For eleven years? So it was his pet project, a cherished, prestige
>> >effort. But why no dedication by the author? No gratulatory verses
>> >by his friends?
>>
>> Why should there be a dedication by the author? He didn't need patronage,
>> he was self-employed. The things you mention are not on any of
>> Shakespeare's publications other than V&A and Lucrece, when
>> he was just beginning and needed the money.
>
>The things I mention are not on anything other than the only other
>poetry he published.
There are only 4 separate poetic publications by Shakespeare, 5 if you
count *A Lover's Complaint*. 2 of them, the earliest ones, have a dedication,
2 of them (The Phoenix and the Turtle) don't.
> I don't think a dedication was merely made for
>the sake of the money the patron dispensed.
Oh, I think it was. In fact, I think it was the only reason.
>A carefully-chosen,
>high-profile patron raised the status of the work. The First Folio
>had patrons (and gratulatory verse).
Shakespeare was long dead, so the patrons and the dedicatory
poetry were for the living.
>> And why is it so
>> surprising that he would spend 11 years on the work? They are obviously
>> highly crafted, and you don't turn out things like that overnight.
>
>The plays are pretty highly-crafted but he never seems to have spent
>eleven years on one.
The verse of the plays is not nearly as intricately patterned as the
sonnets, and that should be obvious even to the most casual
observer, as they say. ABABCDCDEFEFGG, key words that appear
in each quatrain, couplet ties and other organizational tricks. Each
sonnet is a concentrated entity in itself. And is should also be obvious
that Shakespeare must have spent quite a bit more on Hamlet than
he did on Two Gentleman of Verona, more on H5 than 1H6.
>> The versions published in Passionate Pilgrim are probably earlier
>> drafts. Why did Proust spend the last 13 years of his life writing
>> and re-writing A La Recherche du Temps Perdu? Why did Beethoven
>> spend the last 10 years of his life on his 9th symphony? Is it possible
>> that they wanted to leave something lasting, as well as it could be
>> done? Is it possible that the problems they attempted to solve
>> were extremely difficult?
>
>Hmmm. 'His mind and hand went together, and what he thought he uttered
>with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his
>papers. Except for those bloody sonnets, he was forever crossing them
>out and starting again.' (Heminges and Condell)
And as I've pointed out before, I doubt that either Heminges or Condell
stood over Shakespeare and watched Shakespeare as he wrote.
They saw the finished product.
>'...he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he
>should be stopped; although, if memory serves, those sonnets took him
>a good ten years.' (Jonson)
Jonson likewise did not watch Shakespeare write. Hyperbolic comments
about Shakespeare's talent are just that.
>
>> >> I don't think he in particular was especially concerned with money
>> >> in this case, but more concerned for an audience.
>> >
>> >But which audience? In 1609 he wasn't going to wow a literary
>> >audience with a sonnet sequence. The literati had started to sneer at
>> >sonnets by 1597.
>>
>> They sneered at bad sonnet sequences. I don't believe anybody
>> sneered at Spenser or Sidney.
>
>They sneered at sonnets:
>
> 'The lovesick poet, whose importune prayer
> Repulsed is, with resolute despair
> Hopeth to conquer his disdainful dame
> With public plaints of his conceived flame.
> Then pours he forth in patched sonnetings
> His love, his lust, and loathsome flatterings,
> As though the staring world hanged on his sleeve,
> When once he smiles, to laugh: and when he sighs, to grieve.
> Careth the world thou love, thou live or die?
> Careth the world how fair thy fair one be?' (Hall, writing before
>March 1597)
Hall is criticizing bad sonnets, of which there were many. I don't
see any criticism of genuine literary accomplishments, such
as Sidney's, Daniel's or Spenser's. You don't have to quote
examples of writer's making fun of sonnets or poetry in general.
The more sophisticated writers were well aware of the weaknesses
of the bad poets, exemplified by the parodic "Gullinge Sonnets".
>And Guilpin, 1598, despairing over the girliness of modern poets:
> 'Another with his supple passion
> Meaning to move his Pigsney to compassion,
> Makes puny Lucius in a sympathy
> In love with's piebald laundress by and by.'
>
>And Marston, in 1598:
> 'If Laura's painted lips do deign a kiss
> To her enamour'd slave, 'O! Heaven's bliss!'
> (Straight he exclaims) 'not to be matched with this!'
> Blaspheming dolt! go, threescore sonnets write
> Upon a picture's kiss, O raving sprite!'
Shakespeare likewise makes fun of young men and their
bad poetry. So what? It's possible to paint bad portraits,
and masterpieces as well. That doesn't invalidate the form.
>The significant thing is that both Marston and Guilpin mock
>sonneteering as something done by wimps. So it seems clear that
>though it had once been cool to write sonnets like Sir Phil, by 1600
>it wasn't.
How do you reach that conclusion? Where did anyone ever say it
was cool to write sonnets? There has always been fun made of
poetry and poets, particularly of young men who write bad poetry
to woo a woman or otherwise. How does this invalidate a particular
literary form?
