W.H. Auden on the sonnets
KQKnave
on Shakespeare's sonnets by W. H. Auden, himself
a great poet:
"Probably, more nonsense has been talked and written,
more intellectual and emotional energy expended in vain,
on the sonnets of Shakespeare than on any other
literary work in the world. Indeed, they have become the
best touchstone I know of for distinguishing the sheep
from the goats, those, that is, who love poetry for its own
sake, and understand its nature, from those who only
value poems either as historical documents or because
they express feelings or beliefs of which the reader
happens to approve.
It so happens that we know almost nothing about the
historical circumstances under which Shakespeare wrote
these sonnets: we don't know to whom they are addressed
or exactly when they were written, and, unless entirely
new evidence should turn up, which is unlikely, we never
shall.
This has not prevented many very learned gentlemen
from displaying their scholarship and ingenuity in conjecture.
Though it seems to me rather silly to spend much time
upon conjectures which cannot be proved true or false,
that is not my real objection to their efforts. What I really
object to is their illusion that, if they were successful, if
the identity of the Friend, the Dark Lady, the Rival Poet,
etc., could be established beyond doubt, this would in
any way illuminate our understanding of the sonnets
themselves.
Their illusion seems to me to betray either a complete
misunderstanding of the nature of the relation between
art and life or an attempt to rationalize and justify plain
vulgar idle curiosity.
Idle curiosity is an ineradicable vice of the human mind.
All of us like to discover the secrets of our neighbours,
particularly the ugly ones. This has always been so, and,
probably, always will be. What is relatively new, however -
it is scarcely to be found before the latter half of the
eighteenth century - is a blurring of the borderline between
the desire for truth and idle curiosity, until, today, it has been
so thouroughly erased that we can indulge the latter without
the slightest pangs of conscience. A great deal of what
today passes for scholarly research is an activity no
different from that of reading somebody's private correspond-
ence when he is out of the room, and it doesn't really
make it morally any better if his out of the room because
he is in his grave.
In the case of a man of action, - a ruler, a statesman,
a general - the man is identical with his biography. In the
case of any kind of artist, however, who is a maker not
a doer, his biography, the story of his life, and the history
of his works are distinct. In the case of a man of action, we
can distinguish in a rough and ready way between his
private personal life and his public life, but both are lives
of action and, therefore, capable of affecting each other.
The political interests of a king's mistress, for example,
may influence his decisions on national policy. Consequently,
the historian, in his search for truth, is justified in
investigating the private life of a man of action to the
degree that such discoveries throw light upon the history
of his times which had a share in shaping, even if the victim
would prefer such secrets not to be known.
The case of an artist is quite different. Art history, the
comparison of one work with another, one artistic epoch
with another, the study of influences and changes of style
is a legitimate study. The late J. B. Leishman's book,
*Themes and Variations in Shakespeare's Sonnets", is
an admirable example of such an enquiry. Even the biography
of an artist, if his life as a man was sufficiently interesting,
is permissible, provided that the biographer and his readers
realize that such an account throws no light whatsoever upon
the artist's work. The relation between his life and his works
is at one and the same time too self-evident to require
comment - every work of art is, in one sense, a self-disclosure -
and too complicated ever to unravel. Thus, it is self-evident
that Catullus's love for Lesbia was the experience which inspired
his love poems, and that, if either of them had had a different
character, the poems would have been different, but no
amount of research into their lives can tell us why Catullus
wrote the actual poems that he did, instead of an infinite
number of similar poems he might have written instead, why,
indeed he wrote any, or why those he did are good. Even if
one could question a poet himself about the relation between
some poem of his and the events which provoked him to
write it, he could not give a satisfactory answer, because
even the most 'occasional' poem, in the Goethean sense,
involves not only the occasion, but the whole life experience
of the poet, and he himself cannot identify all the contributing
elements.
Further, it should be borne in mind that most genuine
artists would prefer that no biography be written. A genuine
artist believes he has been put on earth t fulfil a certain
function determined by the talent with which he has been
entrusted. His personal life is, naturally, of concern to himself
and, he hopes, his personal friends, but he does not think it
is or ought to be of any concern to the public. The one thing
a writer, for example, hopes for, is attentive readers of his
writings. He hopes they will study the text closely enough
to spot misprints. Shakespeare would be grateful to many
scholars, beginning with Malone, who have suggested
sensible emendations to the Q text. And he hopes that they
will read with patience and intelligence so as to extract as
much meaning from the text as possible. If the shade of
Shakespeare has read Professor William Empson's
explication of 'They that have the power to hurt and will do
none' (sonnet 94), he may have wondered to himself,
'Now, did I *really* say all that?', but he will certainly
be grateful to Mr. Empson for his loving care.
Not only would most genuine writers prefer to have no
biography written; they would also prefer, were it practically
feasible, that their writings were published anonymously.
Shakespeare is in the singularly fortunate position of
being, to all intents and purposes, anonymous. Hence the
existence of persons who spend their lives trying to prove
that his plays were written by someone else. (How odd it
is that Freud should have been a firm believer in the
Earl of Oxford theory). "
Jim
DerColin
>on Shakespeare's sonnets by W. H. Auden, himself
>a great poet:
>
Though Auden is most eloquent, I wonder about many of his points. Some seem
dated, for instance: the notion that an artist is separate from his works (one
thinks of Joyce's Stephen D.) (Though somewhere else he says an artist is
inextricably and deeply revealed in the work -- he seems to try to have it both
ways.) Does the biography of an artist help explicate the works? All artists
hope their works stand on their own, as if their oeuvre were the mechanical
earth and the artist was their Deist God. When an artist's works become
especially prominent, though, the source is more and more of interest and even
concern. And if we write a biography in our minds because the art is so
powerful, we need one, then it is important that that biography not mislead us
by occluding the truth in the works -- not twist the works because the myth of
the assigned author affects their meaning.