> Hence the jokes at Gullio's expense in the Parnassus
>plays, and hence Drayton's self-defensive sonnets 'To the Reader' and
>'To the Criticke' when he brought out a revised edition of 'Ideas
>Mirrour' in 1599.
>
>Sidney's sonnets were circulating by the late 80s and the Amoretti
>were published in 1595. Shakespeare could not set the Thames on fire
>with sonnets in 1609.
I don't believe he was trying to set the Thames on fire in 1609. I think
he was writing to create something lasting, something that even
we, 400 years from now, could study and enjoy.
KQKnave
>
>kqk...@aol.comcrashed (KQKnave) wrote in message
>news:<20030319015342...@mb-fu.aol.com>...
>
><snip>
>> You can't divorce yourself
>> from the idea that these poems are biographical. It's called
>> "making things up". Setting yourself a problem to solve. "I think
>> I'll try to write a sonnet using a painting theme, and see what I
>> can come up with."
>
>I cannot divorce myself from the knowledge that some sonneteers
>(Spenser, Sidney) had a biographical basis for their poems. That
>they were following a tradition and sometimes reworking shared themes
>does not invalidate this. And if true of them, why not Shakespeare?
It could be true of Shakespeare, but he is so obviously playing off
the the traditions of the form that they seem to me to be far more
literary exercises than biographical revelation. Petrarch's Laura
was unavailable to him, thus the yearning. By making the subject
male, that makes him literally unavailable to him. I think Shakespeare's
more sophisticated readers would have gotten the joke, as well
as the joke in the second part of the sequence, where, unlike
the earlier subjects of sonnets where the female was chaste and
pure, Shakespeare makes his female a woman of loose morals.
>
>> ><snip>
>> >>
>> >> >(I also take the 'Time's pencil' reference to be an
>> >> >allusion to Hilliard, though I'm not sure this implies Hilliard
>> >> >painted the portrait.)
>> >>
>> >> Now you have it down to a specific artist? Rather than just
>> >> a metaphor? I think the "pencil" reference is to Spenser's
>> >> sonnet 17 and Daniel's sonnet 33.
>> >
>> >'Pencil' for 'artist', yes. But 'this Time's pencil' is a bit more
>> >specific, <snip>
>>
>> This is just fantasy. "This time's pencil" is just "any contemporary
>> artist", not "the best contemporary artist". Did the best contemporary
>> artists work in pencil?
>
>They didn't work 'in' pencil, they painted with a pencil - it was the
>name of a fine paintbrush
Right, as pointed out by Booth.
(see, this is why I needed the footnotes).
>If Shakespeare had written 'this time's pencils' I would accept he
>meant 'any contemporary artist' but he mentions only one.
But the singular can also be general. "The artist of this time" does
not have to refer to a specific one. Since he gives no clue
about a specific artist in the poem, it must be general.
No, the next line has "fortify". That's plenty for a war
conceit, just as much as the painting conceit has
further down in this sonnet. And there are war themes in other
sonnets, one that springs to mind is 55:
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:
The living record of your memory.
>After which he slides into an argument about getting
>married, ways to perpetuate oneself etc. etc. Even Elizabeth Boyle
>got a better 'warrior' sonnet than that. And she was a girl.
Shakespeare was not prone to driving his conceits into the ground,
often employing more than one each sonnet, as in 16, rather
than trying to stretch one conceit further than it can go, as
in Spenser's blacksmith sonnet to Boyle.
>
>> Shakespeare draws on the same
>> conceits that other sonneteers used, and I don't see these poems
>> as biographical, I see them as literary objects that reflect and expand
>> upon a certain tradition. Amazing that all of the addressees of all
>> of the other sonnet sequences likewise seem to have the same interests
>> in the passage of time, music, art, law etc. Even Ronsard....
>
>Amazing that some of Sidney's or Spenser's sonnets touch on similar
>themes, which by your reasoning means they had no biographical basis
>either.
What is means is that, whether or not the addressee was a real person,
the conceits exist as part of the form distinct from the person, just
like the rhyme scheme.
>
>> ><snip>
>> >Rita
>> >(who just read Auden's essay and nearly gave up on this whole
>> >endeavour.)
>>
>> I don't agree with everything he says, but he has some perceptive
>> comments. For a long time it was believed the sonnets were written
>> 1593-96 because of a few allusions to R&J, V&A etc. But more modern
>> scholarship has shown that they were mostly written around 1598-1601,
>> with later revision, by comparing their entire vocabulary with the canon.
>> (By Hieatt and also Foster.)
>
>I think some methods of more modern scholarship are still too
>experimental to trust entirely. I don't see why Shakespeare would
>only begin to write sonnets just as literary fashion was abandoning
>them.
"Mostly". I suspect that sonnets like 145, the Hathaway sonnet, and
some of the other primitive efforts were written earlier, as Hieatt and
Foster believe. Why did he write Measure for Measure or Troilus and Cressida?
Were these dark plays popular forms? It is truly astounding to me that
you would believe that a writer as talented as Shakespeare would not
be concerned with literary form itself, its historical tradition, stretching
back to Petrarch, and that he would not be interested in making himself
part of that tradition.
KQKnave
>
>kqk...@aol.comcrashed (KQKnave) wrote in message
>news:<20030319015342...@mb-fu.aol.com>...
>> In article <c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com>,
>> nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>
>> ><snip>
>> >> >
>> >> >- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
>> >>
>> >> I can't, but neither can it be proved that he was real.
>> >
>> >It's harder to prove, certainly, if you dismiss Thorpe's reference to
>> >Mr. W. H. as a misprint. You do, Bate does, Foster does; but I don't.
>>
>> Well, then you just believe in another misprint, because Southampton's
>> initials were H.W., not W.H. And he certainly would not be addressed
>> as "Master".
>
>I agree. I don't think it was Southampton.
>
>>And the dedication makes no sense unless W.H. is a
>> misprint for W.SH.
>
>Really? Why can't it be to a gentleman with the initials W.H., whose
>name we don't know?
Because the dedication doesn't make sense in English unless W.H.
is a misprint for W.Sh. and "begetter" means, as it does in every
other dedication of the period, "author".
>>
>> >> The point is
>> >> that conceits are conceits, not biographical clues.
>>
>>>>>. Sonnet 7 tells us he listened to music seriously,
>> >>
>> >> I think you mean 8, and I don't see why he has to listen to music
>> >> "seriously" to use words like "tuned", "string" and "sing", or for
>> >> his audience to be particularly knowledgeable about music to
>> >> appreciate the conceit.
>> >
>> >8 it was. But it's Shakespeare who says he listens to music 'sadly'.
>> >And you simplify the musical conceit considerably by reducing it to
>> >scattered references to tunes, strings and singing:
>>
>> I didn't simplify it, you did. You said that there was "technical"
>> language used in his sonnet, and that therefore Sh. must have
>> listened to music "seriously".
>
>Then I expressed myself badly. I meant Shakespeare is depicting the
>young man as listening seriously:
> 'Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?'
>Shakespeare is asking the addressee why, when he is pleasant listening
>himself, he hears music 'sadly' - gravely, with serious attention. He
>takes this seriousness as suggesting the young man is being disturbed
>by the music, as musical harmony is an implicit rebuke to his single
>state. But Shakespeare is also giving us an image of a young man who
>gives music his considered attention. It suggests a man of
>sensibility.
Well, you've changed your tune. I think the vast majority of people
in the world are moved by music. And since, as I demonstrated with
examples, musical conceits abounded in other sonnet sequences,
the presence of a musical conceit in a sonnet tells us exactly
nothing about personal life of the writer or the addressee.
><snip>
>
>> >'Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
>> >Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
>> >Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
>> >Who all in one one pleasing note do sing.'
><snip>
>> >
>> >My brief footnote glosses 'sweet husband to another' as 'tuned in
>> >unison, so that when struck its partner vibrates.' My first unaided
>> >mental image was of somebody strumming several strings at once to make
>> >some sort of, erm...chord. I'm not musical. Even with the footnote,
>> >I'm not entirely clear what Shakespeare is saying here. It's a bit
>> >tekky.
>>
>> It's not tekky, unless you know absolutely nothing about music.
>
>So you agree the young man did know something about it?
What young man? Shakespeare uses the most general musical
terms in his sonnets, indicating that, if there were a real person
addressed here, he had no specialized knowledge of music. Anyone
alive at that time would have seen lute with strings, other than
the most rural farmer. What Shakespeare is doing is typical of
his style: he uses simple words of a particular topic, like music
or law, that also have non-technical meanings. In this case,
as Booth points out, "unions", "married" and "concord" are marital
terms as well. This is why Shakespeare does *not* generally use
esoteric technical terms in his poetry, because their specificity
removes the possibility of a pun.
>> And it's very clear what he's saying: The members of a family
>> are like the strings on a lute, they work together to create harmony.
>
>I grasped the overall concept. What I didn't fully understand at
>first was the precise detail. Shakespeare was referring to the
>courses of a instrument being tuned in unison, so that one string
>being touched would cause another to vibrate in sympathy. Did you
>really get this straight away? (Be honest).
Sympathetic vibration was demonstrated to me in public grade school in science
class with a tuning fork and a piano. The problem with the description in the
sonnet
is not the concept of sympathetic vibration, but the way it is phrased:
"Mark how one string, sweet husband to another/
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering."
It's unclear precisely because Shakespeare *doesn't* use musical
terms in his description, even though the overall context is musical.
It's difficult, for example, to understand how one string could "strike"
another.
If you want to assume that the addressee was real, you have to
assume that he could read. If he could read and understand
the text of these sonnets, he must have been educated at some
time. Any educated person curious enough to read sonnets would
know about such simple concepts as sympathetic vibration, and
it tells you exactly nothing about the lifestyle of the addressee.