(I suspect, too, that Auden's homosexuality is part of his reason for shying
from artist biographies. But that's another issue.)
I thought it interesting that Auden observes that Shakespeare is, for all
intents, anonymous. That should not give Stratfordians any comfort -- indeed,
it is that anonymity that has helped protect the Stratfordian hypothesis. But
as a myth of the Stratfordian presumed author is fleshed out, it has to jibe
intrinsically with the works. Auden was surprised at Freud's Oxford interest,
but why when "every work of art is, in one sense, a self-disclosure"?
We have to read the sonnets and plays without reference to any author -- on one
level. But on another, they are too important to ignore who that author was.
For myself, I'd rather look from the inside -- from the person suggested by the
writings. Whether or not it is a true or deeply imagined persona writing, it
is the chosen voice, and that's what's most important to listen to.
Colin
Gary Kosinsky
kqk...@aol.comspamslam (KQKnave) wrote:
>This was written as part of an introductory essay
>on Shakespeare's sonnets by W. H. Auden, himself
>a great poet:
He may very well be, but he doesn't seem to be much of
a historian.
>"Probably, more nonsense has been talked and written,
>more intellectual and emotional energy expended in vain,
>on the sonnets of Shakespeare than on any other
>literary work in the world. Indeed, they have become the
>best touchstone I know of for distinguishing the sheep
>from the goats, those, that is, who love poetry for its own
>sake, and understand its nature, from those who only
>value poems either as historical documents or because
>they express feelings or beliefs of which the reader
>happens to approve.
Baaaaaahh!
> It so happens that we know almost nothing about the
>historical circumstances under which Shakespeare wrote
>these sonnets: we don't know to whom they are addressed
>or exactly when they were written, and, unless entirely
>new evidence should turn up, which is unlikely, we never
>shall.
All true.
> This has not prevented many very learned gentlemen
>from displaying their scholarship and ingenuity in conjecture.
>Though it seems to me rather silly to spend much time
>upon conjectures which cannot be proved true or false,
>that is not my real objection to their efforts.
>What I really
>object to is their illusion that, if they were successful, if
>the identity of the Friend, the Dark Lady, the Rival Poet,
>etc., could be established beyond doubt, this would in
>any way illuminate our understanding of the sonnets
>themselves.
I think he's missing the boat here. The main idea is not
to illuminate our understanding of the sonnets (although it
may help), but to illuminate our understanding of the poet
himself. To get more facts about his life.
> Their illusion seems to me to betray either a complete
>misunderstanding of the nature of the relation between
>art and life or an attempt to rationalize and justify plain
>vulgar idle curiosity.
> Idle curiosity is an ineradicable vice of the human mind.
>All of us like to discover the secrets of our neighbours,
>particularly the ugly ones. This has always been so, and,
>probably, always will be. What is relatively new, however -
>it is scarcely to be found before the latter half of the
>eighteenth century - is a blurring of the borderline between
>the desire for truth and idle curiosity, until, today, it has been
>so thouroughly erased that we can indulge the latter without
>the slightest pangs of conscience. A great deal of what
>today passes for scholarly research is an activity no
>different from that of reading somebody's private correspond-
>ence when he is out of the room, and it doesn't really
>make it morally any better if his out of the room because
>he is in his grave.
So let me get this straight. If we were to find an
Elizabethan carton labelled 'Private correspondence of
Wm Shakespeare', Auden is saying we shouldn't open it?
If so, do you agree with him, Jim? Because I sure don't.
SNIP
> Further, it should be borne in mind that most genuine
>artists would prefer that no biography be written. A genuine
>artist believes he has been put on earth t fulfil a certain
>function determined by the talent with which he has been
>entrusted. His personal life is, naturally, of concern to himself
>and, he hopes, his personal friends, but he does not think it
>is or ought to be of any concern to the public. The one thing
>a writer, for example, hopes for, is attentive readers of his
>writings. He hopes they will study the text closely enough
>to spot misprints. Shakespeare would be grateful to many
>scholars, beginning with Malone, who have suggested
>sensible emendations to the Q text. And he hopes that they
>will read with patience and intelligence so as to extract as
>much meaning from the text as possible. If the shade of
>Shakespeare has read Professor William Empson's
>explication of 'They that have the power to hurt and will do
>none' (sonnet 94), he may have wondered to himself,
>'Now, did I *really* say all that?', but he will certainly
>be grateful to Mr. Empson for his loving care.
> Not only would most genuine writers prefer to have no
>biography written; they would also prefer, were it practically
>feasible, that their writings were published anonymously.
While Auden, like everyone else, is entitled to his personal
opinion, where does he get off making statements like
"...most geniune artists would prefer that no biography
be written..." or "...they would also prefer...that their
writings were published anonymously" ? Has he done a survey?
Is there a manifesto signed by 'geniune' artists that declare
these things to be true?
> Shakespeare is in the singularly fortunate position of
>being, to all intents and purposes, anonymous. Hence the
>existence of persons who spend their lives trying to prove
>that his plays were written by someone else. (How odd it
>is that Freud should have been a firm believer in the
>Earl of Oxford theory). "
From an artistic point of view, it may be advantageous
that we don't know much about Shakespeare. From a historical
point of view, that is simply a challenge. Thus the attempts
at discovery, using whatever sources possible, including the
works.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Kosinsky gk...@vcn.bc.ca
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Grumman
will in now way illuminate his works. What is generally
true is only that knowing an artist's life has little,
but not nothing, to do with knowing his art. His generality
that no artist wants his life known can't be true, either,
considering how many artists write autobiographies. Auden
seems to lean toward the position that art only counts, not
art history or art criticism--which, for me, as I keep repeating
is a foolishly narrow position. Of course, Auden had plenty
of reason to want his own life concealed. Not that what
he had to say about the sonnets doesn't mostly make good sense.
--Bob G.
--
Posted from nut-n-but.net [205.161.239.5]
via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
KQKnave
Grumman) writes:
>Auden is wrong to claim that knowing an artist's life
>will in now way illuminate his works.
Let's look at what he actually said:
"The relation between his life and his works
is at one and the same time too self-evident to require
comment - every work of art is, in one sense, a self-disclosure -
and too complicated ever to unravel. Thus, it is self-evident
that Catullus's love for Lesbia was the experience which inspired
his love poems, and that, if either of them had had a different
character, the poems would have been different, but no
amount of research into their lives can tell us why Catullus
wrote the actual poems that he did, instead of an infinite
number of similar poems he might have written instead, why,
indeed he wrote any, or why those he did are good. Even if
one could question a poet himself about the relation between
some poem of his and the events which provoked him to
write it, he could not give a satisfactory answer, because
even the most 'occasional' poem, in the Goethean sense,
involves not only the occasion, but the whole life experience
of the poet, and he himself cannot identify all the contributing
elements."
>What is generally
>true is only that knowing an artist's life has little,
>but not nothing, to do with knowing his art. His generality
>that no artist wants his life known can't be true, either,
>considering how many artists write autobiographies.
Given that all art is entertainment but not all entertainment is
art, I think that what you'll find is that most serious literary
artists would prefer that their life remain a closed book. There
are writers who I would not consider artists that I would place
more in the category of movie stars, and they probably want
all the attention they can get while they are living, because they
aren't going to get any when they are dead. I think most writers are aware
that if a specific event in their life is tied to a particular thing in
their work, then it trivializes the work and removes the mystery
of the beauty. I don't want to know what specific time and
place is involved with the 'cold / bare ruined choirs, where late
the sweet birds sang' because it removes the element of
universality in Shakespeare's art, and requires me to identify
with his life instead. And I think most superior writers are
aware of that and have said so, more or less.
>Auden
>seems to lean toward the position that art only counts, not
>art history or art criticism--which, for me, as I keep repeating
>is a foolishly narrow position.
Why? I'm interested in Shakespeare's life, but it's a separate
thing from his art. Knowing who the young man was, if there
was one, would be interesting from a historical point of view
but the poems aren't going to be any more or less beautiful
because I know. In fact, they may be less. I was enamored of
Nabokov when I was a lot younger, one reason being his
high-minded descriptions of love, but I really lost interest for
awhile in him when I found out what he was really like as
a young man (basically, a rich fop who took advantage of
women). And every artist is going to be far from perfect if
we look deeply enough. It's not so important for visual
artists or musicians, because there is no narrative, and the
work can easily be abstracted from the life.
>Of course, Auden had plenty
>of reason to want his own life concealed.
Don't we all? Picking on Auden is not fair, because many
great writers have wanted their life to remain unknown.
Obvious modern examples include Pynchon and Don
Delillo. Some of the talented ones who wasted their life in
the limelight rather than creating, ended up killing themselves
(Fitzgerald, Hemingway).
>Not that what
>he had to say about the sonnets doesn't mostly make good sense.
>
Jim
Robert Stonehouse
>In article <20010505182459...@nso-ct.aol.com>,
>kqk...@aol.comspamslam (KQKnave) wrote:
>>This was written as part of an introductory essay
>>on Shakespeare's sonnets by W. H. Auden, himself
>>a great poet:
>>What I really
>>object to is their illusion that, if they were successful, if
>>the identity of the Friend, the Dark Lady, the Rival Poet,
>>etc., could be established beyond doubt, this would in
>>any way illuminate our understanding of the sonnets
>>themselves.
>
> I think he's missing the boat here. The main idea is not
>to illuminate our understanding of the sonnets (although it
>may help), but to illuminate our understanding of the poet
>himself. To get more facts about his life.
Still, even if that is so, in order to get facts about the life out
of the sonnets, we first of all need to understand the sonnets. That
has to be done without making assumptions - we must take the sonnets
in themselves as they are and do an Auden on them. Having done that,
we may find that we have found out things about the life - or we may
not. (I think this has the effect of reconciling the two positions:
neither Auden nor Gary Kosinsky would disagree.)
...
>> Idle curiosity is an ineradicable vice of the human mind.
I would say, it is the main thing that raises humans above the other
animals! So on the matter of biography, I tend to support Gary
Kosinsky against Auden. In Auden's time, people tended to think that
a created work of art was a completely separate thing-in-itself,
like a jewel, and who had worked on it was irrelevant. We have left
that behind now, perhaps.