But I don't believe there was a real addressee, other than the
community of poetry readers.
>> >> >Sonnet 16 line 8 strongly suggests, I think, that the addressee owned
>> >> >a self-portrait.
>> >>
>> >> Fictional addresees can also "own" a portrait.
>>
>> >Agreed, fictional addressees can do/be anything. But if Shakespeare's
>> >sonnets are addressed to a real person, and he attributes
>> >portrait-ownership to that person, chances are the real person was of
>> >sufficient status and taste to own a portrait in real life. Phew.
>>
>> It's just as likely that even if there were a real addressee, the
>> reference could be to a hypothetical portrait.
><snip>
>
>It still wouldn't make any difference. Whether the portrait is real
>or not doesn't matter, anymore than whether Elizabeth Boyle
>embroidered or not affects the image of his fiance Spenser intended to
>create when he wrote Sonnet 71. By showing her embroidering he grants
>her the persona of a refined gentlewoman doing needlework for
>pleasure, not darning socks. By referring to the possession of
>portraits Shakespeare is creating an image of the addressee as a man
>of some culture and refinement as opposed to, say, a gong-farmer.
Didn't many middle-class businessmen own portraits?
>
>> >> Or real persons may
>> >> not own a portrait, but the conceit stands as is on its own. Here's
>> >> another beloved's "counterfeit":
>> >>
>> >> Thomas Watson (1593)
>> >> SONNET 46
>> >> My Mistress seeing her fair counterfeit
>> >> So sweetly framed in my bleeding breast
>>
>> >This is not the same thing at all! Obviously Miss Whoever's
>> >'counterfeit' here is not a real painting, or Watson would be dead.
>>
>> Using your own argument, why would Watson introduce the
>> conceit of a portrait unless his addressee had a portrait?
>
>Because he wants to introduce a conceit about a portrait, and so he
>does it without, in this poem, feeling any need to refer to the
>mistress owning a portrait - a real portrait, an actual painting, an
>object, not a metaphor. And Shakespeare does exactly the same thing
>in Sonnet 24 where he refers metaphorically to a portrait being
>'stell'd...in table of my heart'. This is quite different from what
>he does in Sonnet 16 and again in Sonnets 46 and 47 where he refers to
>actual paintings - not metaphors, but paintings. You seem to lump
>these references together as if there is no perceptible difference.
There isn't, because in Sonnet 16 Shakespeare does not say that
the addressee owned a portrait.
Rita
> >> >> >
> >> >> >- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
> >> >>
> >> >> I can't, but neither can it be proved that he was real.
> >> >
> >> >It's harder to prove, certainly, if you dismiss Thorpe's reference to
> >> >Mr. W. H. as a misprint. You do, Bate does, Foster does; but I don't.
> >>
> >> Well, then you just believe in another misprint, because Southampton's
> >> initials were H.W., not W.H. And he certainly would not be addressed
> >> as "Master".
> >
> >I agree. I don't think it was Southampton.
> >
> >>And the dedication makes no sense unless W.H. is a
> >> misprint for W.SH.
> >
> >Really? Why can't it be to a gentleman with the initials W.H., whose
> >name we don't know?
>
> Because the dedication doesn't make sense in English unless W.H.
> is a misprint for W.Sh. and "begetter" means, as it does in every
> other dedication of the period, "author".
What other dedication of the period is to the male inspiration of a
sonnet sequence? If the use of the essentially masculine word
"begetter" is unique in this instance, it's because the situation was
unique. And that dedication has been understood for centuries as a
reference to the person who was the subject of the bulk of the
sonnets. Why did earlier generations of critics fail to notice that
it "doesn't make sense in English"?
The chosen conceits in every sonnet sequence build up our picture of
the person intended to be the addressee. When Barnes writes a sonnet
on his mistress having her portrait painted, he is not only telling us
she is young and beautiful but intimating she is a lady, a member of
the class that can afford to have itself memorialised in portraits. I
don't deny he may be telling us fictions. He may not have had a
mistress who sat for her portrait: he may have had no mistress at all.
That sonnets either stretched the truth or were based on pure
daydreaming is one of the things that brought them into disrepute.
The gap between the created persona and the real mistress was often
ludicrously wide, as Hall said, ridiculing the pretension of the
inferior sonneteer:
'Then can he terme his durtie ill-fac'd bride
Lady and Queene, and virgin deifide :
Be shee all sootie-blacke, or bery-browne,
Shees white as morrows milk, or flaks new blowne.
And tho she be some dunghill drudge at home,
Yet can he her resigne some refuse roome
Amids the well-knowne stars...'
Some sonnet sequences were based, I'm sure, on pure fiction. But I'm
equally sure some were not. Sidney's weren't, and Spenser's weren't.