...
ew...@bcs.org.uk
KQKnave
(Janice Miller) writes:
>Not sure I agree, at least for abstract art. If you don't know Jim Dine's
>father owned a hardware business he was expected to go into, you're going
>to be puzzled by all the hammers and chisels and stuff. And if you think
>he lived in a rural town in the 1920s, instead of some thirty years later,
>you're going to be *really* puzzled by the bathroom installations.
As Auden says, some connections to the work are self-evident.
But in this case especially, I doubt knowing these facts helps
you to understand the work itself. It's like knowing where a
painter bought his paint brushes. It's not going to help you to
understand why one shape or collection of shapes is more
pleasing than others.
Jim
Bob Grumman
Auden said, " . . . if the identity of the Friend, the
Dark Lady, the Rival Poet, etc., could be established
beyond doubt, this would in any way illuminate our
understanding of the sonnets themselves."
Of course it would. How could it not? There are
many lines whose meaning we are in doubt about. A
trivial for instance: knowing that the fair youth
was indisputable heterosexual would have to clarify
certainly entire sonnets. That's why I said,
generalizing, that "Auden is wrong to claim that
knowing an artist's life will in no way illuminate
his works."
Jim: "Given that all art is entertainment but not all entertainment is
art, I think that what you'll find is that most serious literary
artists would prefer that their life remain a closed book."
Then why do so many write autobiographies? Of course, I'm
prejudiced because I hope zillions of biographers write
about me--not because I want posthumous fame (though that
would be nice, too) but because of all the enjoyment I've
gotten from reading about writers.
>From writers I personally know, and many I've learned about,
it does seem that there's a division between those who want
to be thought mystically producing Great Art and keep their
personal lives far from their art, and those who think of
themselves as workman, and want to educate others in the
"secrets" of their craft, which would include what they
get from real life, and how other writers influenced them
(many of the other kind fear their influences will be found
out), etc. Hard topic to generalize about. Have to take it
case by case.
> >Auden seems to lean toward the position that art only
> >counts, not art history or art criticism--which, for me,
> >as I keep repeating is a foolishly narrow position.
Because there's no real reason to value literature more
than history or philosophy, or even to value it more to
the point that one considers the latter of NO value.
Which you don't, but Auden seems (mistakenly) to say he did.
> >Of course, Auden had plenty of reason to want
> >his own life concealed.
I wasn't picking on him, just making an observation. I
have almost nothing to conceal, by the way, but that's
only because I'm thick-skinned, not because I've not
often done things I'm ashamed of.
Robert Stonehouse
>ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote:
>> > I think he's missing the boat here. The main idea is not
>> >to illuminate our understanding of the sonnets (although it
>> >may help), but to illuminate our understanding of the poet
>> >himself. To get more facts about his life.
>>
>> Still, even if that is so, in order to get facts about the life out
>> of the sonnets, we first of all need to understand the sonnets. That
>> has to be done without making assumptions - we must take the sonnets
>> in themselves as they are and do an Auden on them. Having done that,
>> we may find that we have found out things about the life - or we may
>> not. (I think this has the effect of reconciling the two positions:
>> neither Auden nor Gary Kosinsky would disagree.)
>
>lived, what language he spoke, and so on. This is what I thought the
>discussion of "deliberate mistakes" was getting at.
>
>Here's an example. Suppose I write a novel and for whatever reason I make
>one of the main characters live in the same town I actually live in, right
>across the street from where I actually live. My house is on property
>that earlier in this century formed part of a large estate, though it has
>been subdivided and re-divided many times in the past fifty years.
>Suppose that in my novel I pretend that the property has never been split
>up, walled off, used for government offices, and so on. The meaning of my
>having done that depends (especially if the estate is a well-known one) on
>whether I actually know that the estate's been broken up, or on whether my
>information about it comes from an elderly grandparent who once lived in
>the area. It might also depend on what I happened to know about the
>history of the property. To know that, you need to know where I've lived
>and what parts of that history had been available to me.
Yes, this is a powerful example. Certainly to understand the sonnets
we need to know some facts: the dissolution of the monasteries for
'bare ruined choirs' (73, pace KQKnave), the murder of Marlowe for
'the coward conquest of a wretch's knife' (74), a little botany for
the dog-rose and damask rose in 54, a little animal behaviour for
'the lark at break of day arising' (29).
>
>That may be a silly example, but look at the discussion of this week's
>sonnet. Did Shakespeare have a deep knowledge of the theory of humors, as
>Bacon must have had, or did he have only the dilettantish knowledge we
>would expect from a poet? I personally think that in this case the
>question can't really be answered, and that even if it could be it
>wouldn't help us much in reading the poems, just because the theory of
>humors doesn't mean anything to us today, but without answering the
>question we get silly misreadings, or worse.
I don't think we can say much about the extent of his knowledge
except on the occasions where he gets something wrong: 'those jacks
that nimble leap / To kiss the tender inward of thy hand' (128) - he
means the keys of the instrument: the jacks are something else.
We can only talk about the use he makes of his knowledge. That is
always light, poetical and imprecise, never pedantically accurate or
followed through in precise detail. Any scientific or logical
explanation is avoided like the plague. If he uses the same word
twice in succession, he always means two different things, as if to
say 'This is NOT a syllogism'.
(My view would be that in 44-45 he uses the elements, differently in
the two poems, and only once touches on the humours (45 line 8):
mostly in 45 he uses a metaphor of his own.)
>
>On the other hand, Auden assumes, incorrectly, I think, that the currently
>popular belief, that lyric poems (and other forms to a lesser extent)
>express, directly and sincerely, the writer's real thoughts and feelings,
>held in Shakespeare's time. (I'm not even sure it *really* has held in
>the Romantic and Modern periods so much as it's supposed to have, but
>certainly the belief that it does hold is integral to the poetry of those
>periods.) If you take that assumption too seriously, you also end up
>misreading badly. If Hemingway's novels, for example, were less
>autobiographical than they're supposed, they would read quite differently.
I absolutely agree, except that I think Auden too had this right.
What he says about 'complete misunderstanding of the nature of the
relation between art and life' I think is making a point very like
yours. This is a poem, not a scream: a deliberate, thoughtful
production, not a symptom. We must look at it as a work of art,
constructed, not forcibly extruded. Considerations of art count for
as much as considerations of feeling.
So what is left that I can say? Where should we draw the line
between necessary information and imported irrelevance? I doubt if
there is a line - Shakespeare was not a line-drawer any more than he
was a syllogist.
A different approach, then. If the sonnets, when read, demand
information, then that information is relevant. The roses in 54 are
a riddle until we look them up. What we must avoid is seeing riddles
where there are none. I see the sonnets as a play, perhaps, but with
only scenes, not a plot. If somebody sees them differently, we just
have to argue it out: a lot of work, alas, and perhaps unrewarding.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
(quoting Miller)
>>Suppose that in my novel I pretend that the property has never been split
>>up, walled off, used for government offices, and so on. The meaning of my
>>having done that depends (especially if the estate is a well-known one) on
>>whether I actually know that the estate's been broken up, or on whether my
>>information about it comes from an elderly grandparent who once lived in
>>the area. It might also depend on what I happened to know about the
>>history of the property. To know that, you need to know where I've lived
>>and what parts of that history had been available to me.
If you've constructed your novel properly, no one would ever have to know
anything about your history, because the logic of the decision would
arise from the story itself, and it certainly would have nothing to do
with whether or not you have expressed yourself with beautiful sentences
or not. By this argument, we could never understand any novel or poem
or story without knowing the author's history, and that is ridiculous. It's
like saying that before we read Nabokov or Faulkner, or whoever, we
have to read their biography first.
>
>Yes, this is a powerful example.
No it's not.
>Certainly to understand the sonnets
>we need to know some facts: the dissolution of the monasteries for
>'bare ruined choirs' (73, pace KQKnave),
This is ridiculous! We need to know no such thing for that poem, and
it seems to me that those lines and the poem itself have absolutely
nothing to do with the dissolution of the monasteries.The 'cold bare
ruined choirs' are a stand of trees, and the image is full of beauty and
nostalgia, utterly independent of any historical facts you want read
into it. Where do you get this stuff?
73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
> the murder of Marlowe for
>'the coward conquest of a wretch's knife' (74),
No, you don't need that, either. The poem
stands by itself without the reader requiring
any knowledge about the manner of Marlowe's
death. That's because it's not about Marlowe,
it's about the death-conquering power of art:
74
But be contented when that fell arrest,
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,
The very part was consecrate to thee,
The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
My spirit is thine the better part of me,
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
he coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered,
The worth of that, is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.
>a little botany for
>the dog-rose and damask rose in 54,
54
O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.
Botany? How about "vocabulary". No botany neccessary
to appreciate this. The reader just needs to have
seen and smelled a rose.
>a little animal behaviour for
>'the lark at break of day arising' (29).
Oh sure, we'll send everyone to the Audubon
society before we have them read that one.
What the hell are you talking about?
Nothing about Shakespeare's life or knowledge
of what he knew is going to explain why, for
example, the lines
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
are beautiful, or why that poem works. The only
thing his life might explain is the identity of
some people, and the events that transpired,
and even then, only if the "story" of the sonnets
is based on reality, and not an entire fiction. And
it will only satisfy those who read the sonnets for
biographical reasons. Those who read them for
the poetry, like me, could care less.
Jim
Robert Stonehouse
>In article <3af62f18...@news.cityscape.co.uk>, ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert
Stonehouse) writes:
>>Certainly to understand the sonnets
>>we need to know some facts: the dissolution of the monasteries for
>>'bare ruined choirs' (73, pace KQKnave),
>
>This is ridiculous! We need to know no such thing for that poem, and
>it seems to me that those lines and the poem itself have absolutely
>nothing to do with the dissolution of the monasteries.The 'cold bare
>ruined choirs' are a stand of trees, and the image is full of beauty and
>nostalgia, utterly independent of any historical facts you want read
>into it. Where do you get this stuff?
There are two levels of metaphor in this line. The roofless,
crumbling, deserted monastery churches are a metaphor for the
leafless, birdless branches of the trees, which in turn are a
metaphor for the aging of the poet. The aging, of course, is what
the poem is about. The tree metaphor lasts three lines, the
monastery one only three words. This double metaphor seems (to me at
least - I may be missing something) to be very rare in Shakespeare,
yet he brings it off with such clarity that we can read and
understand the poem without even noticing it. But this is where the
electric effect of the line comes from, and if we see it, we
understand it better.
It is a thing everyone in Shakespeare's time would have been
conscious of. We need to read up things like that, to put ourselves
in the position he expected his readers to be in.