You think Shakespeare's were fictional. I think, given the oddity of
addressing sonnets to a young man, the strangely late publishing date,
and the equally strange publisher's dedication, that they were most
probably based on a real person. In that case I would expect the
persona suggested by these sonnets - an affable, good-looking
well-born young man, interested in music and art, educated and
intelligent - to be not too far removed from the real addressee. To
think otherwise is to suppose Shakespeare was flattering some idle
vapid fop for his own mercenary ends.
> ><snip>
> >
> >> >'Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
> >> >Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
> >> >Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
> >> >Who all in one one pleasing note do sing.'
> <snip>
> >> >
> >> >My brief footnote glosses 'sweet husband to another' as 'tuned in
> >> >unison, so that when struck its partner vibrates.' My first unaided
> >> >mental image was of somebody strumming several strings at once to make
> >> >some sort of, erm...chord. I'm not musical. Even with the footnote,
> >> >I'm not entirely clear what Shakespeare is saying here. It's a bit
> >> >tekky.
> >>
> >> It's not tekky, unless you know absolutely nothing about music.
> >
> >So you agree the young man did know something about it?
>
> What young man?
The one who is both the sonnet's subject and addressee. The one you
think is a fiction and the one I think was real. That young man.
> Shakespeare uses the most general musical
> terms in his sonnets, indicating that, if there were a real person
> addressed here, he had no specialized knowledge of music. Anyone
> alive at that time would have seen lute with strings, other than
> the most rural farmer.
I've seen guitars. I couldn't tell you a thing about how they're
tuned.
> What Shakespeare is doing is typical of
> his style: he uses simple words of a particular topic, like music
> or law, that also have non-technical meanings. In this case,
> as Booth points out, "unions", "married" and "concord" are marital
> terms as well. This is why Shakespeare does *not* generally use
> esoteric technical terms in his poetry, because their specificity
> removes the possibility of a pun.
>
> >> And it's very clear what he's saying: The members of a family
> >> are like the strings on a lute, they work together to create harmony.
> >
> >I grasped the overall concept. What I didn't fully understand at
> >first was the precise detail. Shakespeare was referring to the
> >courses of a instrument being tuned in unison, so that one string
> >being touched would cause another to vibrate in sympathy. Did you
> >really get this straight away? (Be honest).
>
> Sympathetic vibration was demonstrated to me in public grade school in science
> class with a tuning fork and a piano.
Yes! I remember the tuning fork lesson. So that was what it was
about. Well, I admit I didn't read this sonnet and immediately think,
'Ah, a reference to sympathetic vibration in lute strings. How
trite.' Did you?
> The problem with the description in the
> sonnet
> is not the concept of sympathetic vibration, but the way it is phrased:
>
> "Mark how one string, sweet husband to another/
> Strikes each in each by mutual ordering."
>
> It's unclear precisely because Shakespeare *doesn't* use musical
> terms in his description, even though the overall context is musical.
> It's difficult, for example, to understand how one string could "strike"
> another.
You think that's hard? I'm still trawling the web trying to work out
whether they plucked both strings together, or just one, while the
other vibrated sympathetically. Also whether it was only the top
three courses that were tuned in unison: apparently 'the lower courses
were sometimes tuned in octaves'..whatever that means...
If it were only the top three courses tuned in unison then the
reference to a father/mother/child trio might be a reflection of
that. But to find out I think I'll have to email a lutenist. Are you
sure this is easy?
> If you want to assume that the addressee was real, you have to
> assume that he could read. If he could read and understand
> the text of these sonnets, he must have been educated at some
> time. Any educated person curious enough to read sonnets would
> know about such simple concepts as sympathetic vibration,
Okay. He's educated, intellectually curious and knows sympathetic
vibration happens; even though he wouldn't know why it happened
because scientists were still wondering (true, it's in Galileo's
dialogues).
> and
> it tells you exactly nothing about the lifestyle of the addressee.
Except he was educated, curious and knew a bit about lutes.
> But I don't believe there was a real addressee, other than the
> community of poetry readers.
Why? If Sidney had a real one, and Spenser - why couldn't
Shakespeare?
> >> >> >Sonnet 16 line 8 strongly suggests, I think, that the addressee owned
> >> >> >a self-portrait.
> >> >>
> >> >> Fictional addresees can also "own" a portrait.
>
> >> >Agreed, fictional addressees can do/be anything. But if Shakespeare's
> >> >sonnets are addressed to a real person, and he attributes
> >> >portrait-ownership to that person, chances are the real person was of
> >> >sufficient status and taste to own a portrait in real life. Phew.
> >>
> >> It's just as likely that even if there were a real addressee, the
> >> reference could be to a hypothetical portrait.
> ><snip>
> >
> >It still wouldn't make any difference. Whether the portrait is real
> >or not doesn't matter, anymore than whether Elizabeth Boyle
> >embroidered or not affects the image of his fiance Spenser intended to
> >create when he wrote Sonnet 71. By showing her embroidering he grants
> >her the persona of a refined gentlewoman doing needlework for
> >pleasure, not darning socks. By referring to the possession of
> >portraits Shakespeare is creating an image of the addressee as a man
> >of some culture and refinement as opposed to, say, a gong-farmer.