>
>73
>That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
>When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
>Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
>Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
>In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
>As after sunset fadeth in the west,
>Which by and by black night doth take away,
>Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
>In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
>That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
>As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
>Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
>This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
>To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
>
>
>> the murder of Marlowe for
>>'the coward conquest of a wretch's knife' (74),
>
>No, you don't need that, either. The poem
>stands by itself without the reader requiring
>any knowledge about the manner of Marlowe's
>death. That's because it's not about Marlowe,
>it's about the death-conquering power of art:
This one is nearer the line, but (I shall argue) still my side of
it. The two poems 73 and 74 form a pair, as is apparent from the
first word of 74.I don't see any great triumph over death in these
poems. It is all sombre. But something 'with thee remains'.
But each poem has a pointer to Marlowe as the prompter of this
meditation on ageing and death and what survives: in 73 it is the
use of Marlowe's motto 'Consumed by that which it was nourished by'.
The poems are not about Marlowe, but they are prompted by his death.
Shakespeare's audience would pick that up. If we try to do the same,
we are not missing the point, but getting a little more of it.
No, we need to know that he is talking about two types of rose, and
we need to know what was the difference between them. Again, common
knowledge at the time, but it is not just understanding the words.
>
>>a little animal behaviour for
>>'the lark at break of day arising' (29).
>
>Oh sure, we'll send everyone to the Audubon
>society before we have them read that one.
It doesn't take much, but we need to realise where the lark nests,
where and when it sings and why the earth is 'sullen'. Nowadays many
of us don't know that kind of thing automatically.
>
>What the hell are you talking about?
>
>Nothing about Shakespeare's life or knowledge
>of what he knew is going to explain why, for
>example, the lines
>
>That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
>When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
>Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
>Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
>
>are beautiful, or why that poem works. The only
>thing his life might explain is the identity of
>some people, and the events that transpired,
>and even then, only if the "story" of the sonnets
>is based on reality, and not an entire fiction. And
>it will only satisfy those who read the sonnets for
>biographical reasons. Those who read them for
>the poetry, like me, could care less.
Some people do read the sonnets for biographical reasons. It seems
to me an arid procedure: there is very little to be found. I do not
think the sonnets tell a story, because I can't find a story in
them. Scenes, no plot.
But I do find the above little points in them. I can't accept that
we can get the most out of the sonnets without knowing anything. I
am trying to find a way we can pick up what grows out of the poems
themselves, without imposing a structure based on something outside
them.
The structure does not need to be fantastic (though I think most of
them are) to make it wrong to impose it. It only needs to be
external, not growing out of this one book. I am probably
approaching the conclusion that the shape of this book is literary,
and not historical at all.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>
>There are two levels of metaphor in this line. The roofless,
>crumbling, deserted monastery churches are a metaphor for the
>leafless, birdless branches of the trees, which in turn are a
>metaphor for the aging of the poet. The aging, of course, is what
>the poem is about. The tree metaphor lasts three lines, the
>monastery one only three words. This double metaphor seems (to me at
>least - I may be missing something) to be very rare in Shakespeare,
>yet he brings it off with such clarity that we can read and
>understand the poem without even noticing it. But this is where the
>electric effect of the line comes from, and if we see it, we
>understand it better.
>
>It is a thing everyone in Shakespeare's time would have been
>conscious of. We need to read up things like that, to put ourselves
>in the position he expected his readers to be in.
Sorry, I don't buy it. I don't see anything about monasteries, I see
only the trees that are like a choir, and the birds that sing in them.
I don't get any "electric effect" from the idea either. The great effect
of the line is from the simplicity and purity of the expression, not
from irrelevant thoughts that someone wants to read into it. The sonnets
can stand by themselves, and we don't need to know anything about
Shakespeare's life to understand or appreciate them as works
of art. We do need to know some of the Elizabethan usage that is not
our own, but that is a different thing altogether. The idea of the dissolution
of the monasteries not only isn't there, but if you put it there, it is out
of place, it has no meaning or relevance to the poem itself.
I think the poem is misinterpreted by some, including Booth,
who seem to think that trees are rubbing up against the
choir section of an old church. The poem says that "boughs"
are shaking against the 'bare ruined choirs'. The 'bare ruined
choirs' are trees which are defoliated because it's fall, and
the bare 'boughs' are rubbing against the trees that stand
alongside each bough. A stand of
trees is like a group of people standing in a choir, and
the image is stronger because birds sing and they
formed a choir when they were singing in the trees. And as Booth
points out, the poet is comparing himself to all of this,
and the poet is a kind of singer himself. This is all
personal, there is no history here.
>73
>That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
>When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
>Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
>Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
>In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
>As after sunset fadeth in the west,
>Which by and by black night doth take away,
>Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
>In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
>That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
>As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
>Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
>This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
>To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Jim
Robert Stonehouse
>In article <3af82ed...@news.cityscape.co.uk>, ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert
>Stonehouse) writes:
>>There are two levels of metaphor in this line. The roofless,
>>crumbling, deserted monastery churches are a metaphor for the
>>leafless, birdless branches of the trees, which in turn are a
>>metaphor for the aging of the poet. The aging, of course, is what
>>the poem is about. The tree metaphor lasts three lines, the
>>monastery one only three words. This double metaphor seems (to me at
>>least - I may be missing something) to be very rare in Shakespeare,
>>yet he brings it off with such clarity that we can read and
>>understand the poem without even noticing it. But this is where the
>>electric effect of the line comes from, and if we see it, we
>>understand it better.
>Sorry, I don't buy it. I don't see anything about monasteries, I see
>only the trees that are like a choir, and the birds that sing in them.
show we need a different understanding of that word.
>I don't get any "electric effect" from the idea either. The great effect
>of the line is from the simplicity and purity of the expression, not
>from irrelevant thoughts that someone wants to read into it. The sonnets
>can stand by themselves, and we don't need to know anything about
>Shakespeare's life to understand or appreciate them as works
>of art. We do need to know some of the Elizabethan usage that is not
>our own, but that is a different thing altogether. The idea of the dissolution
>of the monasteries not only isn't there, but if you put it there, it is out
>of place, it has no meaning or relevance to the poem itself.
I very much sympathise with your approach, but I think you make it
implausible by carrying it too far. On the one hand, there is a
dreadful rash of imported speculation that obscures the sonnets for
us. But on the other, after this lapse of time, it is to be expected
that some points will need a bit of investigation before we can
understand them. Some things were commonplace then, that are not
now. When you say 'we don't need to know anything about
Shakespeare's life', you seem to be saying more than anybody can
believe.
>
>I think the poem is misinterpreted by some, including Booth,
>who seem to think that trees are rubbing up against the
>choir section of an old church. The poem says that "boughs"
>are shaking against the 'bare ruined choirs'. The 'bare ruined
>choirs' are trees which are defoliated because it's fall, and
>the bare 'boughs' are rubbing against the trees that stand
>alongside each bough. A stand of
>trees is like a group of people standing in a choir, and
>the image is stronger because birds sing and they
>formed a choir when they were singing in the trees. And as Booth
>points out, the poet is comparing himself to all of this,
>and the poet is a kind of singer himself. This is all
>personal, there is no history here.
I agree that interpretation would be wrong. I don't see anything
rubbing against anything - indeed, I don't see it in Booth's book.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Charles Gillen
>By 'choir', do you mean a group of singers? The words 'bare ruined'
>show we need a different understanding of that word.
Here's the different understanding you need, from:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=84470&tocid=0
CHOIR
in architecture, area of a church designed to accommodate the liturgical
singers, located in the chancel, between the nave and the altar. In some
churches the choir is separated from the nave by an ornamental partition
called a choir screen, or more frequently by a choir rail.
Earliest church architecture set no space aside for the clergy who sang
the service; but as church ritual became more elaborate, beginning in the
10th century, it required more space for increased numbers of
participants. At first the choir contained simple, unattached chairs, but
by Gothic times the seats had developed into choir stalls, built-in rows
of prayer rests and hinged seats, which, when folded, often revealed
misericords - projections used for support during long periods of standing.
The stalls are usually arranged in two sets of stepped rows along the
edges of the choir, facing each other and at right angles to the altar.
Gothic craftsmen carved the wooden stalls elaborately - with animal forms,
biblical scenes, or abstract designs. Frequently, wooden canopies over
each stall, and high arms between them, made each seat resemble a separate
little building. Outstanding examples of ornate choir stalls are those at
the Convent of St. Thomas in Ávila, Spain, and those designed by Grinling
Gibbons in St. Paul's Cathedral, London.
Many modern churches have singers situated in a 'choir loft,' or on a
balcony.
--
NoSpam address: gillenc at home dot com
Charles Gillen -- Reston, Virginia, USA
KQKnave
see-m...@below.com (Charles Gillen) writes:
>Here's the different understanding you need, from:
>
>http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=84470&tocid=0
>
>CHOIR
>
>in architecture, area of a church designed to accommodate the liturgical
>singers, located in the chancel, between the nave and the altar. In some
>churches the choir is separated from the nave by an ornamental partition
>called a choir screen, or more frequently by a choir rail.
>
I think most of us are aware of the meaning of choir with regard to
physical space. But a choir is also a group of people, and in
the poem it refers to a group of trees, making the group of
trees metaphorically a choir. The trees are "bare and ruined"
because the season is fall. There is no need to bring in the
"dissolution of the monasteries", even if you want to interpret
"choirs" as referring metaphorically to monasteries.
Jim
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>I very much sympathise with your approach, but I think you make it
>implausible by carrying it too far. On the one hand, there is a
>dreadful rash of imported speculation that obscures the sonnets for
>us. But on the other, after this lapse of time, it is to be expected
>that some points will need a bit of investigation before we can
>understand them. Some things were commonplace then, that are not
>now. When you say 'we don't need to know anything about
>Shakespeare's life', you seem to be saying more than anybody can
>believe.
The poem is beautiful, isn't it? And we don't know much about
Shakespeare's life do we? Of course we need to know in some
cases the particular meaning of a word or phrase as it pertains
to Elizabethan life in general. But even in a poem such 107, where
it would be interesting to know who is meant by the "mortal moon",
we don't need to know the particulars. The sonnet stands on its
own.
Jim
Robert Stonehouse
>ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote:
>>By 'choir', do you mean a group of singers? The words 'bare ruined'
>>show we need a different understanding of that word.
>
>Here's the different understanding you need, from:
>
>http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=84470&tocid=0
>
>CHOIR
>
>in architecture, area of a church designed to accommodate the liturgical
>singers, located in the chancel, between the nave and the altar.
Yes, that is what I had in mind. 'Bare ruined' points us to a
building, as I see it.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Robert Stonehouse
Taking that poem, then, aren't you left feeling "I don't understand
this poem. What is he talking about?"
Eliot says that the best poetry can communicate without being
understood (or something of that kind). But he does not say that it
can communicate everything it has.
Some poetry has no meaning at all, or not enough to bother about,
and depends purely on the sound for its effect, or on the
associations of words. But Shakespeare's sonnets definitely are not
in that class. Every one is built on a solid structure of argument;
not necessarily logical argument (in fact preferably not) but
something that can be followed. They are full of thought - too full,
perhaps.