>
> Didn't many middle-class businessmen own portraits?
>
Certainly did. They had their portraits painted to show they'd
arrived in the cultured class. They may have begun by selling
pennyworths of pepper but by god now they counted for something! and
their portraits would be handed down to their descendants, just like
my Lord Whatsisname's. And then if they could afford it they bought a
noble wife and a knighthood. See Sir Arthur Ingram.
> >> >> Or real persons may
> >> >> not own a portrait, but the conceit stands as is on its own. Here's
> >> >> another beloved's "counterfeit":
> >> >>
> >> >> Thomas Watson (1593)
> >> >> SONNET 46
> >> >> My Mistress seeing her fair counterfeit
> >> >> So sweetly framed in my bleeding breast
>
> >> >This is not the same thing at all! Obviously Miss Whoever's
> >> >'counterfeit' here is not a real painting, or Watson would be dead.
> >>
> >> Using your own argument, why would Watson introduce the
> >> conceit of a portrait unless his addressee had a portrait?
> >
> >Because he wants to introduce a conceit about a portrait, and so he
> >does it without, in this poem, feeling any need to refer to the
> >mistress owning a portrait - a real portrait, an actual painting, an
> >object, not a metaphor. And Shakespeare does exactly the same thing
> >in Sonnet 24 where he refers metaphorically to a portrait being
> >'stell'd...in table of my heart'. This is quite different from what
> >he does in Sonnet 16 and again in Sonnets 46 and 47 where he refers to
> >actual paintings - not metaphors, but paintings. You seem to lump
> >these references together as if there is no perceptible difference.
>
> There isn't, because in Sonnet 16 Shakespeare does not say that
> the addressee owned a portrait.
But in sonnet 16 he talks about a real painting which the young man
could have if he chose. Not a metaphorical inscribed-upon-my-heart
one. And in Sonnets 46 and 47 he is talking about an actual portrait
of the young man which he, Shakespeare, has before him. Yes?
Rita
John W. Kennedy
> What other dedication of the period is to the male inspiration of a
> sonnet sequence? If the use of the essentially masculine word
> "begetter" is unique in this instance, it's because the situation was
> unique.
Look, I'm straight, OK? But I'm also a member of the International
Wizard of Oz Club and a part-time semi-pro opera singer, so I've got
more gay friends than I can count. And the guy who wrote "Angels in
America" is an old buddy of my wife's. Nevertheless, the application of
the word "begetter" that you seem to be driving at here just gives the
the creeps, and I think it would have given Thorpe the creeps, too.
> And that dedication has been understood for centuries as a
> reference to the person who was the subject of the bulk of the
> sonnets. Why did earlier generations of critics fail to notice that
> it "doesn't make sense in English"?
Because the Sonnets were all but forgotten for a century or so, and by
the time they were rediscovered, the language had moved on, making it
all too easy to impose meanings on "begetter", "eternitie", and "our
ever living poet" that would have seemed extraordinary to any literate
Englishman in 1609. In any case, not everyone failed to notice that
there was a problem; from my early teens on, I've felt all the
conventional interpretations of the dedication, whether of the "fair
youth" or "procurer" variety, to be forced and improbable; I find
Foster's theory of a one-letter typo infinitely more likely than the
tortured semantics that are the alternative. And I can't believe that
I'm such an extraordinary genius that I'm the only one.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only
the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots
would fight a war on twelve fronts."
-- "Babylon 5"
KQKnave
nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>
>kqk...@aol.comcrashed (KQKnave) wrote in message
>news:<20030324131050...@mb-ft.aol.com>...
>> In article <c69e1804.03031...@posting.google.com>,
>> nash...@postmaster.co.uk (Rita) writes:
>>
>
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >- and can you prove Shakespeare's weren't written to a real man?
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I can't, but neither can it be proved that he was real.
>> >> >
>> >> >It's harder to prove, certainly, if you dismiss Thorpe's reference to
>> >> >Mr. W. H. as a misprint. You do, Bate does, Foster does; but I don't.
>> >>
>> >> Well, then you just believe in another misprint, because Southampton's
>> >> initials were H.W., not W.H. And he certainly would not be addressed
>> >> as "Master".
>> >
>> >I agree. I don't think it was Southampton.
>> >
>> >>And the dedication makes no sense unless W.H. is a
>> >> misprint for W.SH.
>> >
>> >Really? Why can't it be to a gentleman with the initials W.H., whose
>> >name we don't know?
>>
>> Because the dedication doesn't make sense in English unless W.H.
>> is a misprint for W.Sh. and "begetter" means, as it does in every
>> other dedication of the period, "author".
>
>What other dedication of the period is to the male inspiration of a
>sonnet sequence?
None, including this one.
>If the use of the essentially masculine word
>"begetter" is unique in this instance, it's because the situation was
>unique. And that dedication has been understood for centuries as a
>reference to the person who was the subject of the bulk of the
>sonnets.
Really? By who? Fantasists like Hotson?
>Why did earlier generations of critics fail to notice that
>it "doesn't make sense in English"?
For the same reason that they generate ridiculous, self-contradictory
theories about who "W.H." supposedly was. There are a lot of people
who misunderstand literature, who don't understand that it's primarily
a work of imagination, and therefore they try to find some biographical
link to everything in an author's work. In this case, nobody bothered
to thoroughly investigate what "begetter" meant, despite the fact
that their interpretations of the dedication never made self-consistent
sense.
To you, because like others, you insist on trying to see a biographical
connection to everything in the sonnets. To me, I see them as poems
that are part of a specific tradition. I don't think anything about
the addressee because I believe that there was no particular person
that these poems were addressed to.
You can read anything you want into these sonnets from a biographical
point of view. For example, I can say that Shakespeare was writing
the first 17 to his dead son, imagining what kind of person he would
have liked his son to be, and wishing that he could have some
grandchildren.
>When Barnes writes a sonnet
>on his mistress having her portrait painted, he is not only telling us
>she is young and beautiful but intimating she is a lady, a member of
>the class that can afford to have itself memorialised in portraits.
Are you telling me that that a poor commoner would not have *wanted*
to have a portrait?
>I don't deny he may be telling us fictions. He may not have had a
>mistress who sat for her portrait: he may have had no mistress at all.
> That sonnets either stretched the truth or were based on pure
>daydreaming is one of the things that brought them into disrepute.
>The gap between the created persona and the real mistress was often
>ludicrously wide, as Hall said, ridiculing the pretension of the
>inferior sonneteer:
>
> 'Then can he terme his durtie ill-fac'd bride
> Lady and Queene, and virgin deifide :
> Be shee all sootie-blacke, or bery-browne,
> Shees white as morrows milk, or flaks new blowne.
> And tho she be some dunghill drudge at home,
> Yet can he her resigne some refuse roome
> Amids the well-knowne stars...'
>
>Some sonnet sequences were based, I'm sure, on pure fiction. But I'm
>equally sure some were not. Sidney's weren't, and Spenser's weren't.
What you can say, in fact, is that there is a real person in each of
those men's life who served as a model. Whether either Sidney
or Spenser told the truth about his love is very debatable.
Why does Spenser have a sonnet which has an extended blacksmith conceit,
many with war conceits? What does this tell us about Elizabeth Boyle?
Anything? When Spenser writes
Then need another element inquire
whereof she mote by made; that is the sky
for to the heaven her haughty looks aspire,
and eke her mind is pure immortal high.
Is this supposed to be biographical, real? Or is it just hyperbole?
>You think Shakespeare's were fictional. I think, given the oddity of
>addressing sonnets to a young man, the strangely late publishing date,
There is nothing strange about it. Daniel revised his sonnet sequence
continually, publishing them several times in different versions. Shakespeare
simply waited until he felt they were finished.
>and the equally strange publisher's dedication,
There is nothing strange about the dedication; it makes perfect sense.
It's only strange if you are unaware of the conceit of making the author
the "begetter" of his work, and the works themselves his "children". It
very simply says "To Master William Shakespeare, the only author
of these sonnets, I wish happiness and the eternity promised by
God, our eternal poet. Thus wishes the publisher on setting forth
this publication."
Thorpe makes clear that Shakespeare himself wrote the sonnets,
because some of his sonnets had been published along with
poems by other authors in Jaggard's "Passionate Pilgrim".
> that they were most
>probably based on a real person. In that case I would expect the
>persona suggested by these sonnets - an affable, good-looking
>well-born young man, interested in music and art, educated and
>intelligent - to be not too far removed from the real addressee. To
>think otherwise is to suppose Shakespeare was flattering some idle
>vapid fop for his own mercenary ends.
He wasn't flattering *anybody*! The poems don't require a real person.
They are *poems*, works of art that exist independent of any individual
person. Who was he supposed to be flattering by sonnet 143? Who
was he flattering with the dark lady sonnets, which portray her as
essentially a whore?
See the rest of my answer below. Shakespeare's conceit is not
clear because he *doesn't* use musical terms to describe it.
You have claimed that there is some specialized musical knowledge
imparted in this sonnet. There isn't.
>
>> The problem with the description in the
>> sonnet
>> is not the concept of sympathetic vibration, but the way it is phrased:
>>
>> "Mark how one string, sweet husband to another/
>> Strikes each in each by mutual ordering."
>>
>> It's unclear precisely because Shakespeare *doesn't* use musical
>> terms in his description, even though the overall context is musical.
>> It's difficult, for example, to understand how one string could "strike"
>> another.
>You think that's hard? I'm still trawling the web trying to work out
>whether they plucked both strings together, or just one, while the
>other vibrated sympathetically. Also whether it was only the top
>three courses that were tuned in unison: apparently 'the lower courses
>were sometimes tuned in octaves'..whatever that means...
>If it were only the top three courses tuned in unison then the
>reference to a father/mother/child trio might be a reflection of
>that. But to find out I think I'll have to email a lutenist. Are you
>sure this is easy?
I'm quite sure it was, to anyone who had seen a lutist play. I don't
commonly see lutists today. And you keep confusing the musical
aspects of this poem with the poetic aspects. It's only hard to
understand because of the poetic way that Shakespeare describes
the sympathetic vibration, the same way that many of his lines
are not immediately accessible. It has nothing to do with specialized
musical knowledge.
>
>> If you want to assume that the addressee was real, you have to
>> assume that he could read. If he could read and understand
>> the text of these sonnets, he must have been educated at some
>> time. Any educated person curious enough to read sonnets would
>> know about such simple concepts as sympathetic vibration,
>
>Okay. He's educated, intellectually curious and knows sympathetic
>vibration happens; even though he wouldn't know why it happened
>because scientists were still wondering (true, it's in Galileo's
>dialogues).
>> and
>> it tells you exactly nothing about the lifestyle of the addressee.
>
>Except he was educated, curious and knew a bit about lutes.
>
>> But I don't believe there was a real addressee, other than the
>> community of poetry readers.
>
>Why? If Sidney had a real one, and Spenser - why couldn't
>Shakespeare?
He could, but there is no evidence in the sonnets themselves to tell
you that. You can write sonnets with musical terms without having
any real addressee at all. The fact that these same conceits are
present in one form or another in every sonnet sequence of the time
(not all together) tells me that Shakespeare was experimenting with
the form, not writing biography. Otherwise we would have some
unique conceits, and there aren't. If this were a real person, he's just
like all the other subjects of the other sequences, all of whose
subjects, with the exception of Barnfield's, were women.
No, he's not, and I'm afraid we are just going around in circles because
you insist on seeing biography here. Read sonnet 16 again. He says
that there are many young women who WOULD like to bear your children,
who WOULD be more like his portrait. No where does he say that
the addressee owns a portrait! You can read it that way if you want,
but it can just as easily be read as hypothetical.
If I write:
There are many women who would like to have your children,
and these children would be more like you than your photograph.
does that refer to any specific photo that the addressee owns?
>Not a metaphorical inscribed-upon-my-heart
>one. And in Sonnets 46 and 47 he is talking about an actual portrait
>of the young man which he, Shakespeare, has before him. Yes?
No. You are making the assumption that the addressee is real, and
that is leading you to these conclusions. It certainly is *possible*
that the addressee is real, but the sonnets tell me nothing unique
about him, so its equivalent to a fictional person, a fictional person
much like the addressees of other sonnet sequences.
Peter Farey
KQKnave (Jim) wrote:
>
> Rita wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> >and the equally strange publisher's dedication,
>
> There is nothing strange about the dedication; it makes perfect sense.
> It's only strange if you are unaware of the conceit of making the author
> the "begetter" of his work, and the works themselves his "children". It
> very simply says "To Master William Shakespeare, the only author
> of these sonnets, I wish happiness and the eternity promised by
> God, our eternal poet. Thus wishes the publisher on setting forth
> this publication."
>
It does not make 'perfect sense', of course. That is where
the problem arises.
I accept whole-heartedly (with JWK and KQK) Foster's
argument that the 'begetter' is *far* more likely to refer
to the author than to some 'inspirer' or 'procurer' of them.
Unfortunately, whereas we are told no fewer than 34 times
that these are 'Shake-speares Sonnets', Shakespeare's full
name does *not* have the initials 'W.H.'.
Two ways of resolving this problem have been proposed:
1) Assume that the 'W.H.' must be a misprint.
2) Assume that *this* time the 'begetter' is *not* the
author.
Both of these are possible, of course, but neither (imho)
offers the most likely explanation. There is a third
possibility which assumes:
1) That the words and letters were printed correctly
2) That the usual meaning of 'begetter' in such a
context applied.
In this case, the book was given the title 'Shake-speares
Sonnets', but they were actually written by someone (now?)
known by a name with the initials 'W.H.'. I give one
suggestion as to who this might be at
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/add2.htm
The good thing about getting off the hook of assuming that
the begetter must be the inspirer is, of course, that it
makes it far more probable that we know who the fair youth
(if he does exist) must be.
In my essay on Shakespeare's Sonnet Sequence, to be found
at http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/sonnets.htm , I show
fairly conclusively that the Sonnets were written over
a period of many years, and this would certainly have
included the years 1593 and 1594, when *Venus & Adonis*
and *The Rape of Lucrece* came out. The affection shown
in the dedications, especially in the latter, is similar
enough to that expressed in the Sonnets for it to be most
unlikely that they were written to someone else. I there-
fore find it almost impossible to think of the fair youth
(and I think there was a 'real' one) being anyone other
than Southampton.
Whether the 'well-wishing adventurer' was actually Thomas
Thorpe or someone else whose good wishes were being sent
somewhat cryptically on his behalf *by* Thorpe is perhaps
something that we can return to later.