Neither are they simple effusions, exempt from close examination.
Shakespeare is nothing like Blake. Blake writes what his inner
compulsion forces from him, and whether anyone pays any attention is
up to them. Shakespeare produces objective works, intended for an
audience.
Now, this means that Shakespeare's personl biography is not the way
to approach his works. I am absolutely with you in that. But it also
means that his works require to be understood and not just reacted
to. We can make something of them by 'just reacting', but that is
not enough. The 'mortal moon' is a fine sound, but we should want to
ask 'Does this need to be a particular person? What does he mean by
it?'
Another reason why we should worry about puzzles is that Shakespeare
puts deliberate puzzles into the sonnets. He constantly starts to
say one thing and ends up (with malice aforethought) saying quite a
different one. Puzzles are part of the effect he sets out to create.
So while we need to be receptive, pure receptiveness will not get us
to the destination.
Of course, perhaps nothing will: for ordinary mortals, there is no
end to the journey. To comprehend Shakespeare, we would need to be
bigger than he is.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>>>I very much sympathise with your approach, but I think you make it
>>>implausible by carrying it too far. On the one hand, there is a
>>>dreadful rash of imported speculation that obscures the sonnets for
>>>us. But on the other, after this lapse of time, it is to be expected
>>>that some points will need a bit of investigation before we can
>>>understand them. Some things were commonplace then, that are not
>>>now. When you say 'we don't need to know anything about
>>>Shakespeare's life', you seem to be saying more than anybody can
>>>believe.
>>
>>The poem is beautiful, isn't it? And we don't know much about
>>Shakespeare's life do we? Of course we need to know in some
>>cases the particular meaning of a word or phrase as it pertains
>>to Elizabethan life in general. But even in a poem such 107, where
>>it would be interesting to know who is meant by the "mortal moon",
>>we don't need to know the particulars. The sonnet stands on its
>>own.
>
>Taking that poem, then, aren't you left feeling "I don't understand
>this poem. What is he talking about?"
>
No, I know what he's talking about. In the context of that quatrain,
he is saying that good times are here. I don't need to know who
the mortal moon is any more than I need to know which
specific summer day Shakespeare is talking about in sonnet 18.
The fact that the mortal moon is unknown helps to keep the
poem universal. If we begin to need specifics from Shakespeare's
life to understand the poems, then they would lose their ability
to communicate universally, and they would be failures as works
of art.
The issue of the identity of the mortal moon is an historical
issue, and lies outside the artistic world of the sonnets. I would
like to know who the mortal moon is, not so that it might
clarify the meaning of the poem, because it wouldn't (suppose
it was the Queen. How would that change anything?) but so
that I might satisfy my curiosity concerning when the poems
were written. But as a work of art, the poem stands on its own.
Jim
Neuendorffer
http://members.nbci.com/besenok/auden.htm
http://www.usd.edu/~thompson/Poetry/Auden.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/whauden.htm
Uncle Wiz: W.H. AUDEN
"A society which really was like a poem and embodied all the esthetic
values of beauty, order, economy, subordination of detail to the whole
effect, would be a nightmare of horror, based on selective breeding,
extermination of the physically or mentally unfit, absolute obedience
to its Director, and a large slave class kept out of sight in cellars."
<<Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on Feb. 21, 1907 as the
son of a distinguished physician. He was brought up in Solihull in the
West Midlands, an industrial landscape which was to remain important to
him as a poet. Auden studied at Oxford without much success: he took a
disappointing third-class degree in English and his first collection of
poems was rejected by T. S. Eliot at Faber & Faber. At one time in his
undergraduate years he planned to become a biologist. From 1928 to 1929
he lived in Berlin, where he took advantage of the sexually liberal
atmosphere, and was introduced to the psychological theories of Homer
Lane. In 1936 Auden traveled in Iceland with Louis MacNeice - Auden
believed himself to be of Icelandic descent. Auden married in 1935
Thomas Mann's daughter Erika Mann, a lesbian actress and journalist, so
that she could get a British passport. In 1937 he went to Spain as a
civilian and gave radio broadcasts to help the Republican forces. These
experiences he recorded in SPAIN (1937). In the 1940s he turned into a
religious thinker under the influence of Kierkegaard and Reinhold
Niebuhr (1892-1971), the foremost American Protestant theologian. Auden
depicted his conversion to Anglicanism, his mother's faith, in the THE
SEA AND THE MIRROR (1944) and FOR THE TIME BEING (1944), in which 'The
Sea and the Mirror', subtitled 'A Commentary on Shakespeare's The
Tempest', presented a Christian-allegorical reading of Shakespeare's
work. The poem can be read as an allegorical drama, with Prospero
representing the conscious ego, Ariel the imagination, and Caliban
material needs of fallen creatures. From 1939 to 1953 Auden taught at
various schools and universities. T.S. belived that Auden's long career
as a teacher left too much traces on his work - ''One tires,''Eliot
stated, ''of having things explained and being preached at.'' Auden's
pupils remember his heavy smoking, tireless energy, large black Flemish
hat, and umbrella he waved. "We called him Uncle Wiz," one student told
later. In his later years Auden worked on opera libretti for several
works, including Igor Stravinsky's 'Rake's Progress' (1951). Auden spent
part of the year at his apartment in New York (he always considered
himself not an American but a New Yorker) and part in Italy--later
still, in Kirchstetten, Austria. He died in Vienna, Austria, on Sept.
28, 1973.>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer