Sonnet 63 -- Questions
Paul Crowley
very obvious -- the sort a child would ask. But the
idea of asking them (let alone answering them) does
not occur to Stratfordians -- or any of the traditional
commentators on the sonnets.
Obviously, no one is expecting answers in this NG
-- except from yours truly -- in a day or so.
1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
9. For such a time do I now fortify
10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
11. That he shall never cut from memory
12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
(other than in the obvious one of time's progress
-- but then why use such a strange image?)
f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
and 'fild' have? And what are they?
4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
i) Why use the term 'lines'?
j) And 'wrinkles'?
5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
m) What is the significance of 'King'?
n) What are the 'beauties'?
o) How could the addressee be "King of various
beauties"?
7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
p) What is the point of the repetition of 'vanish'?
q) What is the significance of each -- other than
in a general comment on age and time?
8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
r) How do the beauties steal the treasure of
the poet's love's Spring?
s) Why does the poet bring in 'treasures'? And
'Spring'?
9. For such a time do I now fortify
t) What 'fortifications' does the poet intend?
10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
u) Why does the poet feel so strongly about
'confounding Ages?
v) What is the significance of the 'cruel knife'?
11. That he shall never cut from memory
w) Why should, and how could, 'confounding Ages'
cut his 'sweet loves beauty' from memory?
12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
x) Why does the poet expect his lovers life to be cut
from memory (or cut off completely) ?
13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
y) Does 'black lines' refer solely to those of the sonnet?
14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
Paul.
James Doyle
"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message
news:ZQFdb.33859$pK2....@news.indigo.ie...
If you have an essay to write, Paul you really should do the work yourself.
James
Paul Crowley
news:nGIdb.1788$Rw3....@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
> "Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message
> news:ZQFdb.33859$pK2....@news.indigo.ie...
> > I said I'd post questions on this sonnet first. They are
> > very obvious -- the sort a child would ask. But the
> > idea of asking them (let alone answering them) does
> > not occur to Stratfordians -- or any of the traditional
> > commentators on the sonnets.
> > 1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >
> > a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
> >
> > 2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> >
> > b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
> > c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
> > d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
<snip of more questions>
> If you have an essay to write, Paul you really should do the work yourself.
My point in posting the questions first (before
I provide what I think are reasonable and
mostly correct answers) is to emphasise the
method. I have one. Traditional (Stratfordian)
commentators on the sonnets don't.
Are the questions I posted reasonable? Or are
they absurd? Should anyone who sets out to
write about these sonnets pose these KINDS
of questions? And then attempt to answer
them? If they cannot do so, should they
plainly admit that fact?
If this is the correct method, why do we never
see anything like it (or attempts at answers to
such questions)?
If it is not the correct method, what exactly is
wrong with it?
Paul.
Elizabeth Weir
I like questions. They're easier for dyslexics to read.
I want more questions and fewer 250-word long
paragraphs.
Elizabeth
James Doyle
They're trite.
> Should anyone who sets out to
> write about these sonnets pose these KINDS
> of questions? And then attempt to answer
> them?
Exactly
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>I said I'd post questions on this sonnet first. They are
>very obvious -- the sort a child would ask. But the
>idea of asking them (let alone answering them) does
>not occur to Stratfordians -- or any of the traditional
>commentators on the sonnets.
Odd. I've got several commentaries on the sonnets, and they
seem to do a good job of answering many of the questions you ask.
Which ones are you reading?
>Obviously, no one is expecting answers in this NG
>-- except from yours truly -- in a day or so.
Sorry I'm late, but I thought I'd take a crack at it, just for
old time's sake.
>1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>9. For such a time do I now fortify
>10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>11. That he shall never cut from memory
>12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>
>
>1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>
>a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
He's not self-pitying so much as he is saying he is simply
old.
>2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>
>b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
He means the changes wrought by time in each of us as we get
older.
>c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
Poetic description of the effects of time.
>d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
Poetic description of the effects of time.
>
>3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>
>e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
> (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
The obvious one is the correct one - he's talking about time's
progress.
> -- but then why use such a strange image?)
You may as well ask why he wrote a poem about it in the first
place.
>f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
No.
>g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
They are simple images pertaining to youth and old age.
>h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
> and 'fild' have? And what are they?
I don't know, but the main one is as noted above.
>
>4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>
>i) Why use the term 'lines'?
>j) And 'wrinkles'?
Because the poet is talking about the lines and wrinkles that
develop in a person's face as he or she gets older.
>
>5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>
>k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
Perhaps a minor one, although I can't think of one. The main
sense is travelled.
>l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
Why not?
>
>6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>
>m) What is the significance of 'King'?
It's useful as a poetic image.
>n) What are the 'beauties'?
The physical beauties of the subject that the poet has been
going on about in many of the sonnets.
>o) How could the addressee be "King of various
> beauties"?
It's a poetic image. It means the subject is currently very
good looking.
>
>7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>
>p) What is the point of the repetition of 'vanish'?
They're going or gone.
>q) What is the significance of each -- other than
> in a general comment on age and time?
Not much.
>
>8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>
>r) How do the beauties steal the treasure of
> the poet's love's Spring?
They don't. Time steals the treasure of his spring.
>s) Why does the poet bring in 'treasures'? And
> 'Spring'?
Poetic images.
>
>9. For such a time do I now fortify
>
>t) What 'fortifications' does the poet intend?
Keep reading the poem.
>
>10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>
>u) Why does the poet feel so strongly about
> 'confounding Ages?
Because it's another image for time which is stealing away the
beauty of his subject.
>v) What is the significance of the 'cruel knife'?
Poetic image of the impact of time on physical beauty.
>
>11. That he shall never cut from memory
>
>w) Why should, and how could, 'confounding Ages'
> cut his 'sweet loves beauty' from memory?
By destroying it through time, and killing off all those who
had seen it.
>
>12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>
>x) Why does the poet expect his lovers life to be cut
> from memory (or cut off completely) ?
Because you're misreading the lines. The poet is saying that
even if time will end the subject's life, he will not allow it to
erase the memory of the subject's beauty.
>13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>
>y) Does 'black lines' refer solely to those of the sonnet?
>
Yes.
>14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>
>z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
Poetic image - Spring and all that.
I don't know, Paul. Seems straight-forward enough to me.
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
> On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 19:30:22 +0100, "Paul Crowley"
> <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>
> >I said I'd post questions on this sonnet first. They are
> >very obvious -- the sort a child would ask. But the
> >idea of asking them (let alone answering them) does
> >not occur to Stratfordians -- or any of the traditional
> >commentators on the sonnets.
>
> Odd. I've got several commentaries on the sonnets, and they
> seem to do a good job of answering many of the questions you ask.
> Which ones are you reading?
I'm about to post the 'work' of Booth, Kerrigan,
Duncan-Jones, and Blakemore-Evans, with that
from "Bookburn's website" -- with the intention
of score their 'answers' against mine. Strangely,
their 'work' is very like your insightful, deeply
profound, oh-so-eloquent stuff below.
> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> >
> >
> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >
> >a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
>
> He's not self-pitying so much as he is saying he is simply
> old.
How old do you think the poet was, when
he wrote this sonnet?
> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> >
> >b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
>
> He means the changes wrought by time in each of us as we get
> older.
No -- how extraordinary! That is really your
suggestion? Don't you think that it's a bit
too original? Remember that this is all before
the Enlightenment. Civilisation had not
progressed far. Our poet could hardly have
had such a thought.
> >c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
>
> Poetic description of the effects of time.
Staggering. I see you've been reading the
commentators. No one would have thought
of that otherwise.
> >d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
>
> Poetic description of the effects of time.
Gosh! This poet went deep.
> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >
> >e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
> > (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
>
> The obvious one is the correct one - he's talking about time's
> progress.
Nah . . . never, That's too far-fetched.
> > -- but then why use such a strange image?)
>
> You may as well ask why he wrote a poem about it in the first
> place.
>
> >f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
>
> No.
>
> >g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
>
> They are simple images pertaining to youth and old age.
Nah . . . never, That's too far-fetched.
> >h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
> > and 'fild' have? And what are they?
>
> I don't know, but the main one is as noted above.
> >
> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> >
> >i) Why use the term 'lines'?
> >j) And 'wrinkles'?
>
> Because the poet is talking about the lines and wrinkles that
> develop in a person's face as he or she gets older.
Nah . . . never, That's too far-fetched.
> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >
> >k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
>
> Perhaps a minor one, although I can't think of one. The main
> sense is travelled.
Probably none at all? After all, we don't expect
this poet to saying anything.
> >l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>
> Why not?
Why not use any old word? Heck, it's
only poetry, innit?
> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> >
> >m) What is the significance of 'King'?
>
> It's useful as a poetic image.
And any old 'poetic image' will do.
That's what makes this stuff so good.
> >n) What are the 'beauties'?
>
> The physical beauties of the subject that the poet has been
> going on about in many of the sonnets.
How informative.
> >o) How could the addressee be "King of various
> > beauties"?
>
> It's a poetic image. It means the subject is currently very
> good looking.
At last, we can now see what made him such
a great poet. How could we do it, without
those commentators?
> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
> >
> >p) What is the point of the repetition of 'vanish'?
>
> They're going or gone.
Insightful.
> >q) What is the significance of each -- other than
> > in a general comment on age and time?
>
> Not much.
I suppose you're right. Shakespeare never
really said anything, nor meant very much.
> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> >
> >r) How do the beauties steal the treasure of
> > the poet's love's Spring?
>
> They don't. Time steals the treasure of his spring.
Time again. So profound.
> >s) Why does the poet bring in 'treasures'? And
> > 'Spring'?
>
> Poetic images.
How perceptive.
> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
> >
> >t) What 'fortifications' does the poet intend?
>
> Keep reading the poem.
> >
> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
> >
> >u) Why does the poet feel so strongly about
> > 'confounding Ages?
>
> Because it's another image for time which is stealing away the
> beauty of his subject.
So deep and so elaborate.
> >v) What is the significance of the 'cruel knife'?
>
> Poetic image of the impact of time on physical beauty.
So clever and so imaginative.
> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
> >
> >w) Why should, and how could, 'confounding Ages'
> > cut his 'sweet loves beauty' from memory?
>
> By destroying it through time, and killing off all those who
> had seen it.
Profound.
> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
> >
> >x) Why does the poet expect his lovers life to be cut
> > from memory (or cut off completely) ?
>
> Because you're misreading the lines. The poet is saying that
> even if time will end the subject's life, he will not allow it to
> erase the memory of the subject's beauty.
It would be very strange to remark (apparently
as a casual aside) that something will 'cut' his
lover's life . . . especially when his lover is
supposedly a 'fair youth'. But -- even if one
takes your strange meaning -- the poet has left
open the possibility that he means his lover's
life will be cut from memory. That was, of
course, entirely deliberate. So what did he
mean by it?
> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
> >
> >y) Does 'black lines' refer solely to those of the sonnet?
> >
> Yes.
So meaningful.
> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> >
> >z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
>
> Poetic image - Spring and all that.
Nah . . too far-fetched.
> I don't know, Paul. Seems straight-forward enough to me.
Exactly. Zeroes are straight-forward. It's
a nothing reading -- just like in all the
commentaries. You might as well say that
the poet wrote nothing about nothing.
Paul.
Roundtable
>
> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> >c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
>
> Poetic description of the effects of time.
If you crush something in your hand, it becomes all wrinkly and
lined.
> >
> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >
> >e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
> > (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
Because young people usually have pinkish skin, and older people
become paler, perhaps also their blood circulation is less active.
So time drains the blood, but fills the brow (with lines).
> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >
> >k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
>
> Perhaps a minor one, although I can't think of one. The main
> sense is travelled.
Isn't the word "travail" also used to explain some hard effort,
like in childbirth? (No, this poem has nothing to do with
childbirth, I know.)
>
> >l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>
> Why not?
What does "steepie" mean, anyway?
Roundtable
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message news:3f7f9225...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
>
>> On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 19:30:22 +0100, "Paul Crowley"
>> <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>>
>> >I said I'd post questions on this sonnet first. They are
>> >very obvious -- the sort a child would ask. But the
>> >idea of asking them (let alone answering them) does
>> >not occur to Stratfordians -- or any of the traditional
>> >commentators on the sonnets.
>>
>> Odd. I've got several commentaries on the sonnets, and they
>> seem to do a good job of answering many of the questions you ask.
>> Which ones are you reading?
>
>I'm about to post the 'work' of Booth, Kerrigan,
>Duncan-Jones, and Blakemore-Evans, with that
>from "Bookburn's website" -- with the intention
>of score their 'answers' against mine.
Generally speaking, Paul, if a competition is to be arranged,
none of the competitors should be the judge.
>Strangely,
>their 'work' is very like your insightful, deeply
>profound, oh-so-eloquent stuff below.
You're comparing me with Booth, Kerrigan, Duncan-Jones and
Blackemore-Evans? Why thank-you Paul, I'm flattered!
>> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
>> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
>> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>> >
>> >
>> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>> >
>> >a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
>>
>> He's not self-pitying so much as he is saying he is simply
>> old.
>
>How old do you think the poet was, when
>he wrote this sonnet?
Good question, albeit one difficult to answer. How old are
people when they realize they're old, and they've lost their youth and
looks? It's a very subjective thing.
>
>> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>> >
>> >b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
>>
>> He means the changes wrought by time in each of us as we get
>> older.
>
>No -- how extraordinary!
It's not extraordinary - it's quite straight-forward.
>That is really your suggestion?
Yes, and the suggestion of most everyone who has ever read
this sonnet, I suspect.
>Don't you think that it's a bit
>too original? Remember that this is all before
>the Enlightenment. Civilisation had not
>progressed far. Our poet could hardly have
>had such a thought.
Of course he could have, and he did, as evidenced by the poem
we are discussing.
>
>> >c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
>>
>> Poetic description of the effects of time.
>
>Staggering. I see you've been reading the
>commentators. No one would have thought
>of that otherwise.
No, most anyone (with the apparent exception of yourself)
realizes this from simply reading the poem.
On the contrary, the poet is saying something quite moving
about the effects of time on beauty and the efforts of poets to
preserve that beauty. That you don't think much of that theme...well,
I'll say more about that in a bit.
>
>> >l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>>
>> Why not?
>
>Why not use any old word? Heck, it's
>only poetry, innit?
>
>> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>> >
>> >m) What is the significance of 'King'?
>>
>> It's useful as a poetic image.
>
>And any old 'poetic image' will do.
>That's what makes this stuff so good.
>
>> >n) What are the 'beauties'?
>>
>> The physical beauties of the subject that the poet has been
>> going on about in many of the sonnets.
>
>How informative.
You asked.
Not when that 'something' is Time, and is the subject of the
poem. You do realize that all of us are subject to time, don't you?
> But -- even if one
>takes your strange meaning -- the poet has left
>open the possibility that he means his lover's
>life will be cut from memory. That was, of
>course, entirely deliberate. So what did he
>mean by it?
That's a problem that stems from your misreading, not the
poet's meaning. To repeat: the poet's meaning is that he will preserve
the memory of his subject's beauty, even if he cannot prevent time
from eventually causing the subject to die.
>
>> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>> >
>> >y) Does 'black lines' refer solely to those of the sonnet?
>> >
>> Yes.
>
>So meaningful.
>
>> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>> >
>> >z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
>>
>> Poetic image - Spring and all that.
>
>Nah . . too far-fetched.
>
>> I don't know, Paul. Seems straight-forward enough to me.
>
>Exactly. Zeroes are straight-forward. It's
>a nothing reading -- just like in all the
>commentaries. You might as well say that
>the poet wrote nothing about nothing.
Wrong! Paul, you're entitled to your opinion that time's
effect on beauty, and a poet's attempt to preserve the memory of that
beauty in poetry, are not worthy themes for any poem, much less a poem
by Shakespeare. But if that is your opinion, then your only recourse
is to turn away in disappointment from this poem. Because that is
what this poem is about.
You know, it's occurred to me why I enjoy these occasional
exchanges with you. I think I've mentioned before that I'm one of
those left-brained logical types who doesn't have much appreciation
for poetry. But when I get into these discussions with you, I
honestly feel like a gifted interpreter of poetry. I may have a tin
ear for poetry, but I sometimes think you have a cement ear!
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
wrote:
>gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky) wrote
>>
>>
>> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
>> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
>> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>
>
>> >c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
>>
>> Poetic description of the effects of time.
>
>If you crush something in your hand, it becomes all wrinkly and
>lined.
Bingo!
>
>> >
>> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>> >
>> >e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
>> > (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
>
>Because young people usually have pinkish skin, and older people
>become paler, perhaps also their blood circulation is less active.
Bingo again!
>
>So time drains the blood, but fills the brow (with lines).
>
>> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>> >
>> >k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
>>
>> Perhaps a minor one, although I can't think of one. The main
>> sense is travelled.
>
>Isn't the word "travail" also used to explain some hard effort,
>like in childbirth? (No, this poem has nothing to do with
>childbirth, I know.)
Exactly. "Travail" can probably have a lot of different
meanings, but in this particular poem its major meaning is "travel",
although a secondary meaning could be a difficult travel through life.
But these discussions of the nuances of the various words used in the
sonnets (and indicative of the poet's genius) should not distract us
from the rather obvious general meaning of the poem.
>
>>
>> >l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>>
>> Why not?
>
>What does "steepie" mean, anyway?
Actually, I'm not sure where "steepie" came from. In my
copies, it's written as "steepy". And it means "steep".
- Gary Kosinsky
Bob Grumman
Sorry, Gary, you didn't give Time's name. He had to have Snively
Ruthers, the cad who made fun of Ed at the fencing school for
World-Class Geniuses where Oxford learned what he needed to introduce
swordplay to the English Stage.
> >c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
>
> Poetic description of the effects of time.
>
> >d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
>
> Poetic description of the effects of time.
Actually, literal description, if my old hand is any indication.
> >
> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >
> >e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
> > (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
>
> The obvious one is the correct one - he's talking about time's
> progress.
> > -- but then why use such a strange image?)
> You may as well ask why he wrote a poem about it in the first
> place.
> >f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
>
> No.
But Snively was Raleigh's illegitimate cousin!
> >g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
>
> They are simple images pertaining to youth and old age.
>
> >h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
> > and 'fild' have? And what are they?
Why are you skittering away from the obvious allusions to vampires,
Gary?
> I don't know, but the main one is as noted above.
> >
> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> >
> >i) Why use the term 'lines'?
> >j) And 'wrinkles'?
>
> Because the poet is talking about the lines and wrinkles that
> develop in a person's face as he or she gets older.
> >
> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >
> >k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
>
> Perhaps a minor one, although I can't think of one. The main
> sense is travelled.
> >l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>
> Why not?
All I know is that it couldn't be for some aesthetic effect, or the
keep the meter correct. Forget about freshness of language: all that
counts is how many allusions to gossip about Important People or
politics the poet can rack up.
> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> >
> >m) What is the significance of 'King'?
>
> It's useful as a poetic image.
Easy to rhyme, too.
Well, this may be a pun making an amusing tramsformation of black
lines of aging into black lines of poetry.
> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> >
> >z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
>
> Poetic image - Spring and all that.
>
> I don't know, Paul. Seems straight-forward enough to me.
> - Gary Kosinsky
To me, too, Gary. And I read it about as you do. Paul can't. He has
too great a need for serious stuff beyond such as you and me.
--Bob G.
Gary Kosinsky
wrote:
>Kosinsky wrote:
>> I don't know, Paul. Seems straight-forward enough to me.
>To me, too, Gary. And I read it about as you do. Paul can't. He has
>too great a need for serious stuff beyond such as you and me.
And you know what the real kicker is? Sure as hell, Paul's
going to get his hands on the new biography of Oxford and will "find"
Lord knows how many more personal allusions to Oxford in the Sonnets
which he will explain to us in great length. There probably *is* a
Snively Ruthers that Paul can latch onto.
- Gary Kosinsky
Tom Reedy
> >Probably none at all? After all, we don't expect
> >this poet to saying anything.
>
> On the contrary, the poet is saying something quite moving
> about the effects of time on beauty and the efforts of poets to
> preserve that beauty. That you don't think much of that theme...well,
> I'll say more about that in a bit.
<snip>
> >Time again. So profound.
<snip>
> >> I don't know, Paul. Seems straight-forward enough to me.
> >
> >Exactly. Zeroes are straight-forward. It's
> >a nothing reading -- just like in all the
> >commentaries. You might as well say that
> >the poet wrote nothing about nothing.
>
> Wrong! Paul, you're entitled to your opinion that time's
> effect on beauty, and a poet's attempt to preserve the memory of that
> beauty in poetry, are not worthy themes for any poem, much less a poem
> by Shakespeare. But if that is your opinion, then your only recourse
> is to turn away in disappointment from this poem. Because that is
> what this poem is about.
>
> You know, it's occurred to me why I enjoy these occasional
> exchanges with you. I think I've mentioned before that I'm one of
> those left-brained logical types who doesn't have much appreciation
> for poetry. But when I get into these discussions with you, I
> honestly feel like a gifted interpreter of poetry. I may have a tin
> ear for poetry, but I sometimes think you have a cement ear!
>
>
> - Gary Kosinsky
Actually, Crowley ears probably are packed with shit, a result of the
overflow from his brain.
That he believes one of literature's great themes -- the passage of time and
its effects on human consciousness -- is of little significance just
underscores the ridiculousness of the man and his fecal obsession.
Do you know the theme he thinks worthy of Shakespeare? A shitting contest
with the queen. I'll bet you when he posts his explanation of the "meaning"
of this sonnet it has something to do with elimination or sex. To Crowley,
with a mind perennially frozen in preadolescence, nothing else is worth
writing about.
TR
Paul Crowley
> >I'm about to post the 'work' of Booth, Kerrigan,
> >Duncan-Jones, and Blakemore-Evans, with that
> >from "Bookburn's website" -- with the intention
> >of score their 'answers' against mine.
>
> Generally speaking, Paul, if a competition is to be arranged,
> none of the competitors should be the judge.
I am not the judge -- merely the prosecuting
counsel. I'm arguing a case. If others want to
contest it -- great. But, from past experience,
I don't expect them to; they haven't one.
> >Strangely,
> >their 'work' is very like your insightful, deeply
> >profound, oh-so-eloquent stuff below.
>
> You're comparing me with Booth, Kerrigan, Duncan-Jones and
> Blackemore-Evans? Why thank-you Paul, I'm flattered!
You shouldn't be. What a bunch of mindless
twerps! Booth is the least worst, but even so
he should, at some point, have realised that
he was spouting vacuous nonsense.
> >> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> >> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> >> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> >> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
> >> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> >> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
> >> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
> >> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
> >> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
> >> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
> >> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> >> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >> >
> >> >a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
> >>
> >> He's not self-pitying so much as he is saying he is simply
> >> old.
> >
> >How old do you think the poet was, when
> >he wrote this sonnet?
>
> Good question, albeit one difficult to answer. How old are
> people when they realize they're old, and they've lost their youth and
> looks? It's a very subjective thing.
Nope, it's not. It's a social thing. How many
40-year-old men do you know who believe that
they will get pity and understanding if they
express great depression about having lost
their youthful looks? How many Elizabethan
men do you think would have sought sympathy
from their friends for the same reasons? Do
you know of similar instances in literature or
letters? The general opinion is that this
sonnet was written before the poet was 40.
[..]
> >It would be very strange to remark (apparently
> >as a casual aside) that something will 'cut' his
> >lover's life . . . especially when his lover is
> >supposedly a 'fair youth'.
>
> Not when that 'something' is Time, and is the subject of the
> poem. You do realize that all of us are subject to time, don't you?
Err . . . really? Now that you come to
mention it, the thought had never occurred
to me. Are you really sure that is the case?
I mean IF it was true -- and IF it applied to
everyone, then Shakespeare would have
written a sonnet about an obvious platitude.
And that can't be true. Sonnets about
obvious platitudes are invariably crap.
[..]
> >Exactly. Zeroes are straight-forward. It's
> >a nothing reading -- just like in all the
> >commentaries. You might as well say that
> >the poet wrote nothing about nothing.
>
> Wrong! Paul, you're entitled to your opinion that time's
> effect on beauty, and a poet's attempt to preserve the memory of that
> beauty in poetry, are not worthy themes for any poem, much less a poem
> by Shakespeare. But if that is your opinion, then your only recourse
> is to turn away in disappointment from this poem. Because that is
> what this poem is about.
You have only to read the 'commentators' to
see that they have not a clue as to the meaning
of the words of this sonnet. For example, some
say 'steepie' means going up -- it's really hard
getting there. Others say it means going down.
You slide there fast. It's about a 50/50 split
(of those who say anything).
Like you, they grasp for straws, and 'TIME'
(preferably in caps) is the most obvious.
> You know, it's occurred to me why I enjoy these occasional
> exchanges with you. I think I've mentioned before that I'm one of
> those left-brained logical types
I'm so left-brained that I despise anyone who
even begins to think that this left- and right-
brained thing is other than nonsense.
> who doesn't have much appreciation
> for poetry.
Your problem is (as mine used to be) that you
actually believe that the poncers of this world
-- (e.g. the Grummans) have a clue as to what
they talk about. They don't. They're frauds.
It's entirely a pretence to conceal their
ignorance and incompetence. Look at the
like of, say, Dave More. Ugh. He's practised
versifying, and thinks that's IT. Would you
trust his opinion on _anything_?
> But when I get into these discussions with you, I
> honestly feel like a gifted interpreter of poetry.
Tell me where I have demonstrated my lack
of appreciation -- in this instance. For some
reason you have adopted the anti-rational
stance of the dopes. (It goes with being a
Strat, btw.) It's the same basic attitude as
those who said any scientific enquiry into
nature was necessarily opposed to all
aesthetic enjoyment. So you think that it is
a requirement of appreciating poetry that you
shut down the left side of your brain --
because all those who have talked about it
up to now have done so. (In fact they have
shut down their whole brains -- or not had
ones to start with.)
> I may have a tin
> ear for poetry, but I sometimes think you have a cement ear!
First, try to say what is _wrong_ with
anything I say about these sonnets.
If your argument had any real basis,
you should find that easy. You will note
that no one around here can manage it --
except in the manner of the vague abuse
you attempt.
Paul.
David L. Webb
"Tom Reedy" <reed...@earthlink.net> wrote:
Someone could do h.l.a.s. a significant service by posting the Google
URL of the post in which Mr. Crowley first suggested that Shakespeare's
sonnets celebrate a defecation competition with the Queen. Newcomers to
this group (at least, the ones who haven't read Elizabeth Weird yet)
will scarcely believe it conceivable that ANYONE could actually have
said anything that...uh...eccentric -- and who could blame them? I'm
too busy (and too indolent) to hunt it up myself, but if anyone recalls
it offhand, it might be illuminating.
Paul Crowley
> 2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> 3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> 4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> 5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> 6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> 7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
> 8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> 9. For such a time do I now fortify
> 10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
> 11. That he shall never cut from memory
> 12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
> 13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
> 14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
This is an attempt at scoring my exegesis of this
sonnet against those of the principal published
commentators -- on the basis of the answers they
give to the questions I listed earlier.
The exercise is almost absurd. I am doing it to
emphasise -- at the level of each word and each
phrase, how my exegesis is far ahead of all those
traditional commentators.
I invite any who doubt my scoring to contest it
in particular cases. I may be over-generous to
myself at times -- or maybe not -- but, overall,
there can be no dispute.
The traditional commentators might as well have
had a poem in some unknown language in front
of them, for all the sense they make of it.
Whereas I have a real context, and I ascribe real
human meanings to each word, to each phrase,
and to the whole poem.
Perhaps, in some theoretical sense, I could be
completely wrong in my scenario for the poem,
and be some kind of a genius of invention. Yet,
how is it that not one of those commentators can
come remotely close to my level? How come no
one else could -- not for any kind of scenario --
Stratfordian, Marlite, Baconian or whatever?
I give a score for each solution within each
exegesis, but none for the inanely obvious, such
as: time =decay, or green = naive. So, for example,
in my exegesis (as now emended) I show how the
poet would early in 1581, have had powerful
personal reasons for 'times injurious hand', with
(a) the sense of injustice (the impoverishment of
the 17th Earl and the world's greatest poet, the
lack of an heir, the mistrust of his wife, the
absence of office . . and so on);
(b) the low-class 'hand' displacing him, and
being the most injurious to the times;
(c) an allusion to Sir Edmund Kyvett's hand.
Booth, Duncan-Jones and the Website author
say nothing. Kerrigan says it means 'unjustly
harmful' but give no reason why . Similarly
Blakemore-Evans says 'unjustly hurtful' but
gives no reason. So all get zeroes. What else
would be appropriate?
>>> 1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>
> a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 -1 0 -2 (a) Why self-pitying?
C=Crowley, B=Booth, K=Kerrigan, D=Duncan-Jones,
E=Blakemore-Evans, W=(Bookburn's) Website
I give multiple reasons in Oxford's life at this
point in early 1581, each more than enough. The
others don't even remark on it -- except for Duncan-
Jones who says the poet is worried about the fair
youth getting as old and as decrepit as the poet
(at his grand old age of . . err . . 34 . . . in 1598)
and for this inanity on the Website ("A thirty-
year old man could therefore consider himself
well advanced towards old age").
>>> 2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (b) Times injurious hand
I should award more negative points for
all the specific inanities (such as Kerrigan's
'vampires') but it's not worth the trouble
> c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
C B K D E W
1 0 0 0 0 0 (c) Crushed
> d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (d) Ore-worne
>>> 3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
> (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
> -- but then why use such a strange image?)
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (e) Houres drain blood
> f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (f) Houres punning on whores -- and who
> g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (g) Relevance of drained/filled
> h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
> and 'fild' have? And what are they?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (h) Other applications of 'fild'
>>> 4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> i) Why use the term 'lines'?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (i) References of 'lines'
> j) And 'wrinkles'?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (j) References of 'wrinkles'
>>> 5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (k) Sense of travail as against travel
> l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (l) Why strange 'steepie'?
>>> 6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> m) What is the significance of 'King'?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (m) Significance of 'King'?
> n) What are the 'beauties'?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (n) Significance of 'beauties'
> o) How could the addressee be "King of various
> beauties"?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (o) How 'King of various 'beauties'?
>>> 7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
> p) What is the point of the repetition of 'vanish'?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (p) Repetition of 'vanish'
> q) What is the significance of each -- other than
> in a general comment on age and time?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (q) Significance of each 'vanish'
>>> 8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> r) How do the beauties steal the treasure of
> the poet's love's Spring?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (r) How beauties steal 'treasure'
> s) Why does the poet bring in 'treasures'? And
> 'Spring'?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (s) Significance of 'treasure' and 'Spring'
>>> 9. For such a time do I now fortify
> t) What 'fortifications' does the poet intend?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (t) Significance of 'fortifications'
>>> 10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
> u) Why does the poet feel so strongly about
> 'confounding Ages?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (u) Meaning of 'confounding Ages'
> v) What is the significance of the 'cruel knife'?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (v) Meaning of 'cruel knife'
>>> 11. That he shall never cut from memory
> w) Why should, and how could, 'confounding Ages'
> cut his 'sweet loves beauty' from memory?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (w) Cutting 'sweet loves beauty'
>>> 12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
> x) Why does the poet expect his lovers life to be cut
> from memory (or cut off completely) ?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (x) Cutting 'lovers life'
>>> 13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
> y) Does 'black lines' refer solely to those of the sonnet?
C B K D E W
3 0 0 0 0 0 (y) Beauty in black lines
>>> 14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
C B K D E W
2 0 0 0 0 0 (z) 'Green' in this context?
SUMMARY
C=Crowley, B=Booth, K=Kerrigan, D=Duncan-Jones,
E=Blakemore-Evans, W=(Bookburn's) Website
C B K D E W
3 0 0 -1 0 -2 (a) Why self-pitying?
3 0 0 0 0 0 (b) Times injurious hand
1 0 0 0 0 0 (c) Crushed
2 0 0 0 0 0 (d) Ore-worne
2 0 0 0 0 0 (e) Houres drain blood
3 0 0 0 0 0 (f) Houres punning on whores -- and who
2 0 0 0 0 0 (g) Relevance of drained/filled
3 0 0 0 0 0 (h) Other applications of 'fild'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (i) References of 'lines'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (j) References of 'wrinkles'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (k) Sense of travail as against travel
3 0 0 0 0 0 (l) Why strange 'steepie'?
3 0 0 0 0 0 (m) Significance of 'King'?
2 0 0 0 0 0 (n) Significance of 'beauties'
2 0 0 0 0 0 (o) How 'King of various 'beauties'?
2 0 0 0 0 0 (p) Repetition of 'vanish'
2 0 0 0 0 0 (q) Significance of each 'vanish'
2 0 0 0 0 0 (r) How beauties steal 'treasure'
2 0 0 0 0 0 (s) Significance of 'treasure' and 'Spring'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (t) Significance of 'fortifications'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (u) Meaning of 'confounding Ages'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (v) Meaning of 'cruel knife'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (w) Cutting 'sweet loves beauty'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (x) Cutting 'lovers life'
3 0 0 0 0 0 (y) Beauty in black lines
2 0 0 0 0 0 (z) 'Green' in this context?
--- -- -- -- -- --
66 0 0 -1 0 -2 Total
== = = = = =
I guess that means I win.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
on Sonnet 63, so that HLAS readers can compare
them with mine -- and score accordingly.
This is from G. Blakemore-Evans
_________________________________________
Sonnet 63
Though the opening line is closely linked to 62.9-10, Sonnet 63
returns to the themes, last heard in 60, of Time the Destroyer
and its antidote: Time and Death defeated by verse. There are
indeed, as Hood notes, close conceptual and verbal parallels
between 63 and 60. Compare 63.3-4, 4-7, 9-12, 13-14 with
60.9-10, 5-8, 9-12, 13-14 respectively. Compare Daniel,
Delia (1592), Sonnets 38, 42.
1 Against In preparation for the time when.
1 my love i.e. the youth. Lines 1-8 are a series of subordinate
clauses, restated in 9 by 'For such a time'.
2 injurious unjustly hurtful.
2 crushed and o'erworn broken down, creased (as if crumpled)
and worn out. Compare 'Beated and chopped' in 62.10, Spenser,
Ruines of Rome (1591), Sonnet 27.6: 'The which injurious time
hath quite outworne', and Daniel, Civil Wars (1595), III, 14: 'And
seeke t'oppresse and weare them out with time'.
3 hours i.e. the passing hours (= time).
3 drained his blood Time here is pictured as 'draining away' the
heat of young blood and replacing it with the cold blood of age
(see 2.14 ii.).
3 filled The contrast with 'drained' almost certainly guarantees
that Q 'fild' should be interpreted as 'filld' (i.e. the past tense of
'to fill'), but, as Kerrigan observes, Q 'fild' could also be the past
tense of 'to file' (i.e. = defiled, sullied, corrupted). Note, however,
that 'fild' is the regular spelling of 'filld' elsewhere in the Sonnets
(see 17.2; 86.13).
3 brow forehead.
5 travelled (1) moved, journeyed; (2) Iaboured, toiled. Since 'travail'
and 'travel' were then interchangeable spellings for both verbs,
the Q spelling 'trauaild' allowed for both meanings, a choice which
'travelled' (without a special note) might seem to limit.
5 age's steepy night i.e. the precipitous ('steepy') descent into the
darkness (and death) of old age (contrasted with 'youthful morn' in
line 4). Compare Ovid,Metamorphoses XV, 225-7 (Golding, 247-9):
'he passeth foorth the space / Of youth... / Through drooping ages
steepye path he ronneth out his race' (see also 'wrinkles' in line 4
and 60.5-12 n.).
6 king (1) ruler; (2) highest example.
7 vanishing, or vanished.. . sight i.e. (all his 'beauties' are) in the
process of disappearing from sight (like the sun after noon), or have
disappeared (like the sun after setting into night).
8 Stealing.., spring (1) Robbing, (2) stealthily, secretly pilfering the
precious store ('treasure') of his youth ('spring'; compare 'morn'
in line 4).
9 For In preparation for (repeats 'Against' in line 1).
9 such a time i.e. the time or moment described in lines 1-8.
9 fortify build defences.
10 Against In opposition to.
10 confounding destroying, defeating.
10 age's cruel knife i.e. the merciless, savage knife wielded by Time
as exemplified in old age. Though classical allusions in the Sonnets
are rare (see Sonnet 53), the word 'knife' here, followed as it is by
'cut from memory' in line 11, suggests the operation of the Parcae,
the three goddesses of destiny, who wove and cut the thread of
human life.
11 That he So that Time.
11 memory living or future record.
12 love's beauty i.e. the beauty of my loved one. There may also be a
hint of 'the beauty of my feelings of love' (Hood).
12 though my lover's life i.e. even though Time may have cut off my
beloved's physical life.
13 black lines 'black' because written or printed in ink (compare 'in
black ink' in 65.14). 'black', though conventionally treated as antithetical
to 'beauty' (compare 127.1-2), here serves to heighten and set off
'beauty' by contrast; compare MM 2.4.79-81: 'as these black masks /
Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder /Than beauty could,
displayed', and Rom. 1.1.221 -2.
13 seen In contrast to 'vanished out of sight' in line 7.
14 still green ever, always alive and flourishing ('green', as in the 'spring'
(8) of his life). Compare LLL 1.2.86: 'Green indeed is the color of lovers.'
Paul Crowley
on Sonnet 63, so that HLAS readers can compare
them with mine -- and score accordingly.
This is from Stephen Booth
_________________________________________
The key word in this poem is "Against". In both substance
(the first eight lines concern a life that continues after beauty
dies; the last six concern beauty that lives on after death) and
fabric (see notes on Against, traveled, Stealing away, black, etc.),
this is a poem of paradoxical oppositions, fused pairs of
contraries that cancel each other out. The sonnet may thus be
said to do stylistically what Ovid states overtly in Metamorphoses
XV.252-58 (lines 276-84 in Golding's version-see Appendix 2),
a passage echoed in this sonnet and intended by Ovid as
evidence that "No kind of thing keeps ay his shape and hew.. . .
Neyther dooth there perrish aught. . . in all the world. . . . Things
passe. . . from place too place: yit all from whence they came
returning, doo unperrisshed continew still the same."
1. Against . . . in anticipation of (in preparation for) the time
when (see 49.1, note).
2. injurious = trisyllabic, by syncopation. Shakespeare regularly
pronounced suffixes like -ious as one syllable, "yus"; even
so, the line sounds appropriately crushed metrically.
3. hours = monosyllabic.
3-4. Note the wit of the simultaneous parallelism and non-
parallelism in the pairing of drained (which pertains only
to liquids) and its antonym,fllled (which can pertain to any
substance and is applied to lines and wrinkles, which are
not liquids but are conduit-like--could be filled with liquid).
4,5,8,12. morn, night, spring, life . . . Like Met. XV.186-229 (lines
206-51 in Golding), this sonnet treats analogous time spans
-- a day, a year, a human life -- focusing momentarily on
one or another, but essentially treating them (as Ovid does)
as merely different faces of the same thing. Compare sonnet 73.
5. traveled . . . (1) journeyed; (2) toiled (Q gives "travaild"; Elizabethans
made no distinction in spelling between "travel" and "travail";
see 27.2 and 50.2). The differing connotations of the two
senses of traveled help Shakespeare conflate the images of
the sun climbing, toiling, up to noon, and descending, traveling
on, to night. He presents climb and descent not as two stages
in passage but as a single progress in one fixed direction.
Shakespeare's fascination with actions that are their own
counteractions appears again in 64.8 and is most vividly
expressed in 129. For a related effect, see also lines in
lines 4 and 13, and Against in lines 1 and 10. steepy steep
(as in line 249 of Golding's version of Met. XV).
8. Stealing away . . . At first glance Stealing away seems to be a
synonym for vanishing in line 7; it comes to mean "pilfering"
only when the developing syntax of the line presents an object
of theft: treasure. (See steal in 92.1 and 104.10.)
10. Against . . . in opposition to. confounding destroying (see 5.6
and 60.8). cruel = dissyllabic; see 129.4, note.
12. love's . . . (1) of my beloved; (2) of the affection I feel, though my
lover's life (1) even though his life be cut off; (2) even though
his life be forgotten, cut from memory. (On the kind of
relationship indicated by "lover," see 126,4, note.)
13-14. See 65.13-14. black, green . . . The primary meaning of black
is literal; its funereal connotations and its opposition to beauty
(see 127,1, note) are secondary. The primary meaning of green
is metaphoric: "[be] youthful, lively" (see spring, line 8); its literal
meaning, which is operative only because black precedes it,
acts only to add a casual auxiliary paradox to those by which
black lines preserve what lines and wrinkles destroy and by
which the dead and forgotten beloved will live remembered
forever.
14. still . . . (1) even after that (i.e. after his death); (2) always, forever.
Paul Crowley
on Sonnet 63, so that HLAS readers can compare
them with mine -- and score accordingly.
This is from Katharine Duncan-Jones
_________________________________________
Anticipating a time when the fair youth will be as old and decrepit
as he is now, the speaker makes provision against the youth's
loss of beauty by preserving it in poetry. It is surely not by chance
that this sonnet on the severe changes brought about by the ageing
process is positioned as number 63, the 'grand climacteric' - 7 x 9,
a figure associated with major life changes. Also, we are now exactly
half-way through the 'fair youth' sequence, which ends with the
imperfect 126 (see Introduction, p. 100).
1 Against . . . . in preparation for the time when;
cf. MND 3.2.99; R2 3.4.28.
2 injurious . . . .'wilfully inflicting injury or wrong' (OED 1);
cf. TC 4.4.41-2: 'Injurious Time now with a robber's haste /
Crams his rich thiev'ry up, he knows not how'.
o'erworn . . . . worn out, like a piece of shabby cloth
3 filled . . . .Though Qs 'fild' has been modernized to filled, the
possibility cannot be excluded that the word should be 'filed',
suggesting both carved with lines' and 'defiled': cf. Duncan-
Jones, 'Modernizing'.
5 travailed . . . .As at 34.2, Qs spelling has been retained, to
ensure that modern readers do not lose the simultaneous
sense of 'labouring' and 'journeying'.
steepy . . . . difficult to ascend, like a steep hill; cf. Tim 1.1.75.
8 Stealing away . . . .The verb functions both (a) intransitively -
the young man's beauties 'steal away', flee stealthily; and
(b) transitively, with time's injurious hand and/or hours as
the subject, which 'steal' the glories of youth: cf. 'the
stealing hours of time', Ham 5.1.71.
9 For . . . .in preparation for; a resumption of the sense of
Against in I. 1 fortify make a fortification or buttress;
cf. 16.3-4, where progeny rather than barren rhyme, was
the means by which the youth was advised to fortify himself.
10 age's cruel knife . . . . repeats the rhythm of age's steepy
night in 1. 5, but conflates age with time, who is so often
armed with a sharp implement, as in 60.9-10
12 though ... life . . . . 'though (he will cut from human memory)
the life of my lover': the apparent synonymity here of my
love and my lover is disconcerting, but there is a possibility
that My sweet love's beauty refers to the poet's imaginative
vision of his beloved, in contrast to the mortal specificity
of my lover's life.
13 black lines . . . . lines of poetry, forming black lines on the
page; they appropriate and redefine the lines and wrinkles of I. 4.
14 he ... green . . . . 'he will remain, in the poet's verses, fresh
and youthful.' However, the word green also has associations
with rawness and unripeness which introduce an acidic note;
cf. VA 806; AC 1.5.74. Where we might anticipate a conventional
paradox of black ink revealing' the brightness or fairness of the
love-object, as in 65.14, green suggests that the poet's lines
may preserve the young man's callow- ness and immaturity
as much as his consummate beauty
Paul Crowley
on Sonnet 63, so that HLAS readers can compare
them with mine -- and score accordingly.
This is from John Kerrigan
_________________________________________
Sonnet 63
1 'Against my love' . . . in preparation for the time when my beloved
2 'injurious' . . . (three syllables) unjustly harmful
crushed and o 'erworn (like a garment creased and worn from years of
use. In the light of injurious, another glancing echo of Spenser's
Ruines of Rome, where 'The which injurious time hath quite outworn'
appears in Sonnet 27.)
3 'hours have drained his blood' . . . Shakespeare turns the
traditionally beneficent 'Horae' into something resembling vampires.
filled. Balanced against drained, filled suggests liquid repletion; but
lines and wrinkles conjure a smooth surface cross-hatched with care.
The Q spelling 'fild' is fruitfully ambiguous, for it prompts 'filed' as
well as filled; but we cannot be sure that it is Shakespearian.
4 'lines and wrinkles'. . . . The pleonasm is functional, because it
draws attention to a word used in the couplet to carry the burden of the
poem's argument. The effectiveness of Shakespeare's handling of
lines can be judged from the parallel passage in Drayton's 1599 Idea
(Sonnet 43): 'Whilst thus my pen strives to eternize thee, / Age rules
my lines with wrinkles in my face'. Forced to the point of punning,
the ambiguity becomes merely grotesque.
4-5 'when his youthful morn Hath travelled on to age's steepy night'. . . .
Eleven words seem to contain the entire substance of Sonnet 7.
Modernization of Q's 'trauaild' inevitably obscures the effort made
by the morn as it moves towards its ruin in night. Steepy suggests
both the irreversible rapidity of the day's decline (compare 7.5, 9-50)
and the 'soaking' or 'steeping' of the morn in the darkness which is
death.
6 'those beauties whereof now he's king' . . . the charms and physical
graces which are his. But there is a supporting suggestion of 'the
beautiful people who pay him allegiance and love'.
7 'Are vanishing or vanished out of sight' . . . The 'beauties' fade as we
read, 'vanishing', then vanished. But the repetition, and use of 'or', also
give 'vanished' the air of being transitive, as though some vanisher made
the 'beauties' fade (and the sestet introduces a plausible agent in the
figure of 'Age').
8 'Stealing away the treasure of his spring'. . . . The young man's fading
'beauties' quietly and dishonestly carry off the 'treasure' which belongs
to (and which is) his youth (the 'spring' of his life) as they vanish 'out
of sight'. But the 'beauties' actually are the 'treasure' of his 'spring', and
'Stealing', placed in parallel with 'vanishing', turns from theft to 'creep-
ing away'; so the young man's 'treasure' - as surely as his beauties -
makes itself away, and does not.
9 'fortify' . . . build defences
9,11 'fortify . . . memory'. . . . For the rhyme see 1 .2 and 4.
10 'confounding' . . . wrecking, destroying
Age's. The personification creeps upon the reader, from age's steepy
night (where age is a future property of the young man, though more
powerful than he), through vanished in line 7 (see the note).
cruel (two syllables)
11 'That' . . . so that
'memory'. . . . Rather the 'living record' of Sonnet 55 than the poet's
private recollection.
12 'My sweet love's'. . . . The love of line 1; not the poet's affection.
though my lover's life (1) though he will cut off My sweet love's life; (2)
though he will cut the details of My sweet love's life from the public
memory; (3) though he will cut off my life as a lover. Without
suggesting that the young man's life will not bear scrutiny, sense (2)
scrupulously points to the discrimination exercised by the poet in
recording his sweet love's life: the young man's beauty, not the untidy
details of his daily living, fill the black lines of the poem.
13 'beauty... black'. . . . Opposing principles; see 27.12 and the note,
and the Introduction, pages 58-9.
14 'still' . . . (1) even (after death); (2) constantly, for ever
'green'. . . . A fresh, youthful, lover's colour ('Green indeed is the
colour of lovers', says Armada at Love's Labour's Lost 1.2.83),
associated with the spring, and with living, growing things.
Paul Crowley
on Sonnet 63, so that HLAS readers can compare
them with mine -- and score accordingly.
This is from the Sonnet Website
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/63comm.htm
_________________________________________
Having regained his equilibrium once more, after some insane attacks of jealousy, the poet
devotes himself again to the question of the youth's mortality and the ravages of time against
all things beautiful. What, he wonders, may be attempted as a means of holding Time's swift foot
back and restraining his despoliation of beauty?
That is the theme of this and the next two sonnets. Here and in 65 the hope is expressed that
the black lines of this verse will provide a form of immortality. In the intervening sonnet, 64,
nothing is suggested as a palliative, and the only remedy is to weep for what one is destined
soon to lose.
It is worth noting the personal element in these three sonnets. Time is not only the universal
arch-destroyer, but, what seems even more heinous, he will cut away my sweet love's beauty, my
lover's life, he will come and take my love away, he will snatch away Time's best jewel (i.e. my
beloved) and if my love shall still shine bright despite all this destruction, it will only be
through some miracle yet unknown. Each of the three sonnets passes from the universality of
wasteful Time's depravity, which attacks and crushes individuals, wrecks cities, eats up the
land, consumes brass and eternal monuments, destroys the flowers of the summer as well as gates
of steel and the stoutest rocks, and then turns its attention to my sweet love's beauty, my
love, and Time's best jewel. So all things that are mortal fade and soon are no more to be seen.
What is the solution? To what must one turn to avoid this destruction and loss? Is it to the
immortality of verse? Or should one simply weep and acknowledge that everything which we possess
is as a death which continues to weep but must dissipate itself eventually into the great sea of
mortality?
This sonnet shares the same opening words as sonnet 49. The numbers of the two are important, as
they are climacteric numbers, and were for the Elizabethans crucial years in a person's life.
The astrologers were deeply concerned for Elizabeth's welfare in her 63rd year and foretold
numerous disasters. She died in her next climacteric year at the age of 70. (See the notes to
sonnet 81 for a fuller discussion).
1. Against = in preparation for (the time when)
2. Time's injurious hand - Time is personified once again as the reckless destroyer of all
things. Of the 126 sonnets to the youth, time as the invidious tyrant or fickle cheat appears in
17. For the record, the sonnets in which Time is mentioned in a pejorative context are 5, 12,
15, 16, 19, 22, 55, 60, 63, 64, 65, 77, 100, 115, 116, 123, 126. The word does not occur at all
in the sonnets to the dark lady.
crushed and o'erworn - the poet perceives himself, having looked in his glass in the previous
sonnet, as one who is more than past his prime. It is worth mentioning that, if the sonnets were
written prior to 1600, Shakespeare would have been 36 at the most. Nevertheless, it is
acknowledged that the ageing process was more rapid in Elizabethan England than it is today,
owing to poverty of diet , poor housing and primitive medicine. A thirty year old man could
therefore consider himself well advanced towards old age. In addition it was the necessity of
convention that the addressee of a love sonnet would be more beautiful and youthful in
comparison to all earthly things. Therefore those who admired were always, by reflection,
crushed and o'erworn.
o'erworn = worn out.
3. drain'd his blood = emptied him of blood. It was thought that, as one aged, the blood became
thinner, colder, and that there was less of it. The final act of Time and Death was to empty the
body of blood completely. fill'd his brow - since the Q spelling is fil'd there could be a
reference to the use of a file. The lining of the forehead by Time with wrinkles was for poets
the typical act of desecration of beauty which symbolised his (Time's) destructive rage against
human achievement.
4. The movement from youthful morn to age's steepy night is very swift, without any
intermediate steps. Once started on the downward slope there is no stopping. The speed of the
decline is repeated in lines 6-7, where the immortal beauties of youth flash once before one's
eyes and then vanish. The repeated word vanish (line 7) gives the impression of a flickering
fire, which flickers briefly and is gone.
5. travelled - travail and travel were the same word in Shakespearian times. See 27, 34, 50.
(See Q's spelling). Hence 'moved wearily along on its journey'.
age's steepy night - the steep decline of age into night, darkness and lifelessness. The word
steepy is not a neologism, and is recorded by OED before Shakespeare's usage of it. It seems to
be synonymous with steep. There could be a connection with steeping objects in fluids so that
they become flavoured or imbued with the liquid (in this case with night).
6. wherof now he's king = over which he now reigns. The particular aspects or
characteristics of beauty which the youth possessed were in a sense under his power, as if he
were the ruler of them all. But like all earthly things power is illusory, and in the next line
they vanish almost as soon as they make their appearance.
7. vanishing (ed) - the repetition of the word makes the process more consciously visual. As
one looks, the beauties so much vaunted, disappear before one's gaze.
8. Stealing away - has the transitive meaning of (Time) robbing the youth of all his
treasures (his beauty), and the intransitive sense of to steal away, in which the beauty of the
youth creeps away imperceptibly, furtively disappears, before anyone has noticed its absence. In
the second sense the treasure of his spring would be in appostion to all those beauties or his
youthful morn, or both.
9. fortify = take up a defensive position by building fortifications. The fortifications
become the black lines of l.13. The word is also used in Sonn 16:
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
But the fortifications seem woefully inadequate in both cases.
10. confounding = destroying. See Sonn 60, line 8, note. Age and Time were comparable,
interchangeable destroyers, armed as often with knives as with scythes. Sonn. 100 lists both
weapons:
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife. 100.13-14
11. he = age, time.
12. The use of my sweet love's beauty and my lover's life has proved difficult for
commentators who are not too keen on open admissions of love between men. It is clear that the
understanding of the terms love, or lover, differed from that of modern times, and there are
instances in the plays where men address each other or refer to each other in such terms without
any emotive content. But as so often in writing, it is the context which determines what the
words approximately mean. Here, with the sonnet devoted to the means by which something precious
might be preserved, and so much emphasis being placed on the admired beauty of the youth, there
is no doubt that love and lover mean approxiamtely what they do in modern English, although
lover has the more general sense of one who is loved, without the unavoidable modern overtones
of one with whom one has had sex. There is no doubt that my love and my lover are meant to carry
the full range of emotional overtones which any deep love for another person brings with it. In
John Lyly's Euphues : The Anatomy of Wit, published in 1578, Euphues takes as his special friend
Philautus, and the two declared their love for each other. They used not only one board, (table)
but one bed, one book (if so be it they thought not one too many). Their friendship augmented
every day, insomuch that the one could not refrain the company of the other for one minute.
Lyly. p.19, Leah Scragg ed.
13. Blackness and beauty seem to be opposites. Partly it is the blackness of night and
oblivion, set against the brightness of his youthful morn. Partly it may be that
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name; 127.
The blackness of course in this case is that of ink, which here manages to preserve greeness and
vitality, against all the odds.
14. And they shall live - the lines of verse shall continue to live (when all else is dead). he
in them still green - he (my love) shall always be flourishing in them with youth and vitality.
Bob Grumman
> > >Duncan-Jones, and Blakemore-Evans, with that
> > >from "Bookburn's website" -- with the intention
> > >of score their 'answers' against mine.
> >
> > Generally speaking, Paul, if a competition is to be arranged,
> > none of the competitors should be the judge.
>
> I am not the judge -- merely the prosecuting
> counsel. I'm arguing a case. If others want to
> contest it -- great. But, from past experience,
> I don't expect them to; they haven't one.
That sounds like a verdict to me, Counselor.
***
> > Good question, albeit one difficult to answer. How old are
> > people when they realize they're old, and they've lost their youth and
> > looks? It's a very subjective thing.
>
> Nope, it's not. It's a social thing. How many
> 40-year-old men do you know who believe that
> they will get pity and understanding if they
> express great depression about having lost
> their youthful looks? How many Elizabethan
> men do you think would have sought sympathy
> from their friends for the same reasons? Do
> you know of similar instances in literature or
> letters? The general opinion is that this
> sonnet was written before the poet was 40.
I was a recently-baldheaded 26 when I first expressed depression and
self-loathing at having lost my youthful looks. I don't think I was
looking for pity or understanding, I was simply expressing my
feelings--mostly, I believe, to myself. 26 is not that young for such
bitterness: I had a friend in the air force who was bewailing some
kind of skin discoloration that was costing him his looks during his
23rd year, whien I last saw him.
> [..]
> > >It would be very strange to remark (apparently
> > >as a casual aside) that something will 'cut' his
> > >lover's life . . . especially when his lover is
> > >supposedly a 'fair youth'.
> >
> > Not when that 'something' is Time, and is the subject of the
> > poem. You do realize that all of us are subject to time, don't you?
>
> Err . . . really? Now that you come to
> mention it, the thought had never occurred
> to me. Are you really sure that is the case?
>
> I mean IF it was true -- and IF it applied to
> everyone, then Shakespeare would have
> written a sonnet about an obvious platitude.
> And that can't be true. Sonnets about
> obvious platitudes are invariably crap.
> [..]
One of the most prevalant characteristics of the Philistine is his
tendency to rate artworks on the basis of their subject matter. (I
can't remember ever having read a good sonnet, or any other poem of
value, that was not about an obvious platitude, but I wouldn't want to
say there aren't any.)
You don't believe in the rationality/intuition continuum? Or that the
brain may be specialized in such a way that its left contributes more
to rationality than to intuition, and its right more to intuition than
rationality?
> > who doesn't have much appreciation
> > for poetry.
>
> Your problem is (as mine used to be) that you
> actually believe that the poncers of this world
> -- (e.g. the Grummans) have a clue as to what
> they talk about. They don't. They're frauds.
How, pray tell, could I who have read, studied and written about
poetry for over forty years not have a clue about poetry, Paul? And
what makes you think Gary could not have reached his conclusions all
by his wittle self? Again, how do you KNOW all this, and why should
we believe you know ANYTHING about poetry, considering you don't write
it, and don't read it so much as mine a preposterous narrow slice of
it for evidence to support your idiosyncratic history of England from
1560 or so to 1650 or so.
> It's entirely a pretence to conceal their
> ignorance and incompetence. Look at the
> like of, say, Dave More. Ugh. He's practised
> versifying, and thinks that's IT. Would you
> trust his opinion on _anything_?
>
> > But when I get into these discussions with you, I
> > honestly feel like a gifted interpreter of poetry.
>
> Tell me where I have demonstrated my lack
> of appreciation -- in this instance. For some
> reason you have adopted the anti-rational
> stance of the dopes. (It goes with being a
> Strat, btw.) It's the same basic attitude as
> those who said any scientific enquiry into
> nature was necessarily opposed to all
> aesthetic enjoyment.
Where have you shown any aesthetic appreciation of Shakespeare? Where
have you shown any appreciation of any kind for any poet other than
Shakespeare? I say that you show an immunity to aesthetic
appreciation when you reject a poem because its theme seems trivial to
you. You show that immunity in many other ways, but I'm not up to
listing them here.
> So you think that it is
> a requirement of appreciating poetry that you
> shut down the left side of your brain --
> because all those who have talked about it
> up to now have done so. (In fact they have
> shut down their whole brains -- or not had
> ones to start with.)
> > I may have a tin
> > ear for poetry, but I sometimes think you have a cement ear!
>
> First, try to say what is _wrong_ with
> anything I say about these sonnets.
> If your argument had any real basis,
> you should find that easy. You will note
> that no one around here can manage it --
> except in the manner of the vague abuse
> you attempt.
Actually, it's surprisingly difficult to refute the arguments of a
person who automatically declares any counter to his arguments as, at
best, "vague abuse."
--Bob G.
Peter Groves
news:david.l.webb-D7D7...@merrimack.dartmouth.edu...
It's his "exegesis" of Sonnet 103 at
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=EdFO8.1447%24vB.8526%40news.indigo.ie,
and deserves to be quoted in full:
"1. Alack what poverty my Muse brings forth,
Some commentators propose 'brings forth'
indicates 'gives birth to'. However the poet
means to suggest a much more frequent
bodily function: i.e. 'po-(ver-ty)'. Vendler
acutely remarks how "the _p_overty of the
Muse seems to generate a string of p-words
to accompany itself: pride, praise, pass."
Robert Stonehouse also makes a good
point about the play on 'A Lack' here.
2. That having such a scope to show her pride,
'Scope' and 'pride' have bawdy senses.
Pride usually indicates sexual organs, and
scope the vagina. However here, I think,
'scope' refers to the anus.
3. The argument all bare is of more worth
Again 'argument' and 'worth' often refer to
'vagina' -- which here is 'all bare'. But I feel
that 'worth' refers to the turd produced by the
Muse; by 'argument' the poet is referring to
what is left behind (no pun intended) after
the act of defecation.
Booth (page 196) refers to two canonical
uses of 'argument' thus: T&C IV.v.26-29 and
R&J II.iv.94-96.
MENELAUS I had good argument for kissing once.
PATROCLUS But that's no argument for kissing now;
For this popp'd Paris in his hardiment,
And parted thus you and your argument.
MERCUTIO (R&J II.iv.94-96)
O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:
for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and
meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.
'Worth' has come up in many sonnets in bawdy
and scatological senses.
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: 2:4
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair, 16:11
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. 37:4
. . . . . . if aught in me 38 :6
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; 38 :6
O, how thy worth with manners may I sing, 39:1
Most worthy of comfort, now my greatest grief, 48:6
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, 52:7
Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope, 52:13
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, 60:13
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. 60:14
As I all other in all worths surmount. 62:8
Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time; 70:6
For you in me can nothing worthy prove; 72:4
The worth of that is that which it contains, 74:13
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, 80:5
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise, 82:6
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. 78:8
The Charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; 87:3
Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing, 87:9
3. The argument all bare is of more worth
Booth compares 'bare' with H8, I.i.23-5
" . . . . The madams too,
Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them . . "
But, amazingly, Booth seems to fail to notice
the bawdy puns in both passages.
4. Than when it hath my added praise beside.
The poet pictures himself sitting beside
his Muse in the 'House of Office' leaving
his 'added praise' on the ground outside,
alongside that deposited by his Muse.
The second quatrain leaves the scatological
discussion of his Muse, and focuses on
the addressee, switching to a bawdy account
of thoughts on an imagined act of sex with her.
5. Oh blame me not if I no more can write!
The poet pretends to be so excited by these
thoughts of sex, that he cannot write.
6. Look in your glass and there appears a face
Here, his beloved uses her mirror to inspect
parts not easily seen otherwise. But he is
almost certainly punning on his own name
'glass' = verre = Vere. He regarded himself,
in many respects, as her other self, or her
double, or reflection. He was, supremely,
the voice of the age she had created.
7. That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
His 'blunt invention' indicates his penis.
Her vagina would 'over-go it quite'.
Booth remarks that 'invention' suggests:
'in' and 'venire' = 'to come'.
8. Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
'Lines' puns on 'loins'. They will be 'dulled'
by sexual gratification, about which he may
then feel 'disgraced' (possibly also because
he is now depleted, exhausted and can do no
more).
The third quatrain reflects on the nature of
the act of sex generally.
9. Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
'Striving' in the sexual act is intended.
The 'mend/mar' antithesis has nothing to
do with any proverb (the standard idiotic
interpretation). It is about the paradoxical
nature of the sex act.
10. To mar the subject that before was well,
'Subject' is a triple pun: (a) superficially on
'topic'; (b) in the sexual sense -- probably
on 'penis'; and (c) in the monarch/subject
sense, with the poet as subject.
11. For to no other pass my verses tend,
By 'pass' he means passage, and also
sexual gratification.
12. Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
He hints (or pretends to hint) that he knows
more about her physical attributes than he
is able to tell.
13. And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
The 'more, much more' is, of course, sexually
suggestive; so is 'sit' (as in a sexual position).
We may want to invoke "Stonehouse's Rule" as
regards the repetition of 'more'. But, as in 102,
the application is obvious: no one could be
more 'more' (or less 'less') than the Queen.
14. Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.
'Glass' comes up again as in line 6, and
in much the same manner, reinforcing
the likelihood of a pun on 'Verre'.
The bawdy and scatological aspects of this
sonnet are undeniable. The hopelessness
of trying to place either within a 'Fair Youth'
context is also undeniable.
Once again, the Stratfordian scenario fails
hopelessly; and the Oxford/Queen one is
triumphant."
"MHJDAWG"'s summarised(<mhj...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020615081047...@mb-fe.aol.com...)
> Paul Crowley accuses Bob Grumman of churning out crap by the minute (See
his
> post to the "Most Egregious" thread, dated 6/14/02), and then writes an
entire
> post explaining that Sonnet 103 is really about Oxford's desire to sit
beside
> Elizabeth on a shared perch squeezing out turds.
> ("poverty" = "pooh"??????)
>
> Not only that, but Oxford becomes so excited by contemplating this bodily
> function that it turns him on and he finishes the Sonnet with a
description of
> how he'd like to play hump the hostess.
and Crowley responded by accepting this summary of his interpretation:
"Why not point out particular phrases where you find
my interpretation far-fetched, or where you think that
it is not based on the text. I could then readily quote
appropriate chunks from the rest of the canon. "
Peter G.
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Gary Kosinsky" wrote:
>
>> >I'm about to post the 'work' of Booth, Kerrigan,
>> >Duncan-Jones, and Blakemore-Evans, with that
>> >from "Bookburn's website" -- with the intention
>> >of score their 'answers' against mine.
>>
>> Generally speaking, Paul, if a competition is to be arranged,
>> none of the competitors should be the judge.
>
>I am not the judge -- merely the prosecuting
>counsel. I'm arguing a case. If others want to
>contest it -- great. But, from past experience,
>I don't expect them to; they haven't one.
Given that you are the "prosecuting counsel", how do you
rationalize the fact that your "case" seems to have convinced
absolutely no-one at hlas, including your fellow Oxfordians?
>> >Strangely,
>> >their 'work' is very like your insightful, deeply
>> >profound, oh-so-eloquent stuff below.
>>
>> You're comparing me with Booth, Kerrigan, Duncan-Jones and
>> Blackemore-Evans? Why thank-you Paul, I'm flattered!
>
>You shouldn't be. What a bunch of mindless
>twerps! Booth is the least worst, but even so
>he should, at some point, have realised that
>he was spouting vacuous nonsense.
About this "vacuous nonsense" business, Paul. As you
correctly pointed out, my reading of this sonnet is a very commonplace
one, similiar in kind, albeit not in knowledgeable detail, as the
critical editors you mention. And you constantly deride and dismiss
this commonplace interpretation in terms similiar to "vacuous
nonsense". How then do you explain the enjoyment that this
commonplace interpretation of the Sonnets has brought to the hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, of readers of Shakespeare's Sonnets?
An important detail here, Paul: the poet wasn't expressing
depression about losing his own youthful looks. He was concerned
about the beauty of his subject, and the fact that that beauty would
be lost by the passage of time.
I realize this won't change your attitude to the traditional
interpretation of this sonnet, but I thought I'd mention it.
>[..]
>> >It would be very strange to remark (apparently
>> >as a casual aside) that something will 'cut' his
>> >lover's life . . . especially when his lover is
>> >supposedly a 'fair youth'.
>>
>> Not when that 'something' is Time, and is the subject of the
>> poem. You do realize that all of us are subject to time, don't you?
>
>Err . . . really? Now that you come to
>mention it, the thought had never occurred
>to me. Are you really sure that is the case?
>
>I mean IF it was true -- and IF it applied to
>everyone, then Shakespeare would have
>written a sonnet about an obvious platitude.
>And that can't be true. Sonnets about
>obvious platitudes are invariably crap.
And you are obviously wrong. Perhaps that is the magic of
poetry, that it can take an "obvious platitude" and turn it into
something quite beautiful and interesting. And let's not forget that
there is a difference between reading and appreciating a poem on its
own terms, and then intellectually summarizing what the poem is
"about". The summarized "meaning" of a poem is but one element of the
poem, and by itelf, expressed in stark terms, may very well be quite
obvious and ordinary.
>[..]
>
>> >Exactly. Zeroes are straight-forward. It's
>> >a nothing reading -- just like in all the
>> >commentaries. You might as well say that
>> >the poet wrote nothing about nothing.
>>
>> Wrong! Paul, you're entitled to your opinion that time's
>> effect on beauty, and a poet's attempt to preserve the memory of that
>> beauty in poetry, are not worthy themes for any poem, much less a poem
>> by Shakespeare. But if that is your opinion, then your only recourse
>> is to turn away in disappointment from this poem. Because that is
>> what this poem is about.
>
>You have only to read the 'commentators' to
>see that they have not a clue as to the meaning
>of the words of this sonnet. For example, some
>say 'steepie' means going up -- it's really hard
>getting there. Others say it means going down.
>You slide there fast. It's about a 50/50 split
>(of those who say anything).
Commenting on a poem is not a scientific process. I'm sure
there are certain individual words and phrases in the Sonnets about
which different commentators differ. Given the subject, unlike
yourself, I am not surprised by this at all. But as you have
admitted, and derided at great length, there is definitely a common
consensus about these poems, and it has nothing to do with your
interpretation. Speaking of which, given that you seem to be
demanding here that everyone agree on the meaning of a word, phrase,
or line before it can be considered a valid interpretation, how do you
explain that no-one agrees with your explanations of the words,
phrases and lines in the poems?
>Like you, they grasp for straws, and 'TIME'
>(preferably in caps) is the most obvious.
And the correct one.
>> You know, it's occurred to me why I enjoy these occasional
>> exchanges with you. I think I've mentioned before that I'm one of
>> those left-brained logical types
>
>I'm so left-brained that I despise anyone who
>even begins to think that this left- and right-
>brained thing is other than nonsense.
Perhaps. But you understood what I meant. And so it is
useful as a short-hand way to get across certain characteristics.
>> who doesn't have much appreciation
>> for poetry.
>
>Your problem is (as mine used to be) that you
>actually believe that the poncers of this world
>-- (e.g. the Grummans) have a clue as to what
>they talk about.
Yes, you're right, I do (although I wouldn't describe Bob as a
"poncer").
>They don't. They're frauds.
>It's entirely a pretence to conceal their
>ignorance and incompetence. Look at the
>like of, say, Dave More. Ugh. He's practised
>versifying, and thinks that's IT. Would you
>trust his opinion on _anything_?
"How to Win Friends and Influence People in Newsgroups" by
Paul Crowley - coming soon to a bookstore near you!
>> But when I get into these discussions with you, I
>> honestly feel like a gifted interpreter of poetry.
>
>Tell me where I have demonstrated my lack
>of appreciation -- in this instance.
Sure - you've dismissed the traditional interpretation of this
poem as an "obvious platitude", which you then describe as "crap".
Sounds like a lack of appreciation to me.
> For some
>reason you have adopted the anti-rational
>stance of the dopes. (It goes with being a
>Strat, btw.)
Well, then, that would explain it, wouldn't it?
> It's the same basic attitude as
>those who said any scientific enquiry into
>nature was necessarily opposed to all
>aesthetic enjoyment.
Opposed? Or simply different from?
>So you think that it is
>a requirement of appreciating poetry that you
>shut down the left side of your brain --
>because all those who have talked about it
>up to now have done so. (In fact they have
>shut down their whole brains -- or not had
>ones to start with.)
>
>> I may have a tin
>> ear for poetry, but I sometimes think you have a cement ear!
>
>First, try to say what is _wrong_ with
>anything I say about these sonnets.
>If your argument had any real basis,
>you should find that easy. You will note
>that no one around here can manage it --
>except in the manner of the vague abuse
>you attempt.
- The additional meanings you try to force onto the poems are
unnecessary to their appreciation.
- I'm unconvinced that the "puns" that you so often find in these
poems were actually intended to be any such thing. The same is true
for other types of "wordplay" which you claim exist in the poems.
- You change the stated sex of the addressee to suit your theory.
- Your entire interpretation leads to, and is predicated on, a mistake
ie that Oxford wrote the sonnets.
Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. I suspect
that if I gave it further thought, there would be more, but it seems
rather pointless to me. At the beginning of your reply, you mentioned
you were acting in the role of a prosecuting attorney. If I'm the
Judge, I'm throwing your case out of Court!
- Gary Kosinsky
Bob Grumman
Paul: in this case, all right opposed to the all wrong of your
opponents. I think your interpretation is ridiculous, but would give
you some points, and am sure you have at least one clue about what the
sonnets are about. Aside from that, your scoring raises yet again my
standard question: on just what basis do consider yourself qualified
to judge a poetry-interpretation competition?
Or, if I scored the competition you just did, and said everyone in it
scored in the thirties except you, who scored 5, why should anyone
accept your scoring and not mine?
--Bob G.
David L. Webb
"Peter Groves" <Monti...@NOSPAMbigpond.com> wrote:
> "David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote in message
> news:david.l.webb-D7D7...@merrimack.dartmouth.edu...
> > In article <qX3gb.4314$gA1....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> > "Tom Reedy" <reed...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > "Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message
> > > news:3f806ae7...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> > > > On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 14:34:23 +0100, "Paul Crowley"
> > > > <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
[...]
Thanks, Peter -- it's even more demented than I recalled. You're
right -- it does deserve to be quoted in full. Regrettably, Mr.
Crowley's exegesis is so depressing that it doesn't even afford as much
humor as Art's exegesis of Sonnet 20 -- written, according to Art, by
Oxford, addressing his own penis.
Dave Kathman
Even for Crowley, it's a classic.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message news:<8Algb.530$1Q3....@news.indigo.ie>...
Lynne
This isn't true, Gary. Any author, including Shakespeare of Stratford,
could be writing about his baby. However, and this is a big however,
there are, as you say, many aspects of the poem that simply do not fit
Paul's interpretation of it, not least that the poet uses the word
lover, which scarcely fits a description of one's own son. There is
another question I'd pose. Why would Oxford write about his
out-of-wedlock baby with Anne Vavasour, (and what in the poem tells us
it's Anne Vavasour?) and yet not mention in other sonnets the births
of any of his legitimate daughters or son and heir? But perhaps Paul
has some more treats in store for us.
The only word I can find in the entire sonnet that has led Paul to his
interpretation is "travail," which can connote labour in childbirth,
but also means hard work or travel. His comment that poets do not
write about their lovers in the third person is simply wrong. Even I
have written a modern sonnet using the same technique.
I'm sort of flabbergasted that Paul has "graded" people according to
his own scale and come out tops. What he needs is two independent
judges, perhaps one Oxfordian and one traditionalist. Or ten judges.
They'll all have different interpretations, but I think there'd be a
"core" reading of the sonnet which would persist.
Anyway, I'm guesting on this computer and have no time to say more.
Best wishes,
Lynne
Paul Crowley
news:5f7d2eb3.0310...@posting.google.com...
Because I would (probably) be able to show
where you had gone wrong, and where others
were right -- as you somehow forget to do here.
The whole purpose of my exercise was to provide
a framework within which my exegesis could be
compared with those of traditional Strats, and to
give you (and your likes) an opportunity to
question my figures in detail. So you might say,
for example that in item (m) Kerrigan deserves
2 points for this and that, Booth should have
1 point for his reason X and I should have only
N points for my reasons A, B and C.
Naturally, like all Strats, you must duck. You
are obliged to avoid any discussion of details
and stick to generalities (usually general abuse).
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> Given that you are the "prosecuting counsel", how do you
> rationalize the fact that your "case" seems to have convinced
> absolutely no-one at hlas, including your fellow Oxfordians?
These things take time. I have not attempted
to proselytise. As you can see, I am only in
the process of putting the case together.
> About this "vacuous nonsense" business, Paul. As you
> correctly pointed out, my reading of this sonnet is a very commonplace
> one, similiar in kind, albeit not in knowledgeable detail,
How can anyone have 'knowledgeable detail'
in a field made up entirely of vacuous nonsense?
> as the
> critical editors you mention. And you constantly deride and dismiss
> this commonplace interpretation in terms similiar to "vacuous
> nonsense".
You don't and you can't deny it.
> How then do you explain the enjoyment that this
> commonplace interpretation of the Sonnets has brought to the hundreds
> of thousands, if not millions, of readers of Shakespeare's Sonnets?
It is a deep puzzle -- and one that no one has
answered -- let alone answered well. (If anyone
knows of even passable account, please speak
up.)
What is unquestionable, though, is that people
do NOT read and enjoy these sonnets for their
meaning. The 'pretend exegeses' of the 'scholars'
are entirely redundant -- obviously so. Many of
us learnt them off-by-heart at school, and would
not claim to have had any real understanding of
them. Yet we liked and often loved them. Children
love nursery rhymes. How often do they
understand them?
I happen to agree. He was expressing self-pity:
1. Against my love shall be as I am now
He implies that his state 'now' is dire. He never
wants his love to be in any similar state. But
I was paraphrasing Strat interpretations (insofar
at they ever say anything) and this is Duncan-
Jones:
"Anticipating a time when the fair youth will be as old and
decrepit as he is now, the speaker makes provision against
the youth's loss of beauty by preserving it in poetry"
> He was concerned about the beauty of his subject,
> and the fact that that beauty would
> be lost by the passage of time.
So why use the phrase "shall be as I am now" ?
> I realize this won't change your attitude to the traditional
> interpretation of this sonnet, but I thought I'd mention it.
When your 'explanation' has no connection
with the words of the sonnet, it's not likely
to have much effect.
> > Sonnets about
> >obvious platitudes are invariably crap.
>
> And you are obviously wrong.
So quote another great (or even good) poem
about an obvious platitude -- and little or
nothing else.
> Perhaps that is the magic of
> poetry, that it can take an "obvious platitude" and turn it into
> something quite beautiful and interesting.
We may think (or assume) that the poem
is not about anything other than an
obvious platitude, and still find (or even
know) that it is great. But we are always
mystified as to how the poet managed
to produce it.
> And let's not forget that
> there is a difference between reading and appreciating a poem on its
> own terms, and then intellectually summarizing what the poem is
> "about". The summarized "meaning" of a poem is but one element of the
> poem, and by itelf, expressed in stark terms, may very well be quite
> obvious and ordinary.
Sure, the difference is great.
> >You have only to read the 'commentators' to
> >see that they have not a clue as to the meaning
> >of the words of this sonnet. For example, some
> >say 'steepie' means going up -- it's really hard
> >getting there. Others say it means going down.
> >You slide there fast. It's about a 50/50 split
> >(of those who say anything).
>
> Commenting on a poem is not a scientific process. I'm sure
> there are certain individual words and phrases in the Sonnets about
> which different commentators differ. Given the subject, unlike
> yourself, I am not surprised by this at all. But as you have
> admitted, and derided at great length, there is definitely a common
> consensus about these poems, and it has nothing to do with your
> interpretation.
The 'common consensus' has a much
meaning as a burp. Also, remember that
these guys read each other carefully.
They have no idea what to say, so they
copy each other.
> Speaking of which, given that you seem to be
> demanding here that everyone agree on the meaning of a word, phrase,
> or line before it can be considered a valid interpretation,
I certainly do not. In commentaries on the
works of other poets -- especially the better
one -- there will often be fierce disagreement
on what the poet meant. Was s/he being
ironic? Humorous? Sarcastic? Biographical?
If so, -- about this episode or that? Or implying
sexual abuse . . . etc., etc. There is real debate
and often much controversy. The sterile
nothingness of the Stratfordian 'debate' tells
you one thing only -- that the exegetists are
brain-dead.
[..]
> >Tell me where I have demonstrated my lack
> >of appreciation -- in this instance.
>
> Sure - you've dismissed the traditional interpretation of this
> poem as an "obvious platitude", which you then describe as "crap".
> Sounds like a lack of appreciation to me.
Try to be more particular -- because
otherwise it seems like dodging. You have
acres of detailed comment and criticism.
Can't you find something showing a 'lack of
appreciation'?
> >> I may have a tin
> >> ear for poetry, but I sometimes think you have a cement ear!
> >
> >First, try to say what is _wrong_ with
> >anything I say about these sonnets.
> >If your argument had any real basis,
> >you should find that easy. You will note
> >that no one around here can manage it --
> >except in the manner of the vague abuse
> >you attempt.
>
> - The additional meanings you try to force onto the poems are
> unnecessary to their appreciation.
More vague abuse. And the sole reason
for it is that you cannot face the issue:
Which of those meanings are present and
which not?
If nearly all are absent (as you must necessarily
maintain) then am I some kind of super-genius
of invention?
Is every one of those meanings contrived?
Did the poet not intend a single one of them?
Were they absent from the poet's mind when
he wrote the words?
If so, then the meanings I take, must have little
or nothing to do with the words.
So you should be able to point out plenty of
absurdities and distortions. Where are they?
> - I'm unconvinced that the "puns" that you so often find in these
> poems were actually intended to be any such thing.
NO. It's not a matter of being 'unconvinced'.
You LOSE if you cannot show that the poet
could not possibly have intended them.
No one could read anything about Edward de
Vere into the third editorial of today's New
York Times. Any attempt would be so weak
as to be laughable. No one can read anything
about the Stratman or the 'fair youth' into the
Shakespearean sonnets either -- apart from
exceedingly -- abysmally -- weak crap about
'Time' and the like. No Baconian can read in
anything about Bacon (apart from the next-
to-unbelievably bad crap you might have
seen). No Marlite can read in anything about
Marlowe (apart from the next-to-unbelievably
bad crap you might have seen).
How come I can read so much into them about
de Vere?
> The same is true
> for other types of "wordplay" which you claim exist in the poems.
It's NOT a matter of being 'unconvinced'
about the "wordplay". You LOSE if you
cannot show that the poet could not
possibly have intended them.
> - Your entire interpretation leads to, and is predicated on, a mistake
> ie that Oxford wrote the sonnets.
Sure, sure. You KNOW evolution could not
have happened in the way those so-called
scientists say. The Bible tells a different
story. So you don't have to look at any facts.
> Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. I suspect
> that if I gave it further thought, there would be more, but it seems
> rather pointless to me. At the beginning of your reply, you mentioned
> you were acting in the role of a prosecuting attorney. If I'm the
> Judge, I'm throwing your case out of Court!
You are the defence lawyer, and so far you
have only just about pleaded 'not guilty'.
We are waiting to see you deal with the
facts of the case.
Paul.
David L. Webb
dj...@ix.netcom.com (Dave Kathman) wrote:
> This is one of the funniest HLAS posts I've seen in a long while.
> Even for Crowley, it's a classic.
>
> Dave Kathman
> dj...@ix.netcom.com
Indeed, it is surely one of the funniest displays of delusions of
grandeur since Richard Kennedy triumphantly exhibited his mastery of the
contents of the letters of John Chamberlain (whom Kennedy cannot
distinguish from John Manningham), or since Elizabeth Weird appraised
her "mastery of Early Modern Literature" as "about 5% of the knowledge
base of the average Lit PhD."
Indeed, even among Mr. Crowley's own posts, surely its only serious
competitors are Mr. Crowley's stalwart defense of the authenticity of
the "Ray Mignot" sonnet and his hilarious scatalogical suggestion,
kindly reposted in its entirety by Peter Groves, that Sonnet 103
celebrates a defecation competition between Oxford and the Queen. In
that classic post Mr. Crowley administers a salutary purgative to the
extant "Stratfordian" scholarship on the poem, thereby categorically
eliminating the possibility of a conventional reading and forcing
mainstream scholars to evacuate the citadel in defeat. Piling on the
evidence, Mr. Crowley forces scholars to retire ignominiously to the
dunce stool. (One marvels only that Mr. Crowley somehow neglected to
characterize the assonances in the poem as "vowel movements.")
However, to give Mr. Crowley his due (or if Mr. Crowley prefers, his
doo), although he is certainly not playing with a full deck (or if Mr.
Crowley prefers, a full dreck), he has at the very least READ the Sonnet
in question -- or at any rate, he is able to reproduce the words. By
contrast, Elizabeth Weird cannot even do that. She cannot quote the
source of her risible revelation that "The term 'shake-scene' was
Elizabethan theatre slang for the factotum who toted scenery around
between acts." She cannot even furnish the words of Poincaré which she
fondly imagines lay the foundations of special relativity in "hyperbolic
geometry." This is no surprise, as she knows no French -- indeed, she
refers -- TWICE(!) -- to the journal in which Poincaré published his
manin contribution to relativity theory as "Comptes du Rendus"! Nor can
Elizabeth furnish a quotation from J.-P. Hsu affirming that "time is
local [sic]" or that the ether exists. She cannot even furnish the
words of the article she claims to be "quoting," alleging that Sir
Israel Gollancz was a racist imperialist. She always has some feeble,
if hilarious, excuse:
"I was going to post on it tonight but I can't find the cdrom."
"This is the perishable internet and Wayback doesn't have a
search function yet."
What's next? The dog ate my homework?
Thus, although Crowley's delusions of grandeur are indeed amusing, I
submit that there is still richer humor to be found in Elizabeth's
recent posts.
Did you see the recent one in which Elizabeth carries on a
conversation with herself, because she believes her OWN WORDS from her
previous post in the thread to have been written by Peter Groves? It's
even funnier than Crowley at his best! If you missed it, Dave, have a
look at the thread, beginning at
<http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=efbc3534.0309
240152.e5430c0%40posting.google.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dgroup:human
ities.lit.authors.*%2Binsubject:james,%2Binsubject:son%2Binsubject:of%2Bi
nsubject:joseph%2Bauthor:weir%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Defb
c3534.0309240152.e5430c0%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D1>.
It's priceless!
Paul Crowley
news:cc19a094.03100...@posting.google.com...
> > >> >> - Your entire interpretation leads to, and is predicated on, a mistake
> > ie that Oxford wrote the sonnets.
>
> This isn't true, Gary.
Of course it's true. Please deal with my exegesis
of the sonnet, and not with something in your
imagination.
> Any author, including Shakespeare of Stratford,
> could be writing about his baby.
Except that it would have nothing whatever to
do with THIS sonnet.
> However, and this is a big however,
> there are, as you say, many aspects of the poem that simply do not fit
> Paul's interpretation of it,
So deal with it. Point them out. Quote the
words of the sonnet and my interpretation
of it. Or if you can't do that, don't waste our
time.
> not least that the poet uses the word
> lover, which scarcely fits a description of one's own son.
I do NOT say that 'lover' describes his son.
> There is
> another question I'd pose. Why would Oxford write about his
> out-of-wedlock baby with Anne Vavasour, (and what in the poem tells us
> it's Anne Vavasour?)
I've told you -- in much detail. The post is
not lost.
> and yet not mention in other sonnets the births
> of any of his legitimate daughters or son and heir?
The legitimate ones (especially the son)
came later -- when he had passed his
'sonnet writing phase' (as far as I can tell).
He'd got on to the great plays by that time.
> The only word I can find in the entire sonnet that has led Paul to his
> interpretation
Please read MY INTERPRETATION
You clearly haven't. So why are you
wasting our time?
> is "travail," which can connote labour in childbirth,
Since that's about the future progress of
this male infant, it's hardly going to be
about the problems of childbirth.
> 4. when his youthful morn
> 5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> I'm sort of flabbergasted that Paul has "graded"
It was an ATTEMPT to get some discussion
of detail -- certainly not this kind of pointless
chat about some imagined interpretation of
some imagined sonnet.
> people according to his own scale and come out tops.
They are Strats -- reading the Sonnets --
and imagining them to be about the
Stratman and his 'fair youth'. You'd have
to be blind, deaf, and three sheets to the
wind not to come out top against that lot
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> > > Generally speaking, Paul, if a competition is to be arranged,
> > > none of the competitors should be the judge.
> >
> > I am not the judge -- merely the prosecuting
> > counsel. I'm arguing a case. If others want to
> > contest it -- great. But, from past experience,
> > I don't expect them to; they haven't one.
>
> That sounds like a verdict to me, Counselor.
Nope. It's a remark to the effect that the other
side always appear to be too scared to even
get in the ring. Take a look around. What do
you see? Groves hiding -- changing the
subject whenever he thinks anyone notices
him. There was a quick flash of Kathman's
arse, as he left off a short fart and fled away
as fast as his little legs could carry him.
What a sorry bunch! Aren't you a bit ashamed
of your 'leaders'?
> > > Good question, albeit one difficult to answer. How old are
> > > people when they realize they're old, and they've lost their youth and
> > > looks? It's a very subjective thing.
> I was a recently-baldheaded 26 when I first expressed depression and
> self-loathing at having lost my youthful looks. I don't think I was
> looking for pity or understanding, I was simply expressing my
> feelings--mostly, I believe, to myself.
Sure. You did not put it into a sonnet that
you thought would be well-known --
because you knew that would only make
you look foolish. A lot of men lose their
hair that young. No one was going to
cry with you about it.
> 26 is not that young for such
> bitterness: I had a friend in the air force who was bewailing some
> kind of skin discoloration that was costing him his looks during his
> 23rd year, whien I last saw him.
He may have "felt bitter", but he'd hardly
make a show of it in public -- which is,
in effect, what we see Shakespeare doing
(according to your theory) in this sonnet.
[..]
> > First, try to say what is _wrong_ with
> > anything I say about these sonnets.
> > If your argument had any real basis,
> > you should find that easy. You will note
> > that no one around here can manage it --
> > except in the manner of the vague abuse
> > you attempt.
>
> Actually, it's surprisingly difficult to refute the arguments of a
> person who automatically declares any counter to his arguments as, at
> best, "vague abuse."
You could -- very easily (if you had any
kind of case) -- take issue with one or
more lines of my interpretation of THIS
sonnet (number 63) and show how it was
quite false or mistaken, or how it showed
up an inability to understand the poetry
of the line . . etc., etc.
You never attempt anything of that sort.
Paul.
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message news:3f82086f...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
>
>> Given that you are the "prosecuting counsel", how do you
>> rationalize the fact that your "case" seems to have convinced
>> absolutely no-one at hlas, including your fellow Oxfordians?
>
>These things take time. I have not attempted
>to proselytise. As you can see, I am only in
>the process of putting the case together.
And in that process you have yet to have one person, even
among your fellow Oxfordians, who has agreed that you are onto
something. Doesn't that give you any pause?
>
>> About this "vacuous nonsense" business, Paul. As you
>> correctly pointed out, my reading of this sonnet is a very commonplace
>> one, similiar in kind, albeit not in knowledgeable detail,
>
>How can anyone have 'knowledgeable detail'
>in a field made up entirely of vacuous nonsense?
Because the field is not made up of vacuous nonsense, of
course.
>> as the
>> critical editors you mention. And you constantly deride and dismiss
>> this commonplace interpretation in terms similiar to "vacuous
>> nonsense".
>
>You don't and you can't deny it.
I don't and can't deny what?
>> How then do you explain the enjoyment that this
>> commonplace interpretation of the Sonnets has brought to the hundreds
>> of thousands, if not millions, of readers of Shakespeare's Sonnets?
>
>It is a deep puzzle -- and one that no one has
>answered -- let alone answered well. (If anyone
>knows of even passable account, please speak
>up.)
>
>What is unquestionable, though, is that people
>do NOT read and enjoy these sonnets for their
>meaning. The 'pretend exegeses' of the 'scholars'
>are entirely redundant -- obviously so. Many of
>us learnt them off-by-heart at school, and would
>not claim to have had any real understanding of
>them. Yet we liked and often loved them. Children
>love nursery rhymes. How often do they
>understand them?
I can't believe for a moment that you believe what you've just
written above. On the other hand, I can't see what your point is in
just pretending to believe it. Or even saying it in the first place.
Is this some private joke, known only to yourself?
I don't think he's even doing that.
> 1. Against my love shall be as I am now
>He implies that his state 'now' is dire. He never
>wants his love to be in any similar state. But
>I was paraphrasing Strat interpretations (insofar
>at they ever say anything) and this is Duncan-
>Jones:
> "Anticipating a time when the fair youth will be as old and
> decrepit as he is now, the speaker makes provision against
> the youth's loss of beauty by preserving it in poetry"
>
>> He was concerned about the beauty of his subject,
>> and the fact that that beauty would
>> be lost by the passage of time.
>
>So why use the phrase "shall be as I am now" ?
He simply means when the subject (probably the FYM) is as old
as the poet is now.
>> I realize this won't change your attitude to the traditional
>> interpretation of this sonnet, but I thought I'd mention it.
>
>When your 'explanation' has no connection
>with the words of the sonnet, it's not likely
>to have much effect.
And when my 'explanation' does have a connection with the
words of the sonnet, but is being explained to someone with cement
ears, it's not likely to have much effect either.
>
>> > Sonnets about
>> >obvious platitudes are invariably crap.
>>
>> And you are obviously wrong.
>
>So quote another great (or even good) poem
>about an obvious platitude -- and little or
>nothing else.
Name me some poems that you think are great (or even good)
first.
>> Perhaps that is the magic of
>> poetry, that it can take an "obvious platitude" and turn it into
>> something quite beautiful and interesting.
>
>We may think (or assume) that the poem
>is not about anything other than an
>obvious platitude, and still find (or even
>know) that it is great. But we are always
>mystified as to how the poet managed
>to produce it.
What you're saying isn't clear. "We may think that the poem
is NOT about anything OTHER than an obvious platitude" means that the
poem **is** about an obvious platitude. "...and still find that it is
great." I would agree, and this is what I've been saying and what
you've being trying to refute - that a poem can be about a commonplace
subject, and yet still be a beautiful poem. "But we are always
mystified as to how the poet managed to produce it." I'm not sure
about "always", but let that pass. What's your point? You seem to be
contradicting what you've said earlier.
Okay, I think we've established that you don't have a very
high opinion of the meaning of the sonnets, and apparently once you
realize that the commonplace meaning is **the** meaning of the
Sonnets, you will cease reading them. Your loss.
>
>> Speaking of which, given that you seem to be
>> demanding here that everyone agree on the meaning of a word, phrase,
>> or line before it can be considered a valid interpretation,
>
>I certainly do not. In commentaries on the
>works of other poets -- especially the better
>one -- there will often be fierce disagreement
>on what the poet meant. Was s/he being
>ironic? Humorous? Sarcastic? Biographical?
>If so, -- about this episode or that? Or implying
>sexual abuse . . . etc., etc. There is real debate
>and often much controversy. The sterile
>nothingness of the Stratfordian 'debate' tells
>you one thing only -- that the exegetists are
>brain-dead.
Or that the poems, for the most part, have been analyzed
enough to determine their major meaning, even if minor disagreements
about individual words or phrases will continue indefinitely.
>[..]
>
>> >Tell me where I have demonstrated my lack
>> >of appreciation -- in this instance.
>>
>> Sure - you've dismissed the traditional interpretation of this
>> poem as an "obvious platitude", which you then describe as "crap".
>> Sounds like a lack of appreciation to me.
>
>Try to be more particular -- because
>otherwise it seems like dodging. You have
>acres of detailed comment and criticism.
>Can't you find something showing a 'lack of
>appreciation'?
I just did. In this very thread you have dismissed the
traditional interpretation of this poem as an "obvious platitude"
which you then describe as "crap". That is not a "dodge", it is a
particular answer based on your own words. And your sophomoric
debating stunts to avoid conceding that point don't change anything.
>
>> >> I may have a tin
>> >> ear for poetry, but I sometimes think you have a cement ear!
>> >
>> >First, try to say what is _wrong_ with
>> >anything I say about these sonnets.
>> >If your argument had any real basis,
>> >you should find that easy. You will note
>> >that no one around here can manage it --
>> >except in the manner of the vague abuse
>> >you attempt.
>>
>> - The additional meanings you try to force onto the poems are
>> unnecessary to their appreciation.
>
>More vague abuse. And the sole reason
>for it is that you cannot face the issue:
>
>Which of those meanings are present and
>which not?
>
>If nearly all are absent (as you must necessarily
>maintain)
Yes, I do.
>then am I some kind of super-genius
>of invention?
"Super-genius of invention"? Hmmmm.....well, it sounds better
than "Someone obsessed with a crackpot idea and who has too much time
on his hands". And if it helps you to drop all this nonsense, perhaps
that is the angle we should work on.
>Is every one of those meanings contrived?
Yes, I do believe they are.
>Did the poet not intend a single one of them?
No, I don't believe he did.
>Were they absent from the poet's mind when
>he wrote the words?
Yes, I do believe they were.
>If so, then the meanings I take, must have little
>or nothing to do with the words.
I don't believe they do.
>So you should be able to point out plenty of
>absurdities and distortions. Where are they?
You know, Paul, I can't recall where you have put all the
"puns" and "wordplay" that you think you've discovered in these poems,
together, and paraphrased a Sonnet in its entirety, in a way that
Robert Stonehouse used to do with the traditional viewpoint. So why
don't you take a moment and do that with this Sonnet. Don't just
latch onto a word here or there ("o'er" must mean 'ore'), but
'translate' the entire sonnet, all at once, giving the 'real' meaning
that you think is there and which all the traditional commentators
missed.
>
>> - I'm unconvinced that the "puns" that you so often find in these
>> poems were actually intended to be any such thing.
>
>NO. It's not a matter of being 'unconvinced'.
>You LOSE if you cannot show that the poet
>could not possibly have intended them.
YES - it **is** a matter of being convinced or unconvinced.
Since the poet is dead, we can't ask him. And since it's **your**
interpretation, the onus is on **you** to convince the rest of us. Or
even your fellow Oxfordians. Or, hell, even one other person would be
a good start!
>No one could read anything about Edward de
>Vere into the third editorial of today's New
>York Times.
You know, Paul, I think that if you thought it would
strengthen your case, you would indeed be reading things about Edward
de Vere in the third editorial of the New York Times.
> Any attempt would be so weak
>as to be laughable.
Which seems to be the reaction of some people to your
interpretations.
> No one can read anything
>about the Stratman or the 'fair youth' into the
>Shakespearean sonnets either -- apart from
>exceedingly -- abysmally -- weak crap about
>'Time' and the like.
If you mean we can't find definite correspondences between the
poems and Shakespeare's life, you're right. Given the lack of
information we have about Shakespeare's life, this should come as no
surprise. But that you can't seem to appreciate these poems in any
other way than autobiographical disclosure is a reflection on you, not
the poems. As I mentioned earlier, I sometimes think you have cement
ears for poetry. Have you ever thought about simply sticking to
reading essays?
>No Baconian can read in
>anything about Bacon (apart from the next-
>to-unbelievably bad crap you might have
>seen). No Marlite can read in anything about
>Marlowe (apart from the next-to-unbelievably
>bad crap you might have seen).
Is this the kind of detailed, insightful refutation that you
expect in response to your own theory?
>
>How come I can read so much into them about
>de Vere?
Because you can't seem to see that what you're reading into
them is next-to-unbelievable bad crap. Hmmm...perhaps that is the
proper response.
>
>> The same is true
>> for other types of "wordplay" which you claim exist in the poems.
>
>It's NOT a matter of being 'unconvinced'
>about the "wordplay". You LOSE if you
>cannot show that the poet could not
>possibly have intended them.
No, Paul. Again, it's **your** interpretation. And **you**
lose if you can't convince the rest of us that the poet may have
intended them. And I gotta tell you, buddy, that so far you haven't
been doing a very good job of it.
>
>> - Your entire interpretation leads to, and is predicated on, a mistake
>> ie that Oxford wrote the sonnets.
>
>Sure, sure. You KNOW evolution could not
>have happened in the way those so-called
>scientists say. The Bible tells a different
>story. So you don't have to look at any facts.
>
>> Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. I suspect
>> that if I gave it further thought, there would be more, but it seems
>> rather pointless to me. At the beginning of your reply, you mentioned
>> you were acting in the role of a prosecuting attorney. If I'm the
>> Judge, I'm throwing your case out of Court!
>
>You are the defence lawyer, and so far you
>have only just about pleaded 'not guilty'.
>We are waiting to see you deal with the
>facts of the case.
Actually, sometimes in these discussions I feel like a shrink.
- Gary Kosinsky
KQKnave
the poem. Crowley's grades are silly anyway, because
many commentators will not comment on some topic
deliberately because another analyst has already done
so.
In article <8Algb.530$1Q3....@news.indigo.ie>, "Paul Crowley"
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> writes:
>>>> 1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>>
>> a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
Why does Crowley insist that poet is self-pitying? Is
there any reason to suppose that the poet is doing
anything but creating another variation on the literary
conceits of the effect of time on beauty and love, and
how the beloved is made eternal in verse?
Me C
1 0
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 -1 0 -2 (a) Why self-pitying?
>
>C=Crowley, B=Booth, K=Kerrigan, D=Duncan-Jones,
>E=Blakemore-Evans, W=(Bookburn's) Website
>
>I give multiple reasons in Oxford's life at this
>point in early 1581, each more than enough. The
>others don't even remark on it -- except for Duncan-
>Jones who says the poet is worried about the fair
>youth getting as old and as decrepit as the poet
>(at his grand old age of . . err . . 34 . . . in 1598)
What does 1598 have to do with this sonnet? Why couldn't
it have been written in 1608?
Me C
1 0
>and for this inanity on the Website ("A thirty-
>year old man could therefore consider himself
>well advanced towards old age").
Why does Crowley ignore sonnet 62, where the poet says
"But when my glass shows me myself indeed/ Beaten
and chopped with tanned antiquity"?
Me C
1 0
>>>> 2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>> b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
It's an echo of Spenser's "which injurious time has
quite outworn", from his "Ruines of Rome."
Me C
1 0
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (b) Times injurious hand
>
>I should award more negative points for
>all the specific inanities (such as Kerrigan's
>'vampires') but it's not worth the trouble
>
>
>> c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
>C B K D E W
>1 0 0 0 0 0 (c) Crushed
>
>
>> d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (d) Ore-worne
See my last comment above which covers the last two
dumb questions.
Me C
1 0
>
>>>> 3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>> e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
Kerrigan says: "Shakespeare turns the traditionally beneficient
Horae into something resembling vampires."
Me C
1 0
>> (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
>> -- but then why use such a strange image?)
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (e) Houres drain blood
What is "strange" about using an image of death in
a poem about the effect of time on someone? After time
passes, people die and the blood drains from their faces,
or, without bringing actual death into it, a person's face
can become pale with ill health due to aging.
Me C
1 0
>
>> f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (f) Houres punning on whores -- and who
Because, you idiot, a whore can't fill a person's brow with
wrinkles!
Me C
1 0
>> g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (g) Relevance of drained/filled
Booth, Kerrigan and Vendler all comment on the
drained/filled parallelism, so your scoring is a bit off.
The "significance" of it is that it is a typical Shakespearean
parallelism.
Me C
1 0
>
>> h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
>> and 'fild' have? And what are they?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (h) Other applications of 'fild'
Again, Booth, Vendler and Kerrigan all comment
on the possibility that "filled" is "filed", but prefer
"filled" because of the parallelism with "drained".
As to what other meanings the words have, I don't
see any other meanings in this poem, the imagery
is quite clear: "When hours have drained his blood and
filled his brow/ With lines and wrinkles...."
Me C
1 0
>>>> 4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>> i) Why use the term 'lines'?
What word would you prefer that he use to describe
the straight thingies in an older person's face, traditionally
referred to as "lines"?
Me C
1 0
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (i) References of 'lines'
Your scoring is off. Kerrigan says:
"lines and wrinkles. The pleonasm is functional, because it
draws attention to a word used in the couplet to carry the
burden of the poem's argument. The effectiveness of
Shakespeare's handling of *lines* can be judged from the
parallel passage in Drayton's 1599 "Idea" (Sonnet 43): 'Whilst
thus my pen strives to eternize thee,/ Age rules my lines with
wrinkles in my face'. Forced to the point of punning, the
ambiguity becomes merely grotesque."
Booth notes that "lines" and "wrinkles" are "conduit-like" and
therefore could be "drained" and "filled". Vendler, like Kerrigan,
notes the purpose of "lines" for the couplet tie.
Me C
1 0
>
>> j) And 'wrinkles'?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (j) References of 'wrinkles'
See above.
Me C
1 0
>
>>>> 5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>> k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (k) Sense of travail as against travel
Your scoring is off again, as Booth notes that Elizabethans
made no distinction in spelling between "travel" and "travail".
He also points out that both meanings of "traveled/travailed"
are involved: "journeyed" and "toiled". Kerrigan also comments on
the double meaning of the word (which for those who don't
have the original text, is spelled "trauaild").
Me C
1 0
>
>> l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (l) Why strange 'steepie'?
Gosh Grandma, why DID Shakespeare use all those
big words? Well, Booth for one points out that Shakespeare
got it from Golding's translation of Ovid's "Metamorphosis".
Me C
1 0
>
>>>> 6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>> m) What is the significance of 'King'?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (m) Significance of 'King'?
That it rhymes with "Spring"?
Vendler says
"The metaphors pass from the inorganic to the organic. The
drainings and fillings speak of mechanical work; the travel
of "morn" to "night" speaks of astronomy; "beauties of which
he is king" speaks of feudal hierarchy; "treasure" speaks of
wealth; but "spring" is ostentatiously organic. Though "life"
can be cut down by Time's knife, "beauty" can be preserved
in black lines. Though the lines are inorganic in their color -
the color of Age's "steepy night" - their continued life, through
an inorganic life, paradoxically preserves in memory the organic
"green" of "spring".
Me C
1 0
>
>> n) What are the 'beauties'?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (n) Significance of 'beauties'
Kerrigan notes the double meaning of "beauties".
>
>> o) How could the addressee be "King of various
>> beauties"?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (o) How 'King of various 'beauties'?
This is so damn silly. How can outrageous fortunes
consist of slings and arrows?
Kerrigan says "the charms and physical graces which
are his. But there is the supporting suggestion of 'the
beautiful people who pay him allegiance and love."
Me C
1 0
>
>>>> 7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>> p) What is the point of the repetition of 'vanish'?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (p) Repetition of 'vanish'
Kerrigan comments on the repetition of "vanish", and
so does Vendler. Kerrigan says "But the repetition, and
the use of "or", also give "vanished" the air of being
transitive, as though some vanisher made the "beauties"
fade (and the sestet introduces a plausible agent in
the figure of age)."
Me C
1 0
>
>
>> q) What is the significance of each -- other than
>> in a general comment on age and time?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (q) Significance of each 'vanish'
What on earth do you mean by the "significance" of
each "vanish"? Is there some secret code here rather
than repetition for sound and/or transitive/intransitive
ambiguity as Kerrigan pointed out?
Me C
1 0
>>>> 8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>> r) How do the beauties steal the treasure of
>> the poet's love's Spring?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (r) How beauties steal 'treasure'
More silliness and an idiotic inability to understand
metaphorical expressions. You also didn't score correctly (AGAIN!)
Kerrigan devotes quite a bit to this line, but I'm not
going to type it out, nor Booth's, nor Vendler's
comments.
Me C
1 0
>> s) Why does the poet bring in 'treasures'? And
>> 'Spring'?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (s) Significance of 'treasure' and 'Spring'
See above.
Me C
1 0
>>>> 9. For such a time do I now fortify
>> t) What 'fortifications' does the poet intend?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (t) Significance of 'fortifications'
You mean the "significance of "fortify"".
The significance is that the poet is going to
defend his beloved from the cruel knife of time
by immortalizing him in verse.
Do you have this much trouble with the phone book?
Me C
1 0
>>>> 10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>> u) Why does the poet feel so strongly about
>> 'confounding Ages?
Because it's one of the traditional topics of sonneteers,
and he comes back to it in many of his own sonnets.
See for example his sonnet 60, where he says
"And time that gave doth now his gift confound."
Me C
1 0
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (u) Meaning of 'confounding Ages'
>
>
>> v) What is the significance of the 'cruel knife'?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (v) Meaning of 'cruel knife'
It's a metaphor, you pus-filled boil. Meaning of
"pus-filled boil"? How could a newsgroup poster
be a "pus-filled boil"?
Me C
1 0
>>>> 11. That he shall never cut from memory
>> w) Why should, and how could, 'confounding Ages'
>> cut his 'sweet loves beauty' from memory?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (w) Cutting 'sweet loves beauty'
You didn't score correctly again, as Kerrigan has a long
comment this line. I'm not going to reproduce it.
Suffice it to say that like all readers of the English language,
I understand that the poet intends to say that Time kills all,
and without something to immortalize the beloved, he/she
will be forgotten. Got that?
Me C
1 0
>
>>>> 12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>> x) Why does the poet expect his lovers life to be cut
>> from memory (or cut off completely) ?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (x) Cutting 'lovers life'
See above.
Me C
1 0
>
>>>> 13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>> y) Does 'black lines' refer solely to those of the sonnet?
>C B K D E W
>3 0 0 0 0 0 (y) Beauty in black lines
No, and many other commentators have noted it.
See the comment above on "lines" and the Drayton poem.
Me C
1 0
>
>>>> 14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>> z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
>C B K D E W
>2 0 0 0 0 0 (z) 'Green' in this context?
Thank God, the end!
You didn't score correctly again. Kerrigan says
"A fresh, youthful, lover's colour ('Green indeed is the colour
of lovers', says Armado at Love's Labour's Lost 1.2.83),
associated with the spring, and with living, growing things."
Booth also comments on "green" and "black".
Me C
1 0
Final score: Me 28, Crowley 0.
Looks like I win. Again.
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
Bob Grumman
> > Paul: in this case, all right opposed to the all wrong of your
> > opponents. I think your interpretation is ridiculous, but would give
> > you some points, and am sure you have at least one clue about what the
> > sonnets are about. Aside from that, your scoring raises yet again my
> > standard question: on just what basis do consider yourself qualified
> > to judge a poetry-interpretation competition?
> >
> > Or, if I scored the competition you just did, and said everyone in it
> > scored in the thirties except you, who scored 5, why should anyone
> > accept your scoring and not mine?
>
> Because I would (probably) be able to show
> where you had gone wrong, and where others
> were right -- as you somehow forget to do here.
Only YOU believe you have shown where the scholars have gone wrong.
> The whole purpose of my exercise was to provide
> a framework within which my exegesis could be
> compared with those of traditional Strats, and to
> give you (and your likes) an opportunity to
> question my figures in detail. So you might say,
> for example that in item (m) Kerrigan deserves
> 2 points for this and that, Booth should have
> 1 point for his reason X and I should have only
> N points for my reasons A, B and C.
>
> Naturally, like all Strats, you must duck. You
> are obliged to avoid any discussion of details
> and stick to generalities (usually general abuse).
Look, Paul, all I have to do is go through your interpretations and
say next to each, "this is speculation that yields an interpretation
that has nothing to do with the explicit over-all meaning of the poem,
is subjective, is based on an evidenceless theory as to when and by
whom the poem was written that contradicts firm contrary evidence
about when and by whom it was written, shows no grasp of the aesthetic
intentions of this and all other poems, and breaks the tone of the
poem.
You would just reject the criticisms. But I reject yours of Booth's
interpretations, etc. Which brings us back to my question: why should
anyone accept your scoring in view of the fact that only you consider
it accurate. Your only response to this is, basically, to say that
it's valid because you say so. Is there any other reason for anyone
to take it seriously.
--Bob G.
Bob Grumman
> > > > none of the competitors should be the judge.
> > >
> > > I am not the judge -- merely the prosecuting
> > > counsel. I'm arguing a case. If others want to
> > > contest it -- great. But, from past experience,
> > > I don't expect them to; they haven't one.
> >
> > That sounds like a verdict to me, Counselor.
>
> Nope. It's a remark to the effect that the other
> side always appear to be too scared to even
> get in the ring.
Your verdict is that they haven't got a case. That makes you a judge.
(They do have a case, but it's been presented against you so often
without your even accepting it as a case that they understandably see
no point in repeating it.)
> What a sorry bunch! Aren't you a bit ashamed
> of your 'leaders'?
No. I've never known them not to demonstrate factual knowledge when
it was available, and common sense when it was not. That they don't
waste time on every wrong-headed idea presented by their opponents is
understandable, and doesn't bother me.
> > > > Good question, albeit one difficult to answer. How old are
> > > > people when they realize they're old, and they've lost their youth and
> > > > looks? It's a very subjective thing.
>
> > I was a recently-baldheaded 26 when I first expressed depression and
> > self-loathing at having lost my youthful looks. I don't think I was
> > looking for pity or understanding, I was simply expressing my
> > feelings--mostly, I believe, to myself.
>
> Sure. You did not put it into a sonnet that
> you thought would be well-known --
> because you knew that would only make
> you look foolish.
You claimed that no one under forty would be depressed at having lost
his youthful looks. I gave an example of one who did.
I didn't put my feelings into a sonnet but did put them into other
writings (and believed, and--weirdly--still believe those writings
will become well-known). Believe it or not, I have never been much
concerned with whether I'd look foolish or not.
> A lot of men lose their
> hair that young. No one was going to
> cry with you about it.
Not true. Others who had suffered the same fate would have.
> > 26 is not that young for such
> > bitterness: I had a friend in the air force who was bewailing some
> > kind of skin discoloration that was costing him his looks during his
> > 23rd year, whien I last saw him.
>
> He may have "felt bitter", but he'd hardly
> make a show of it in public -- which is,
> in effect, what we see Shakespeare doing
> (according to your theory) in this sonnet.
> [..]
He did expose his bitterness in public. He wasn't a writer, but I
can't see why he wouldn't have exposed his bitterness as a writer had
he been a writer.
> > > First, try to say what is _wrong_ with
> > > anything I say about these sonnets.
> > > If your argument had any real basis,
> > > you should find that easy. You will note
> > > that no one around here can manage it --
> > > except in the manner of the vague abuse
> > > you attempt.
> >
> > Actually, it's surprisingly difficult to refute the arguments of a
> > person who automatically declares any counter to his arguments as, at
> > best, "vague abuse."
>
> You could -- very easily (if you had any
> kind of case) -- take issue with one or
> more lines of my interpretation of THIS
> sonnet (number 63) and show how it was
> quite false or mistaken, or how it showed
> up an inability to understand the poetry
> of the line . . etc., etc.
> You never attempt anything of that sort.
Untrue. I'm pretty sure that I've even indicated flaws in your
reasonaing about this sonnet.
--Bob G.
David L. Webb
lynnek...@sympatico.ca (Lynne) wrote:
> gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky) wrote in message
> news:<3f82086f...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
> > On Mon, 6 Oct 2003 11:38:47 +0100, "Paul Crowley"
> > <slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> >
> > >"Gary Kosinsky" wrote:
> > >
> > >> >> - Your entire interpretation leads to, and is predicated on, a
> > >> >> mistake
> > ie that Oxford wrote the sonnets.
> This isn't true, Gary. Any author, including Shakespeare of Stratford,
> could be writing about his baby. However, and this is a big however,
> there are, as you say, many aspects of the poem that simply do not fit
> Paul's interpretation of it,
...that's putting it very mildly...
> not least that the poet uses the word
> lover, which scarcely fits a description of one's own son.
One suspects that only in Mr. Streitz's lurid imagination, where
incest explains absolutely everything in the Elizabethan world, would
such a reading be apt to flourish (if the Queen was Oxford's mother as
well as his lover, why shouldn't their son make it a merry ménage à
trois?). Mr. Crowley has also opined that the first seventeen sonnets
are addressed to the Queen, despite the obviously incongruous gender
references therein.
> There is
> another question I'd pose. Why would Oxford write about his
> out-of-wedlock baby with Anne Vavasour, (and what in the poem tells us
> it's Anne Vavasour?) and yet not mention in other sonnets the births
> of any of his legitimate daughters or son and heir? But perhaps Paul
> has some more treats in store for us.
I don't believe that you were participating actively when he posted
this, Lynne, but Mr. Crowley also insisted that Sonnet 103 celebrates
royal defecation -- more precisely, a defecation contest between Oxford
and the Queen. I am not making this up -- Peter Groves has just
reposted Mr. Crowley's exegesis in its glorious entirety in this thread.
Thus, while Mr. Crowley undoubtedly has other bombshells to disclose, I
would be reluctant to characterize such revelations as "treats."
> The only word I can find in the entire sonnet that has led Paul to his
> interpretation is "travail," which can connote labour in childbirth,
> but also means hard work or travel. His comment that poets do not
> write about their lovers in the third person is simply wrong. Even I
> have written a modern sonnet using the same technique.
Mr. Crowley's absolutist pontifications, categorically pronounced in
terms brooking no reasonable dissent whatever, (e.g., that such a thing
NEVER occurred -- in English or in any other language) often induce
involuntary guffaws of disbelief.
> I'm sort of flabbergasted that Paul has "graded" people according to
> his own scale and come out tops.
How else could he possibly "come out tops" in an argument? But I
admit that if one had not seen many of Mr. Crowley's more outrageous
contributions, one might well be flabbergasted.
> What he needs is two independent
> judges, perhaps one Oxfordian and one traditionalist.
No such persons exist. Everyone who has ever studied or contemplated
Shakespeare or his works is an utter idiot, except for Mr. Crowley. How
else can one account for the otherwise inexplicable phenomenon that
nobody appears to agree with him? One is reminded of the mad Earl of
Gurney in Peter Barnes's _The Ruling Class_, who believes that he is
G-d. When asked how he arrived at this realization, the Earl replies
that he has observed that whenever he prays, he finds himself talking to
himself.
> Or ten judges.
> They'll all have different interpretations, but I think there'd be a
> "core" reading of the sonnet which would persist.
You don't think that his reading of Sonnet 103 would be upheld by
consensus?
[...]
Paul Crowley
> >> About this "vacuous nonsense" business, Paul. As you
> >> correctly pointed out, my reading of this sonnet is a very commonplace
> >> one, similiar in kind, albeit not in knowledgeable detail,
> >
> >How can anyone have 'knowledgeable detail'
> >in a field made up entirely of vacuous nonsense?
>
> Because the field is not made up of vacuous nonsense, of
> course.
You were unable to point out anything other
than vacuous nonsense.
> >> as the
> >> critical editors you mention. And you constantly deride and dismiss
> >> this commonplace interpretation in terms similiar to "vacuous
> >> nonsense".
> >
> >You don't and you can't deny it.
>
> I don't and can't deny what?
You were unable to point to anything from the
'critical editors' that was other than vacuous
nonsense.
> >> How then do you explain the enjoyment that this
> >> commonplace interpretation of the Sonnets has brought to the hundreds
> >> of thousands, if not millions, of readers of Shakespeare's Sonnets?
> >
> >It is a deep puzzle -- and one that no one has
> >answered -- let alone answered well. (If anyone
> >knows of even passable account, please speak
> >up.)
> >
> >What is unquestionable, though, is that people
> >do NOT read and enjoy these sonnets for their
> >meaning. The 'pretend exegeses' of the 'scholars'
> >are entirely redundant -- obviously so. Many of
> >us learnt them off-by-heart at school, and would
> >not claim to have had any real understanding of
> >them. Yet we liked and often loved them. Children
> >love nursery rhymes. How often do they
> >understand them?
>
> I can't believe for a moment that you believe what you've just
> written above.
What _exactly_ is wrong with it? Are you
claiming that most kids at school who learn a
sonnet understand what it is about?
> On the other hand, I can't see what your point is in
> just pretending to believe it. Or even saying it in the first place.
> Is this some private joke, known only to yourself?
You'll have to be more articulate.
>> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
>> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
>> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
[..]
> >I happen to agree. He was expressing self-pity:
>
> I don't think he's even doing that.
So explain the first quatrain. You are going
against the general consensus here -- and
against what you said (and implied) earlier.
> >So why use the phrase "shall be as I am now" ?
>
> He simply means when the subject (probably the FYM) is as old
> as the poet is now.
With no anguish? I don't know how you can
claim to have a 'poetic understanding' (superior
to a cement ear) and not pick up the intensity
of poet's feelings about his present state. Not
even the standard Strat commentators miss
that. They assume he feels awful about being
decrepit at the age of about 34. "Anticipating
a time when the fair youth will be as old and
decrepit as he is now" (Duncan-Jones)
> >When your 'explanation' has no connection
> >with the words of the sonnet, it's not likely
> >to have much effect.
>
> And when my 'explanation' does have a connection with the
> words of the sonnet, but is being explained to someone with cement
> ears, it's not likely to have much effect either.
Your ears are even more cement-like that the
standard Strat commentators. It's not possible
to be worse than that!
> >> > Sonnets about
> >> >obvious platitudes are invariably crap.
> >>
> >> And you are obviously wrong.
> >
> >So quote another great (or even good) poem
> >about an obvious platitude -- and little or
> >nothing else.
>
> Name me some poems that you think are great (or even good)
> first.
Note how you have to dodge the question --
by asking another of no relevance whatever.
I am constitutionally incapable of dodging.
My condition is so bad that I have to answer
questions that are manifest red-herrings.
My tastes and opinions in poetry are fairly
standard. How about "Paradise Lost"? Or
any of the Metaphysicals: say, Marvell.
> >> Perhaps that is the magic of
> >> poetry, that it can take an "obvious platitude" and turn it into
> >> something quite beautiful and interesting.
> >
> >We may think (or assume) that the poem
> >is not about anything other than an
> >obvious platitude, and still find (or even
> >know) that it is great. But we are always
> >mystified as to how the poet managed
> >to produce it.
>
> What you're saying isn't clear. "We may think that the poem
> is NOT about anything OTHER than an obvious platitude" means that the
> poem **is** about an obvious platitude.
No, it means that we might _assume_ it is
about a platitude -- without thinking. But I'm
sure an intelligent person would not want to
develop that line; it does not make sense.
They would just express puzzlement.
> "...and still find that it is
> great." I would agree, and this is what I've been saying and what
> you've being trying to refute - that a poem can be about a commonplace
> subject, and yet still be a beautiful poem.
Being 'about a commonplace subject' and
'being a platitude' are not the same.
> "But we are always
> mystified as to how the poet managed to produce it." I'm not sure
> about "always", but let that pass. What's your point? You seem to be
> contradicting what you've said earlier.
I was talking about our common reaction to
poems that we don't understand -- but which
we love. Sonnet 18, for example. I cannot
make any real sense of the words. Yet it is
a great poem. It is my firm belief that the poet
was _saying_something_. Quite what I don't
know. He was also articulating a platitude
(or a set of them) so while the poem appears
to be about platitudes (and is, at one level)
it _must_also_ IMHO be about much more.
> >> >You have only to read the 'commentators' to
> >> >see that they have not a clue as to the meaning
> >> >of the words of this sonnet. For example, some
> >> >say 'steepie' means going up -- it's really hard
> >> >getting there. Others say it means going down.
> >> >You slide there fast. It's about a 50/50 split
> >> >(of those who say anything).
> >>
> >> Commenting on a poem is not a scientific process.
It is a logical process. I can't see any real
difference from 'scientific logic'. The puzzles
are similar enough, and their solutions are
achieved in much the same way.
> >The 'common consensus' has a much
> >meaning as a burp. Also, remember that
> >these guys read each other carefully.
> >They have no idea what to say, so they
> >copy each other.
>
> Okay, I think we've established that you don't have a very
> high opinion of the meaning of the sonnets
I don't have a high opinion of the 'meanings'
extracted by the standard commentators.
> and apparently once you
> realize that the commonplace meaning is **the** meaning of the
> Sonnets,
Nonsense. If the standard commentators
were a remotely reliable guide then no one
would ever want to read the sonnets.
> >and often much controversy. The sterile
> >nothingness of the Stratfordian 'debate' tells
> >you one thing only -- that the exegetists are
> >brain-dead.
>
> Or that the poems, for the most part, have been analyzed
> enough to determine their major meaning, even if minor disagreements
> about individual words or phrases will continue indefinitely.
There have never been any real disagreements
about the sonnets apart, possibly, from a few
'discussions' -- as on Sonnet 107 and which date
"The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured"
is about. This is one of those very rare instances
where Strats perceive the real world showing a
tiny indication of existence in the sonnets.
> >Try to be more particular -- because
> >otherwise it seems like dodging. You have
> >acres of detailed comment and criticism.
> >Can't you find something showing a 'lack of
> >appreciation'?
>
> I just did. In this very thread you have dismissed the
> traditional interpretation of this poem as an "obvious platitude"
> which you then describe as "crap". That is not a "dodge", it is a
> particular answer based on your own words. And your sophomoric
> debating stunts to avoid conceding that point don't change anything.
The assiduous way in which you keep away
from any poems or any words is almost admirable.
Arnie probably needs some good advisers at the
moment -- on how never to answer a question.
Thought of applying for the job?
> >If nearly all are absent (as you must necessarily
> >maintain)
>
> Yes, I do.
Why not point to particular cases?
> >Is every one of those meanings contrived?
>
> Yes, I do believe they are.
Why not point to particular cases?
> >Did the poet not intend a single one of them?
>
> No, I don't believe he did.
Why not point to particular cases?
> >Were they absent from the poet's mind when
> >he wrote the words?
>
> Yes, I do believe they were.
Why not point to particular cases?
> >If so, then the meanings I take, must have little
> >or nothing to do with the words.
>
> I don't believe they do.
Why not point to particular cases?
> >So you should be able to point out plenty of
> >absurdities and distortions. Where are they?
>
> You know, Paul, I can't recall where you have put all the
> "puns" and "wordplay" that you think you've discovered in these poems,
> together, and paraphrased a Sonnet in its entirety, in a way that
> Robert Stonehouse used to do with the traditional viewpoint.
Robert follows the traditional theory and
assumes one simple straightforward theme.
So he can paraphrase it (turning it into
something awful, as I am sure he admits).
> So why
> don't you take a moment and do that with this Sonnet.
I do not share his view. The poet interweaved
multiple themes, of which the platitudinous (or
the prosaic on something like 'Time') was but one
-- and, invariably, a minor and superficial one.
> Don't just
> latch onto a word here or there ("o'er" must mean 'ore'), but
> 'translate' the entire sonnet, all at once, giving the 'real' meaning
> that you think is there and which all the traditional commentators
> missed.
The poet did not work in that way. As I have
shown, dozens of times, he had loads of 'real
meanings'. It does not make sense to extract
a single thread. It would be like playing the
score for one minor instrument in a Beethoven
symphony.
> >No one could read anything about Edward de
> >Vere into the third editorial of today's New
> >York Times.
>
> You know, Paul, I think that if you thought it would
> strengthen your case, you would indeed be reading things about Edward
> de Vere in the third editorial of the New York Times.
You are not engaging your brain.
> > Any attempt would be so weak
> >as to be laughable.
>
> Which seems to be the reaction of some people to your
> interpretations.
Have you noticed how all those people are
like you? They have to steer clear of any
discussion of particular words or phrases.
No matter how hard I try to pin them down,
no matter how many coat-trails I drag along
the ground, they WILL NOT discuss any
particulars.
> > No one can read anything
> >about the Stratman or the 'fair youth' into the
> >Shakespearean sonnets either -- apart from
> >exceedingly -- abysmally -- weak crap about
> >'Time' and the like.
>
> If you mean we can't find definite correspondences between the
> poems and Shakespeare's life, you're right. Given the lack of
> information we have about Shakespeare's life, this should come as no
> surprise.
It _should_ come as a surprise. You can give
no reason -- no reason whatsoever -- as to
why there is such a 'lack of information'.
Here we have 154 sonnets about his personal
life. Why did he not leave a few notes to tell
us about them, and how they related to it?
Why did he not leave us a few notes about
himself, period?
> But that you can't seem to appreciate these poems in any
> other way than autobiographical disclosure is a reflection on you, not
> the poems. As I mentioned earlier, I sometimes think you have cement
> ears for poetry.
Yet you conspicuously avoid discussing
any poetry. Where have you quoted any
lines or any interpretation of them?
> >No Baconian can read in
> >anything about Bacon (apart from the next-
> >to-unbelievably bad crap you might have
> >seen). No Marlite can read in anything about
> >Marlowe (apart from the next-to-unbelievably
> >bad crap you might have seen).
>
> Is this the kind of detailed, insightful refutation that you
> expect in response to your own theory?
I would expect discussion of particular words
and phrases -- from anyone who had the
beginnings of an argument. Your flight from
them (and the same flight of the rest around
here) is pretty convincing. You just don't
have a case -- and you know it.
> >How come I can read so much into them about
> >de Vere?
>
> Because you can't seem to see that what you're reading into
> them is next-to-unbelievable bad crap.
So show it in particular words and phrases.
You won't, of course. You have to run from
anything resembling evidence or argument.
Paul.
Elizabeth Weir
> Did you see the recent one in which Elizabeth carries on a
> conversation with herself, because she believes her OWN WORDS from her
> previous post in the thread to have been written by Peter Groves? It's
> even funnier than Crowley at his best! If you missed it, Dave, have a
> look at the thread, beginning at
Have you noticed that you and I are in a sort of stereotyped
gender reversal?
You go around behind my back and spread malicious gossip
the way women are accused of doing while I'm up front
with you. Aren't sexual stereotypes terrible?
And do you think you could learn to post a url, Webb? When you
do it the way below, the formatting gets into the url and
you have to go through and pick it out.
Elizabeth
>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=efbc3534.0309
240152.e5430c0%40posting.google.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dgroup:human
> ities.lit.authors.*%2Binsubject:james,%2Binsubject:son%2Binsubject:of%2Bi
> nsubject:joseph%2Bauthor:weir%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Defb
> c3534.0309240152.e5430c0%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D1>
> It's priceless!
Elizabeth Weir
> Did you see the recent one in which Elizabeth carries on a
> conversation with herself, because she believes her OWN WORDS from her
> previous post in the thread to have been written by Peter Groves? It's
> even funnier than Crowley at his best! If you missed it, Dave, have a
> look at the thread, beginning at
Have you noticed that you and I are in a sort of stereotyped
gender reversal?
You go around behind my back and spread malicious gossip
the way women are accused of doing while I'm up front
with you. Aren't sexual stereotypes terrible?
And do you think you could learn to post a url, Webb? When you
do it the way below, the formatting gets into the url and
you have to go through and pick it out.
Elizabeth
>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=efbc3534.0309
240152.e5430c0%40posting.google.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dgroup:human
> ities.lit.authors.*%2Binsubject:james,%2Binsubject:son%2Binsubject:of%2Bi
> nsubject:joseph%2Bauthor:weir%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Defb
> c3534.0309240152.e5430c0%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D1>
> It's priceless!
Paul Crowley
> > > Or, if I scored the competition you just did, and said everyone in it
> > > scored in the thirties except you, who scored 5, why should anyone
> > > accept your scoring and not mine?
> >
> > Because I would (probably) be able to show
> > where you had gone wrong, and where others
> > were right -- as you somehow forget to do here.
>
> Only YOU believe you have shown where the scholars have gone wrong.
Gone wrong? How can you go wrong when
you say nothing? -- Or next to nothing?
That is very easy to demonstrate, and I have
done it here many times recently.
> > The whole purpose of my exercise was to provide
> > a framework within which my exegesis could be
> > compared with those of traditional Strats, and to
> > give you (and your likes) an opportunity to
> > question my figures in detail. So you might say,
> > for example that in item (m) Kerrigan deserves
> > 2 points for this and that, Booth should have
> > 1 point for his reason X and I should have only
> > N points for my reasons A, B and C.
> >
> > Naturally, like all Strats, you must duck. You
> > are obliged to avoid any discussion of details
> > and stick to generalities (usually general abuse).
>
> Look, Paul, all I have to do is go through your interpretations and
> say next to each, "this is speculation that yields an interpretation
> that has nothing to do with the explicit over-all meaning of the poem,
> is subjective, is based on an evidenceless theory as to when and by
> whom the poem was written that contradicts firm contrary evidence
> about when and by whom it was written, shows no grasp of the aesthetic
> intentions of this and all other poems, and breaks the tone of the
> poem.
Read what you have just written again.
It is all about 'overall meaning'. You are
obliged to ignore the detail, where the
match between my interpretation and
the words is unchallengeable. It's on
the same basis as "I'm not entering into
any debate on detailed issues about
evolution. It is contrary to the Word of
God as clearly stated in the Bible."
How come that I can 'fake' or 'invent'
plausible detailed parallels -- when I have
got the overall issues totally wrong?
> You would just reject the criticisms.
You attack Elizabeth Weir, and Richard
Kennedy, et al, without this problem ever
causing you concern.
Paul.
Gary Kosinsky
seem to have reached yet another impasse (surprise, surprise).
You don't think the traditional interpretation of the sonnets
is their main meaning, and I do.
You don't think the sonnets, as they are traditionally viewed,
have any value, and I do.
You think your opinion is right and mine is wrong. I think my
opinion is right and you're wrong.
We could repeatedly argue back and forth about this, but
what's the point.
But there is one part of your reply that I would like to
comment on:
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 16:14:10 +0100, "Paul Crowley"
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Gary Kosinsky" wrote:
I'm perplexed, Paul. How do you expect anyone to critique
your interpretation of the sonnets if you're unable to present that
interpretation in a complete and coherent paraphrase?
One of the main tests of an interpretation of a word, phrase,
or line in a poem, I think, is how well it works with the rest of the
poem. You claim that you have found many different meanings to
various words, phrases and lines in the poem, through your study of
alleged 'puns' and other wordplay, which hitherto have escaped notice
from commentators. And yet you also seem to admit that you cannot get
these alleged meanings into any coherent form. That, to me, in
itself, is an indication that those alleged meanings simply aren't
necessary, useful or even there. How do you rationalize that? If you
wish to argue that there are multiple meanings contained within each
sonnet, then feel free to give multiple paraphrases of the entire
sonnet, highlighting each meaning in turn, and showing how that
meaning fits into the entirety of the sonnet. Perhaps then the rest
of us will have a better sense of what it is we've been missing.
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
> Paul, I'm doing serious snippage on this thread because we
> seem to have reached yet another impasse (surprise, surprise).
No. I want to you discuss the words and
phrases in the sonnet, and show where I have
gone wrong in my interpretation. You are
obliged to ignore all those words and phrases.
[..]
> >> Don't just
> >> latch onto a word here or there ("o'er" must mean 'ore'), but
> >> 'translate' the entire sonnet, all at once, giving the 'real' meaning
> >> that you think is there and which all the traditional commentators
> >> missed.
> >
> >The poet did not work in that way. As I have
> >shown, dozens of times, he had loads of 'real
> >meanings'. It does not make sense to extract
> >a single thread. It would be like playing the
> >score for one minor instrument in a Beethoven
> >symphony.
>
> I'm perplexed, Paul. How do you expect anyone to critique
> your interpretation of the sonnets if you're unable to present that
> interpretation in a complete and coherent paraphrase?
You are asking for a 'solution' which does
not exist. Robert and I have been over this
several times in the sonnet threads. To put
it crudely and over-simply, I see, maybe,
5 ambiguities per line. So, in theory, we
could have 5^14 number of interpretations
(five to the power of 14). That's a huge
number, and it's quite impossible to present
a 'complete and coherent paraphrase' of such
a work.
There is nothing particularly remarkable about
this -- either within poetry or elsewhere. Any
politician's (or banker's or lawyer's or chief
executive's or woman's) speech will have lots
of ambiguities. You could set out all the possible
alternatives for each, feed them into a computer
and tell it to churn out so many million versions,
to cover all the possibilities of what the person
might have meant in that speech, but we don't
do it. We hear each one as it passes, note its
meanings (insofar as we can make sense of them
or are interested) and move on to the next.
That's ordinary daily life.
When the speaker is utterly confused (as is
often the case) or when s/he is setting out to
be deliberately ambiguous (which is common
enough) it can be quite impossible to present
a meaningful paraphrase.
The latter is roughly the position in the sonnets.
What is so strange about that? The only thing
that is strange is that the traditional commentators
are not in a position to notice it, and assume he's
writing a more-or-less straight account.
Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
incorrect but incomplete."
IMO (a) the "author's clear intent" (as seen
by Booth or by any Strat) is rarely that, and
(b) the 'incompleteness' Booth mentions
would be so great, that such an editor would
be hopelessly incorrect. Booth has barely
the faintest glimmerings of the extent of the
systematic ambiguity of the poet.
The best that one can do is to set out the
main themes the poet tried to cover, and show
how the words and phrases are relevant to them.
He will, along the way, discuss these in various
tones, and bring in all kinds of other matters.
> One of the main tests of an interpretation of a word, phrase,
> or line in a poem, I think, is how well it works with the rest of the
> poem. You claim that you have found many different meanings to
> various words, phrases and lines in the poem, through your study of
> alleged 'puns' and other wordplay, which hitherto have escaped notice
> from commentators. And yet you also seem to admit that you cannot get
> these alleged meanings into any coherent form.
NO. I cannot put it into a SINGLE coherent
form -- which is what you request. The poet
interweaves MANY forms, all coherent, into
which I do put these meanings. But they
cannot be paraphrased in one single account.
> That, to me, in
> itself, is an indication that those alleged meanings simply aren't
> necessary, useful or even there.
It's an indication that you haven't an idea
as to how this poet worked.
> How do you rationalize that? If you
> wish to argue that there are multiple meanings contained within each
> sonnet, then feel free to give multiple paraphrases of the entire
> sonnet, highlighting each meaning in turn, and showing how that
> meaning fits into the entirety of the sonnet.
That is what I always do. The themes are
complex, and I could write at much greater
length. But my exegeses are already longer
than usual.
> Perhaps then the rest
> of us will have a better sense of what it is we've been missing.
Go through my post on Sonnet 63 -- or
any you wish -- and tell me what is obscure
or how I fail to show how a meaning fits one
of the overall themes.
Paul.
Bob Grumman
No, it isn't. Tone and over-all go together, the others are separate.
> You are obliged to ignore the detail,
Baloney. We don't ignore the detail, although we don't feel the
necessity to analyze every letter, and recognize that some details we
can't entirely figure out.
> where the match between my interpretation and
> the words is unchallengeable.
Right, Paul. But my interpretation is unchallengeable, too, and
contradicts yours.
> It's on
> the same basis as "I'm not entering into
> any debate on detailed issues about
> evolution. It is contrary to the Word of
> God as clearly stated in the Bible."
No, no, Paul, we're even WORSE than that! We claim to debate you over
and over when all we do is set off smoke bombs of nonsense near the
edges of your vast territories.
> How come that I can 'fake' or 'invent'
> plausible detailed parallels
Who, besides you, says you do? Von Daniken is great at faking or
inventing details that actually still fool a lot of people. So what?
> -- when I have
> got the overall issues totally wrong?
You haven't gotten them totally wrong, just 97% wrong.
> > You would just reject the criticisms.
>
> You attack Elizabeth Weir, and Richard
> Kennedy, et al, without this problem ever
> causing you concern.
>
I think none of these people claims that I don't even present
arguments against them. At least not as often as you do. They just
say I'm wrong.
--Bob G.
Gary Kosinsky
how much thought you've actually put into this. Some further
comments and questions....
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 21:40:53 +0100, "Paul Crowley"
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
When you talk about 'ambiguities', you're referring to the
fact that most words can have several different meanings?
>There is nothing particularly remarkable about
>this -- either within poetry or elsewhere. Any
>politician's (or banker's or lawyer's or chief
>executive's or woman's) speech will have lots
>of ambiguities. You could set out all the possible
>alternatives for each, feed them into a computer
>and tell it to churn out so many million versions,
>to cover all the possibilities of what the person
>might have meant in that speech, but we don't
>do it. We hear each one as it passes, note its
>meanings (insofar as we can make sense of them
>or are interested) and move on to the next.
>That's ordinary daily life.
Okay, I think I can agree on this, to a degree. Certainly,
misunderstandings occur in daily life. Also, the plethora of lawsuits
over what a contract or a piece of legislation actually means would
seem to support this idea.
>When the speaker is utterly confused (as is
>often the case) or when s/he is setting out to
>be deliberately ambiguous (which is common
>enough) it can be quite impossible to present
>a meaningful paraphrase.
>
>The latter is roughly the position in the sonnets.
>What is so strange about that? The only thing
>that is strange is that the traditional commentators
>are not in a position to notice it, and assume he's
>writing a more-or-less straight account.
So it's your position that the author was being
**deliberately** ambiguous in these poems? That something more than
the unavoidable ambiguity that is inherent in using language (ie words
have multiple meanings) is at play in the Sonnets?
>
>Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
>and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
>but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
>paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
>sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
>author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
>incorrect but incomplete."
I have to admit, Paul, you've startled me with this quote from
Booth. I do not have his edition of "The Sonnets", nor have I ever
paid it much attention. Perhaps I should. I'll probably have to get
a copy from the library and read his introduction. Because what he is
saying here seems to contradict the point that I was trying to make
about what validates a reading of a word, phrase or line in a poem -
that it agrees with the overall meaning of the poem.
I have to add, though, that I'm uncertain what Booth means
when he says that meanings etc that are "RELEVANT TO THEIR CONTEXT but
not necessarily compatible with each other or any single paraphrase
are common in the sonnets". I would think the overall sonnet **is**
the context.
But perhaps it's simply that I have a beef, not only with you,
but Booth as well.
That's a fair enough request, Paul, and perhaps I'll hit the
Google archives and do just that. However, in the meantime, could you
tell me what you think some of these "overall themes" actually are?
You've dismissed the common interpretation of the sonnets (the passage
of time and its effects, for instance) as being unworthy of
consideration. What, then, are some of the 'important' themes in the
Sonnets that I and so many others have missed?
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
> When you talk about 'ambiguities', you're referring to the
> fact that most words can have several different meanings?
No. I am talking about quite distinct senses
of the words; so 'my love' = 'my affection' and
'my beloved'; 'hour' = 'whore' and 60 minutes;
'hand' = 'deck-hand on a boat', 'hand of a clock',
some historical hand that did mischief, and
some metaphorical hand that threatens to do
so in the future . . . and so on.
> >When the speaker is utterly confused (as is
> >often the case) or when s/he is setting out to
> >be deliberately ambiguous (which is common
> >enough) it can be quite impossible to present
> >a meaningful paraphrase.
> >
> >The latter is roughly the position in the sonnets.
> >What is so strange about that? The only thing
> >that is strange is that the traditional commentators
> >are not in a position to notice it, and assume he's
> >writing a more-or-less straight account.
>
> So it's your position that the author was being
> **deliberately** ambiguous in these poems?
Yes. And Booth and many other Stratfordians
would agree in outline -- if certainly not to the
extent that I see it. The 'my love' = 'my affection'
and 'my beloved' is almost routine.
> >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
> >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> >incorrect but incomplete."
>
> I have to admit, Paul, you've startled me with this quote from
> Booth. I do not have his edition of "The Sonnets", nor have I ever
> paid it much attention. Perhaps I should. I'll probably have to get
> a copy from the library and read his introduction. Because what he is
> saying here seems to contradict the point that I was trying to make
> about what validates a reading of a word, phrase or line in a poem -
> that it agrees with the overall meaning of the poem.
>
> I have to add, though, that I'm uncertain what Booth means
> when he says that meanings etc that are
> "RELEVANT TO THEIR CONTEXT but
> not necessarily compatible with each other or any single paraphrase
> are common in the sonnets". I would think the overall sonnet **is**
> the context.
>
> But perhaps it's simply that I have a beef, not only with you,
> but Booth as well.
You will have a beef with too many
(Stratfordians) not to lose that argument.
> >Go through my post on Sonnet 63 -- or
> >any you wish -- and tell me what is obscure
> >or how I fail to show how a meaning fits one
> >of the overall themes.
>
> That's a fair enough request, Paul, and perhaps I'll hit the
> Google archives and do just that. However, in the meantime, could you
> tell me what you think some of these "overall themes" actually are?
> You've dismissed the common interpretation of the sonnets (the passage
> of time and its effects, for instance) as being unworthy of
> consideration.
No. Not really. The 'passage of Time' theme
IS present, and the poet is faithful to it. It is
a superficial sense of the sonnet and we CAN
read it in that way and make sense of it. Many
(or most?) of the sonnets are just like that for
me. BUT (a) that sense is hardly worth writing
about; and (b) I'm sure that all have much more
meaning -- along the lines I'm showing. That
meaning cannot, of course, be understood
unless you accept that Oxford was the poet
and his addressee was the Queen.
> What, then, are some of the 'important' themes in the
> Sonnets that I and so many others have missed?
As I wrote about this one on 1st Oct in
news:HMIeb.34377$pK2....@news.indigo.ie...
I see three principal themes in this sonnet,
which the poet interweaves to achieve the
maximum possible density of meaning:
(a) His hopes for his infant, starting a new life;
(b) His thoughts about his own infancy and
youth; the extraordinary promise he showed,
and the disastrous manner in which it his life
is working out;
(c) How recent and current events affect his
child, its mother and the poet himself.
I amended this somewhat in later posts, but
you really have to read them.
Paul.
Bob Grumman
> >not exist. Robert and I have been over this
> >several times in the sonnet threads.
And Robert has presented a satisfactory solution. Not one that
explains every detail because that is probably impossible for anyone
to do, not only for any Shakespearean poem, but for any poem--or for
any text. But the rigidnik has to explain Everything, so a
satisfactory solution will seem a non-solution to him.
> >To put
> >it crudely and over-simply, I see, maybe,
> >5 ambiguities per line.
Pure rigidnikry, this. The surface meaning is never enough for the
rigidnik.
I think it supports the idea that lawyers are mercenary,
and--like--Shakespeare-rejecters, can ambiguate any text.
> >When the speaker is utterly confused (as is
> >often the case) or when s/he is setting out to
> >be deliberately ambiguous (which is common
> >enough) it can be quite impossible to present
> >a meaningful paraphrase.
> >
> >The latter is roughly the position in the sonnets.
> >What is so strange about that? The only thing
> >that is strange is that the traditional commentators
> >are not in a position to notice it, and assume he's
> >writing a more-or-less straight account.
But poets take pains to communicate.
> So it's your position that the author was being
> **deliberately** ambiguous in these poems? That something more than
> the unavoidable ambiguity that is inherent in using language (ie words
> have multiple meanings) is at play in the Sonnets?
> >
> >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
> >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> >incorrect but incomplete."
(1) someone trying to make a buck or a reputation by analyzing a poet
will not likely say there's nothing to what he writes;
(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
poem's major meaning.
No comment on the rest of this except to say that I consider the most
important requirement of a successful poem is that it cohere
*reasonably well but inexactly* around a single strong meaning. Paul
thinks that Shakespeare above such petty concerns.
--Bob G.
Gary Kosinsky
>Crowley wrote:
> >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
> >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> >incorrect but incomplete."
>(1) someone trying to make a buck or a reputation by analyzing a poet
>will not likely say there's nothing to what he writes;
>
>(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
>nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
>the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
>poem's major meaning.
>
>No comment on the rest of this except to say that I consider the most
>important requirement of a successful poem is that it cohere
>*reasonably well but inexactly* around a single strong meaning. Paul
>thinks that Shakespeare above such petty concerns.
And I would agree with that requirement, and would use it to
determine the validity of any interpretation of a word, phrase or line
in the poem. In which case, Paul's 'discoveries' can easily be
dismissed.
That's why I was surprised at reading the passage that Paul
quotes from Booth. Booth **seems** to be leaving the door open,
however slightly, to the type of nonsensical wordplay that Paul is
indulging in. Booth seems to be distinguishing between the meaning
found in the overall sonnet, and some meaning that can be found in a
smaller portion of that sonnet. If so, then it makes it much more
difficult to rule out....well, almost anything, really.
I'm confused about what you mean by "connotational nimbus".
Could you expand a bit on that, keeping in mind you're talking to a
left-brained logical type?
- Gary Kosinsky
Bob Grumman
> quotes from Booth. Booth **seems** to be leaving the door open,
> however slightly, to the type of nonsensical wordplay that Paul is
> indulging in. Booth seems to be distinguishing between the meaning
> found in the overall sonnet, and some meaning that can be found in a
> smaller portion of that sonnet. If so, then it makes it much more
> difficult to rule out....well, almost anything, really.
>
> I'm confused about what you mean by "connotational nimbus".
> Could you expand a bit on that, keeping in mind you're talking to a
> left-brained logical type?
>
> - Gary Kosinsky
I just meant all the connotations a given particularly "rich" word
would have, some of which might contradict the central meaning of a
poem. "Treasure," for instance, might well have a connotation nimbus
(for a given reader) that includes gold, genitals, genius,
treasury/mint/candy, a woman named Candice and her wicked stepmother,
etc. And the connotational nimbus of "oer" would surely include
"ore"--and maybe even "whore," though I can't see "hours" as connoting
"whores," unless the Elizabethans' pronunciation of the two words was
a lot more different from mine than I believe. I think the images
conveyed by such nimbuses are extremely peripheral but
allowable--except for the ones that amplify a poem's main theme. And
that's all, I think, Booth was saying. (But from what I've read about
Booth at HLAS, I think he leaned more toward Paul's kind of excess in
finding meanings than you and I would.)
--Bob G.
Paul Crowley
> > >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
> > >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> > >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> > >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> > >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> > >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> > >incorrect but incomplete."
Grumman writes:
> >(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
> >nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
> >the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
> >poem's major meaning.
That's nonsense. The poet's 'major meaning'
(how do we know that you are a poet?) will
depend on the sense taken from those puns.
A common one is 'my love' = 'my affection'
and 'my beloved'. The sense taken will often
be completely different. Yet the poet clearly
intends us to read it both ways -- and enjoy
the ambiguity.
> >No comment on the rest of this except to say that I consider the most
> >important requirement of a successful poem is that it cohere
> >*reasonably well but inexactly* around a single strong meaning. Paul
> >thinks that Shakespeare above such petty concerns.
It's not being 'above' such petty concerns.
He writes in a different way. You prefer the
simple-minded, that's all. (Well, you're
American, so we'd expect nothing else.)
> And I would agree with that requirement, and would use it to
> determine the validity of any interpretation of a word, phrase or line
> in the poem. In which case, Paul's 'discoveries' can easily be
> dismissed.
Oh, if only. But you should then be able to
show how all 'my discoveries' are totally
ludicrous and absurd -- in detail and in each
case. I'm still waiting for someone to begin
to make that effort.
Paul.
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:
>Grumman wrote:
>>Crowley wrote:
>> >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
>> >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
>> >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
>> >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
>> >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
>> >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
>> >incorrect but incomplete."
> That's why I was surprised at reading the passage that Paul
>quotes from Booth. Booth **seems** to be leaving the door open,
>however slightly, to the type of nonsensical wordplay that Paul is
>indulging in. Booth seems to be distinguishing between the meaning
>found in the overall sonnet, and some meaning that can be found in a
>smaller portion of that sonnet. If so, then it makes it much more
>difficult to rule out....well, almost anything, really.
Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
"Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before the
plurisignification of language and overlapping of multiple structures
visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be satisfied by irresolution
with respect to its fundamental gestalt - seems to me too ready a
surrender to hermeneutic suspicion."
Which is a dark saying, but I think is supporting this point of view.
Bob Grumman
Nobody ever will, Paul. Why, therefore, have you not yet put together
an edition of the sonnets with your commentaries and sent it off to a
publisher. How could it not be published?
--Bob G.
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
>"Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before the
>plurisignification of language and overlapping of multiple structures
>visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be satisfied by irresolution
>with respect to its fundamental gestalt - seems to me too ready a
>surrender to hermeneutic suspicion."
>
>Which is a dark saying, but I think is supporting this point of view.
>
It's more like a poem by Jorie Graham.
KQKnave
writes:
>I'm confused about what you mean by "connotational nimbus".
>Could you expand a bit on that, keeping in mind you're talking to a
>left-brained logical type?
That's an amusing statement coming from someone who is infatuated
with Hotson!
Gary Kosinsky
Paul, it seems to me that the problem here is that before we
can get into a 'contest' or argument about the validity of a
particular interpretation, we must first agree on the 'rules' of the
contest beforehand. There is no sense in applying the rules of hockey
to a cricket game. And we don't agree on the 'rules of the contest'.
I'd say the 'rules of the contest' should be similiar to what
Bob says above. You disagree. Which is your right.
You, on the other hand, seem to say that the 'rules of the
contest' are that words and phrases mean whatever you want them to
mean. I disagree.
This being the case, it's next to impossible for us to have
any sort of meaningful discussion about the meaning of the sonnets,
just as it would be pointless for us to try to play a game where I
come prepared for hockey and you come prepared to play cricket.
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
wrote:
"Too ready a surrender to hermeneutic suspicion"?
Err...yeahhh....that's what I was going to say, right.
(As I now remember why I didn't major in English Lit.)
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
<jbmi...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>> That's why I was surprised at reading the passage that Paul
>>> quotes from Booth. Booth **seems** to be leaving the door open,
>>> however slightly, to the type of nonsensical wordplay that Paul is
>>> indulging in. Booth seems to be distinguishing between the meaning
>>> found in the overall sonnet, and some meaning that can be found in a
>>> smaller portion of that sonnet. If so, then it makes it much more
>>> difficult to rule out....well, almost anything, really.
>>>
>>> I'm confused about what you mean by "connotational nimbus".
>>> Could you expand a bit on that, keeping in mind you're talking to a
>>> left-brained logical type?
>>>
>>> - Gary Kosinsky
>
>I thought Bob's meaning was fairly clear. I can quote from "The Oxford
>Guide to Writing, A Rhetoric and Handbook for College Students" (which I
>have right here, as it's been helping to keep my computer table from tipping
>forward since I got a flat-screen monitor):
>
> "Using a circle to represent a word, we may show the denotation as the
>core meaning and the connotation as fringe meanings gathered about that
>core. The line enclosing the denotation (D in the diagram) is solid to
>signify that this meaning is relatively fixed. The line around the
>connotation (C) is broken to suggest that the connotative meanings of a word
>are less firm, more open to change and addition.
> "...
> "Sometimes a connotative meaning splits off and becomes a second
>denotation, the nucleus, in effect, of another word configuration. Thus
>'socialist' has become a new primary meaning of _red_ when used as a
>political term. Around this second nucleus other connotations have
>gathered, such as (for most Americans) 'subversive,' 'un-American,'
>'traitorous,' and so on[.]"
>
>That seems pretty left-brained and logical.
Do you know what I find most interesting about this passage,
Janice? That a textbook on writing would state matter-of-factly that
the term 'socialist' would be associated with terms like 'subversive',
'traitorous', etc.
I find that interesting.
But that's beside the point. Thank you for the explanation.
- Gary Kosinsky
John W. Kennedy
> That's nonsense. The poet's 'major meaning'
> (how do we know that you are a poet?) will
> depend on the sense taken from those puns.
Oh God! Crowley's been infected with the post-modernist virus!
--
John W. Kennedy
"You can, if you wish, class all science-fiction
together; but it is about as perceptive as classing the
works of Ballantyne, Conrad and W. W. Jacobs together
as the 'sea-story' and then criticizing _that_."
-- C. S. Lewis. "An Experiment in Criticism"
Bob Grumman
Wow, where'd she get "plurisignification?" That sounds like one of MY
neologies. I didn't know she made up words. Perhaps it's a "real"
word? ("Pluraesthetic," meaning something making significant
aesthetic use of two or more expressive modalities, is an old neology
of mine that a few people have re-used--but which, I'm sure, Vendler
never saw.)
Her point of view here is certainly mine.
--Bob G.
Gary Kosinsky
>In article <3f85e568...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>, gk...@vcn.bc.ca (Gary Kosinsky)
>writes:
>
>>I'm confused about what you mean by "connotational nimbus".
>>Could you expand a bit on that, keeping in mind you're talking to a
>>left-brained logical type?
>
>That's an amusing statement coming from someone who is infatuated
>with Hotson!
I suppose that's fair comment. It has occurred to me that
what Hotson does is similiar to the method that Crowley uses.
Only Hotson does it better.
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
> >Grumman writes:
> >
> >> >(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
> >> >nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
> >> >the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
> >> >poem's major meaning.
> >
> >That's nonsense. The poet's 'major meaning'
> >(how do we know that you are a poet?) will
> >depend on the sense taken from those puns.
> >A common one is 'my love' = 'my affection'
> >and 'my beloved'. The sense taken will often
> >be completely different. Yet the poet clearly
> >intends us to read it both ways -- and enjoy
> >the ambiguity.
> Paul, it seems to me that the problem here is that before we
> can get into a 'contest' or argument about the validity of a
> particular interpretation, we must first agree on the 'rules' of the
> contest beforehand. There is no sense in applying the rules of hockey
> to a cricket game. And we don't agree on the 'rules of the contest'.
>
> I'd say the 'rules of the contest' should be similiar to what
> Bob says above. You disagree. Which is your right.
What Bob says above is clearly wrong.
The poet often _systematically_ brings
in ambiguities. A common one is 'my love'
= 'my affection' and 'my beloved'. The
sense taken will often be completely
different. Yet the poet clearly intends us
to read it both ways -- and enjoy the
ambiguity.
Have I made that point before?
If so, neither you nor Bob nor any
other Strat of your persuasion has
responded to it.
> You, on the other hand, seem to say that the 'rules of the
> contest' are that words and phrases mean whatever you want them to
> mean. I disagree.
No. It is not whatever I want them to
mean. The poet often _systematically_
brings in ambiguities. A common one
is 'my love' = 'my affection' and 'my
beloved'. The sense taken will often be
completely different. Yet the poet clearly
intends us to read it both ways -- and
enjoy the ambiguity.
Have I made that point before?
If so, neither you nor Bob nor any
other Strat of your persuasion has
responded to it.
> This being the case, it's next to impossible for us to have
> any sort of meaningful discussion about the meaning of the sonnets,
I get the strong impression that you have
not the slightest interest in having a
serious discussion about the meaning
of the sonnets. You do not seek to
engage in one. You do not respond
to even the most obvious and simple
of points. For example, the poet often
_systematically_ brings in ambiguities.
A common one is 'my love' = 'my affection'
and 'my beloved'. The sense taken will
often be completely different. Yet the
poet clearly intends us to read it both
ways -- and enjoy the ambiguity.
Have I made that point before?
If so, neither you nor Bob nor any
other Strat of your persuasion has
responded to it.
> just as it would be pointless for us to try to play a game where I
> come prepared for hockey and you come prepared to play cricket.
Your sole intention is to come in with
your gang of buddies, wielding baseball
bats and wreck the joint. You know that
you will lose any kind of rational debate,
so you do your best to break up anything
that begins to look like one.
There is nothing new about this. It is
the standard reaction of those in power
in lawless states. They fear that they
are going to lose everything that
matters to them -- their easy incomes,
their status, the respect paid to them,
and so on.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> > >>Crowley wrote:
> > >> >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
> > >> >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> > >> >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> > >> >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> > >> >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> > >> >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> > >> >incorrect but incomplete."
> > Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
> > "Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before the
> > plurisignification of language and overlapping of multiple structures
> > visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be satisfied by irresolution
> > with respect to its fundamental gestalt - seems to me too ready a
> > surrender to hermeneutic suspicion."
> >
> > Which is a dark saying, but I think is supporting this point of view.
>
> Wow, where'd she get "plurisignification?" That sounds like one of MY
> neologies. I didn't know she made up words. Perhaps it's a "real"
> word? ("Pluraesthetic," meaning something making significant
> aesthetic use of two or more expressive modalities, is an old neology
> of mine that a few people have re-used--but which, I'm sure, Vendler
> never saw.)
>
> Her point of view here is certainly mine.
Would you mind saying what you think
her point of view IS. That is, I'd like your
paraphrases in ordinary English of :
(a) plurisignification of language
(b) overlapping of multiple structures
(c) irresolution with respect to its fundamental gestalt
(d) surrender to hermeneutic suspicion
Perhaps, to illustrate your answer you
could respond to something you've
somehow missed up to now, namely
that the poet often _systematically_
brings in ambiguities. A common one
is 'my love' = 'my affection' and 'my
beloved'. The sense taken will often be
completely different. Yet the poet clearly
intends us to read it both ways -- and
enjoy the ambiguity.
Have I made this point before?
Paul.
Paul Crowley
news:2OIhb.49429$Ri4.19...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> Paul Crowley wrote:
>
> > That's nonsense. The poet's 'major meaning'
> > (how do we know that you are a poet?) will
> > depend on the sense taken from those puns.
>
> Oh God! Crowley's been infected with the post-modernist virus!
I've no idea why you think that.
My parenthetical remark was merely on
the sound of 'major meaning'. It's odd
that someone can claim to be a poet
and so unerringly select monstrosities.
But then, I suppose that if you are
completely tone deaf, you may never
know that your singing is not as good
as that of Maria Callas.
Paul.
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message news:3f875541...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
>
>> >Grumman writes:
>> >
>> >> >(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
>> >> >nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
>> >> >the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
>> >> >poem's major meaning.
>> >
>> >That's nonsense. The poet's 'major meaning'
>> >(how do we know that you are a poet?) will
>> >depend on the sense taken from those puns.
>> >A common one is 'my love' = 'my affection'
>> >and 'my beloved'. The sense taken will often
>> >be completely different. Yet the poet clearly
>> >intends us to read it both ways -- and enjoy
>> >the ambiguity.
>
>> Paul, it seems to me that the problem here is that before we
>> can get into a 'contest' or argument about the validity of a
>> particular interpretation, we must first agree on the 'rules' of the
>> contest beforehand. There is no sense in applying the rules of hockey
>> to a cricket game. And we don't agree on the 'rules of the contest'.
>>
>> I'd say the 'rules of the contest' should be similiar to what
>> Bob says above. You disagree. Which is your right.
>
>What Bob says above is clearly wrong.
And I disagree. And this is an example of what I'm saying. We
cannot agree on the 'rules of the contest' beforehand, which makes any
rational discussion impossible.
>The poet often _systematically_ brings
>in ambiguities. A common one is 'my love'
>= 'my affection' and 'my beloved'. The
>sense taken will often be completely
>different. Yet the poet clearly intends us
>to read it both ways -- and enjoy the
>ambiguity.
I agree that 'my love' in the poems can often refer either to
the beloved, or the poet's feelings of love.
>Have I made that point before?
>If so, neither you nor Bob nor any
>other Strat of your persuasion has
>responded to it.
SNIP
Responded to what? I think most people would agree about the
double meaning that may be read into 'my love'.
But surely you're not saying that the "O'er/ore" 'ambiguity'
which you claim is in the poem is similiar in kind to the double
meaning assignable to 'my love'?
For if you do, this is but one more illustration of my point:
that we are playing by different rules!
- Gary Kosinsky
Bob Grumman
> "John W. Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:2OIhb.49429$Ri4.19...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
>
> > Paul Crowley wrote:
> >
> > > That's nonsense. The poet's 'major meaning'
> > > (how do we know that you are a poet?) will
> > > depend on the sense taken from those puns.
> >
> > Oh God! Crowley's been infected with the post-modernist virus!
>
> I've no idea why you think that.
I think John is referring to what I call the French Disease. The main
symptoms are a belief that the punned-to meanings a critics strains
out of a text are all that really count. He was not referring to your
parenthetical remark, for I'm sure he realizes that no good poet would
ever use the phrase "major meaning," even in a work of throw-away
prose.
> My parenthetical remark was merely on
> the sound of 'major meaning'. It's odd
> that someone can claim to be a poet
> and so unerringly select monstrosities.
MAJOR monstrosities, I'm sure. But is it really more odd than the
claim of a non-poet, non-critic, non-scholar, non-reader of any poetry
but Shakespeare's to be vastly more able to interpret and evaluate
poetry and poets than any of the several people at HLAS who actually
write poetry and/or get essays of theirs on poetry or poets published
and/or teach poetry at universities and/or simply enjoy a wide range
of it?
> But then, I suppose that if you are
> completely tone deaf, you may never
> know that your singing is not as good
> as that of Maria Callas.
Right, Paul. Now, why don't you tell us just what is so monstrous bad
about the phrase, "major meaning." I will admit that I have no idea
what's wrong with it. I prefer "fore-burden," myself, but that's a
neology, and I wanted to spare you the agony of having to face one of
them, even though you've survived some previous encounters with this
particular one.
--Bob G.
Spam Scone
Early Callas or Late Callas?
Paul Crowley
> >> >Grumman writes:
> >> >
> >> >> >(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
> >> >> >nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
> >> >> >the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
> >> >> >poem's major meaning.
> >What Bob says above is clearly wrong.
>
> And I disagree. And this is an example of what I'm saying. We
> cannot agree on the 'rules of the contest' beforehand, which makes any
> rational discussion impossible.
You agree Bob that is right above, but
then you go on to agree that Shakespeare
makes puns on 'love' that are FAR from
"only referring to the connotational
nimbus. It seems that you don't know
what you are saying -- or that you say
whatever is convenient to you at any
particular moment.
> >The poet often _systematically_ brings
> >in ambiguities. A common one is 'my love'
> >= 'my affection' and 'my beloved'. The
> >sense taken will often be completely
> >different. Yet the poet clearly intends us
> >to read it both ways -- and enjoy the
> >ambiguity.
>
> I agree that 'my love' in the poems can often refer either to
> the beloved, or the poet's feelings of love.
Yeah, yeah, and so what if that's directly
opposite to what you said a few seconds
earlier.
[..]
> But surely you're not saying that the "O'er/ore" 'ambiguity'
> which you claim is in the poem is similiar in kind to the double
> meaning assignable to 'my love'?
All puns are different -- but I can see no
difference in principle here. In one case
the poet introduces systematic puns on
'love'; in another (within one sonnet) he
introduces systematic ones on Oe'r / Or /
Ore / Crushed / Hand / Filed / Drained /
Filled / Travail / Steepie / Treasure / Ore
/Or vanished out of Sight / Site
1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
9. For such a time do I now fortify
10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
11. That he shall never cut from memory
12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> For if you do, this is but one more illustration of my point:
> that we are playing by different rules!
The only problem about 'the rules' is that
you feel obliged to forget them from one
sentence to the next.
Paul.
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message news:3f8879a8...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
>
>> >> >Grumman writes:
>> >> >
>> >> >> >(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
>> >> >> >nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
>> >> >> >the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
>> >> >> >poem's major meaning.
>
>> >What Bob says above is clearly wrong.
>>
>> And I disagree. And this is an example of what I'm saying. We
>> cannot agree on the 'rules of the contest' beforehand, which makes any
>> rational discussion impossible.
>
>You agree Bob that is right above, but
>then you go on to agree that Shakespeare
>makes puns on 'love' that are FAR from
>"only referring to the connotational
>nimbus. It seems that you don't know
>what you are saying -- or that you say
>whatever is convenient to you at any
>particular moment.
On the contrary. I think Bob's description allows for the
type of wordplay evident in 'my love = emotion of love/beloved'.
>> >The poet often _systematically_ brings
>> >in ambiguities. A common one is 'my love'
>> >= 'my affection' and 'my beloved'. The
>> >sense taken will often be completely
>> >different. Yet the poet clearly intends us
>> >to read it both ways -- and enjoy the
>> >ambiguity.
>>
>> I agree that 'my love' in the poems can often refer either to
>> the beloved, or the poet's feelings of love.
>
>Yeah, yeah, and so what if that's directly
>opposite to what you said a few seconds
>earlier.
It's not directly opposite.
>[..]
>
>> But surely you're not saying that the "O'er/ore" 'ambiguity'
>> which you claim is in the poem is similiar in kind to the double
>> meaning assignable to 'my love'?
>
>All puns are different -- but I can see no
>difference in principle here.
Which clearly indicates that you and I are playing by
different rules.
>In one case
>the poet introduces systematic puns on
>'love'; in another (within one sonnet) he
>introduces systematic ones on Oe'r / Or /
>Ore / Crushed / Hand / Filed / Drained /
>Filled / Travail / Steepie / Treasure / Ore
>/Or vanished out of Sight / Site
"Systematic"? You yourself have admitted that you cannot form
a coherent summary of the sonnet using these alleged 'puns' on "oe'r".
SNIP
- Gary Kosinsky
Bob Grumman
> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >(2) Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
> >> >> >> >nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
> >> >> >> >the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
> >> >> >> >poem's major meaning.
>
> >> >What Bob says above is clearly wrong.
> >>
> >> And I disagree. And this is an example of what I'm saying. We
> >> cannot agree on the 'rules of the contest' beforehand, which makes any
> >> rational discussion impossible.
> >
> >You agree Bob that is right above, but
> >then you go on to agree that Shakespeare
> >makes puns on 'love' that are FAR from
> >"only referring to the connotational
> >nimbus. It seems that you don't know
> >what you are saying -- or that you say
> >whatever is convenient to you at any
> >particular moment.
I was referring to what:
> > >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
> > > >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> > > >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> > > >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> > > >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> > > >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> > > >incorrect but incomplete."
> On the contrary. I think Bob's description allows for the
> type of wordplay evident in 'my love = emotion of love/beloved'.
Well, I'd consider the two meanings of "love" outside the
connotational nimbus I think Booth was speaking of, and part of "the
ongoing logic of the poem," since both meanings of "love" are
denotational.
I think I would now say that Booth was referring to only one part of a
poem's connotational nimbus, the part outside "the ongoing logic of
the poem." There would be connotations, probably very obvious, that
would fit the logic of the poem.
Connotations that fit as poorly as some of the ones Paul claims to
find are blemishes--or would be if people noticed them as
connotations, which a good poem's context prevents them from doing,
(as sonnet 63 prevents almost everyone from think of a pogo-stick due
to the presence of "spring").
SNIP because I have nothing futher to add.
--Bob G.
Robert Stonehouse
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>I said I'd post questions on this sonnet first. They are
>very obvious -- the sort a child would ask. But the
>idea of asking them (let alone answering them) does
>not occur to Stratfordians -- or any of the traditional
>commentators on the sonnets.
>
>Obviously, no one is expecting answers in this NG
>-- except from yours truly -- in a day or so.
>
>1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
>2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>9. For such a time do I now fortify
>10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>11. That he shall never cut from memory
>12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>
>
>1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
He didn't particularly. This just draws attention to the process of
aging, using the difference in age between the two as a an example.
Note that we are not necessarily entitled to deduce the way the
individual person felt from what we find in a poem that may have been
written for quite another purpose than to express what he felt.
>
>2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
>
>c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
>d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
Time hasn't got hands. It simply isn't that kind of thing. So
evidently we are faced with a metaphor. (Presumably nobody will
suggest this means the hands of a clock?) The work of time is to wear
things out, and to wear people out; that is what is meant by the word
'over-worn'. But before that more literal word we have another, more
appropriate to hands. Time grasps and crushes things.
>
>3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
>
> (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
> -- but then why use such a strange image?)
It's not strange so much as striking and effective. Others have
described the effect of time on the blood. It need not be
physiologically correct so long as it conveys the right surface
impression - this is not a medical text.
>f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
No.
>g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
The loss or thinning of the blood makes a small contrast with the
increasing of lines and wrinkles. One thing goes down, another up. Not
a major feature of the poem, but a touch of detail.
>h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
> and 'fild' have? And what are they?
(If this is vital, I'll get out the dictionary. But for this present
marathon effort, I don't want to be balancing the Shorter Oxford on my
knee as well as the computer!)
>
>4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
>i) Why use the term 'lines'?
>j) And 'wrinkles'?
Lines are fine, thin things and wrinkles more deeply modelled. They
both express related effects of age on the forehead.
>
>5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
Probably not, though the fact that 'travel' and 'travail' were still
the same word should have an effect on us. They tend to convey a
troublesome journey. For example, from The Travails of Job Hortop in
Hakluyt's Voyages:
"Since my departure from England, until this time of my returne, I was
five times in great danger of death, besides the many perils I was in,
in the Gallies.
First in the Port of S. John de Ullua, where being on shore, with many
other of our company, which were all slaine saving I, and two other
that by swimming got aboord the Jesus of Lubek.
Secondly, when we were robbed by the wild Indians.
Thirdly, after we came to Mexico, the viceroy would have hanged us.
Fourthly, because he could not have his mind to hang us, he would have
burnt us.
Fiftly, the Generall that brought us into Spaine, would have hanged us
at sea.
Thus having truely set downe unto you my travels, misery and dangers,
endured the space of 23. yeeres, I ende."
>l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
It isn't particularly strange. Nosy, clayey, crispy are similar
formations.
>
>6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>m) What is the significance of 'King'?
He is the lord and master of his own beauties. Additionally, they give
him grace and majesty.
>n) What are the 'beauties'?
The various matters of appearance celebrated elsewhere in the Sonnets.
>o) How could the addressee be "King of various
> beauties"?
By being personally beautiful. Is anything else needed?
>
>7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>p) What is the point of the repetition of 'vanish'?
At any given moment in the aging process, some points of
attractiveness will be on the way out, while others will already have
gone. The poet gives us the detail.
>q) What is the significance of each -- other than
> in a general comment on age and time?
As above.
>
>8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
>r) How do the beauties steal the treasure of
> the poet's love's Spring?
By disappearing, they rob him of his attractiveness. The particular
words 'stealing away' are transitional. At first sight we take them as
intransitive, and 'stealing away' as a kind of 'vanishing'. But before
the end of the line, we realise 'stealing away' is transitive; it is a
kind of theft.
>s) Why does the poet bring in 'treasures'? And
> 'Spring'?
'Treasures' tells us the importance of the things the subject must
lose. Spring is often used in the Sonnets in contexts of youth and
freshness.
>
>9. For such a time do I now fortify
>t) What 'fortifications' does the poet intend?
His preparation of his own mind to face the inevitable. Compare sonnet
49.
>
>10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
>u) Why does the poet feel so strongly about
> 'confounding Ages?
It is clearer if you write "age's". That is, the knife belongs to age.
>v) What is the significance of the 'cruel knife'?
It kills you. That is why he feels strongly.
>
>11. That he shall never cut from memory
>w) Why should, and how could, 'confounding Ages'
> cut his 'sweet loves beauty' from memory?
One of the things Age does with his knife is to cut off memory; that
is, to consign things to oblivion. Unless you recognise "Ages" as a
genitive, the construction of the sentence gets totally scrambled.
>
>12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
>x) Why does the poet expect his lovers life to be cut
> from memory (or cut off completely) ?
The latter. Age will cut off his lover's life (obviously) but it will
not destroy the memory of his beauty.
>
>13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
>y) Does 'black lines' refer solely to those of the sonnet?
Possibly also to those of the rest of the book.
>
>14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
>z) What does 'green' mean in this context?
Fresh and young, like Spring. This refers us back to line 8.
Paul Crowley
> I was referring to what:
>
> > > >Booth says (page xiii): "Multitudinous meanings, overtones,
> > > > >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> > > > >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> > > > >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> > > > >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> > > > >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> > > > >incorrect but incomplete."
>
> > On the contrary. I think Bob's description allows for the
> > type of wordplay evident in 'my love = emotion of love/beloved'.
>
> Well, I'd consider the two meanings of "love" outside the
> connotational nimbus I think Booth was speaking of, and part of "the
> ongoing logic of the poem," since both meanings of "love" are
> denotational.
>
> I think I would now say that Booth was referring to only one part of a
> poem's connotational nimbus, the part outside "the ongoing logic of
> the poem." There would be connotations, probably very obvious, that
> would fit the logic of the poem.
It would help if you wrote English; but I
suppose that's asking for the moon. I think
you're conceding that Shakespeare does pun
on 'my love' and he means 'my affection' in one
sense and 'my beloved' in another. So that he
intends two quite different meanings in one
sentence.
But somehow you still want to call these
two senses 'connotations'. (Hey, why
not be completely obscure in all you say?)
> Connotations that fit as poorly as some of the ones Paul claims to
> find are blemishes--or would be if people noticed them as
> connotations,
You must be using 'connotations' in a
Grummanian manner -- to mean whatever
it is you want the word to mean at the
moment you use it. (Since you're a poet,
naturally, we'd expect nothing else.)
> which a good poem's context prevents them from doing,
> (as sonnet 63 prevents almost everyone from think of a pogo-stick due
> to the presence of "spring").
I find it very strange that you don't seem
to have encountered this technique
before -- where the poet sets out to say
a number of quite different things within
the same poem. Some poets may well
want to combine a theme on Time with
one on pogo-sticks. They'd find it an
amusing challenge -- and it might, with
luck produce interesting poetry.
However, pogo-sticks do not seem to
have been an Elizabethan fashion, and
our poet had so much more to say.
The sight of his infant set off all sorts
of strains of thought, and he sought
to bring them all together in one sonnet.
His reader was very familiar with his
thought patterns, and his style of
poetry, so the kinds of problems you
envisage never arose.
Paul.
Bob Grumman
> > > > > >and suggestions of reference that are relevant to their context
> > > > > >but not necessarily compatible with each other or any single
> > > > > >paraphrase are common in the sonnets. An editor of the
> > > > > >sonnets who presents only the gloss demanded by the
> > > > > >author's clear intent in the ongoing logic of a poem will not be
> > > > > >incorrect but incomplete."
>
> > > On the contrary. I think Bob's description allows for the
> > > type of wordplay evident in 'my love = emotion of love/beloved'.
> >
> > Well, I'd consider the two meanings of "love" outside the
> > connotational nimbus I think Booth was speaking of, and part of "the
> > ongoing logic of the poem," since both meanings of "love" are
> > denotational.
> >
> > I think I would now say that Booth was referring to only one part of a
> > poem's connotational nimbus, the part outside "the ongoing logic of
> > the poem." There would be connotations, probably very obvious, that
> > would fit the logic of the poem.
>
> It would help if you wrote English;
Consider the possibility that your inability to understand my English
may be your fault. I've been paid by publishers for my English, and
it's gone into standard reference books. Where has yours gone besides
to HLAS and other such groups?
> but I
> suppose that's asking for the moon. I think
> you're conceding that Shakespeare does pun
> on 'my love' and he means 'my affection' in one
> sense and 'my beloved' in another. So that he
> intends two quite different meanings in one
> sentence.
He may have intended two closely related meanings of "love" in one
sentence.
> But somehow you still want to call these
> two senses 'connotations'.
That doesn't follow from what I said, which was about what Booth said,
and not about "love." The two meanings of love would be denotations.
If both are to be thought significant in the poem, that would make
"love" a mild pun.
> (Hey, why
> not be completely obscure in all you say?)
> > Connotations that fit as poorly as some of the ones Paul claims to
> > find are blemishes--or would be if people noticed them as
> > connotations,
>
> You must be using 'connotations' in a
> Grummanian manner -- to mean whatever
> it is you want the word to mean at the
> moment you use it. (Since you're a poet,
> naturally, we'd expect nothing else.)
I believe I use "connotations" as all dictionaries have it. Why don't
you show me what is wrong with my use of it. I may be wrong in
thinking you are speaking of what I call connotations.
> > which a good poem's context prevents them from doing,
> > (as sonnet 63 prevents almost everyone from think of a pogo-stick due
> > to the presence of "spring").
>
> I find it very strange that you don't seem
> to have encountered this technique
> before -- where the poet sets out to say
> a number of quite different things within
> the same poem.
I find it beyond strange that you think I have not encountered this
technique before simply because in some cases I don't believe it was
used by Shakespeare where you say it was. Or, as I believe you really
mean, because you think that if I deny that some word in a poem does
not connote x, the word has no connotations.
> Some poets may well
> want to combine a theme on Time with
> one on pogo-sticks. They'd find it an
> amusing challenge -- and it might, with
> luck produce interesting poetry.
> However, pogo-sticks do not seem to
> have been an Elizabethan fashion, and
> our poet had so much more to say.
My simple point is that all words in a poem have many connotations,
but that most of these connotations do not occur to a reasonable
reader of the poem because the context of the poem prevents him from
doing so.
> The sight of his infant set off all sorts
> of strains of thought, and he sought
> to bring them all together in one sonnet.
> His reader was very familiar with his
> thought patterns, and his style of
> poetry, so the kinds of problems you
> envisage never arose.
>
> Paul.
I suspect that you know too little about poetry and poetics to be able
to reply to my criticism intelligently.
--Bob G.
Paul Crowley
> > I think
> > you're conceding that Shakespeare does pun
> > on 'my love' and he means 'my affection' in one
> > sense and 'my beloved' in another. So that he
> > intends two quite different meanings in one
> > sentence.
>
> He may have intended two closely related meanings of "love" in one
> sentence.
When the poet uses 'my love' mean
(a) 'the person of my adored', and
(b) 'my feelings of affection', he is
intending two quite distinct meanings.
> If both are to be thought significant in the poem, that would make
> "love" a mild pun.
What's a 'mild pun'? The sense of the words
is entirely different (a person and a feeling).
A sentence with such a pun has to be read
twice -- in entirely different ways. Its meaning
will be entirely different.
> > I find it very strange that you don't seem
> > to have encountered this technique
> > before -- where the poet sets out to say
> > a number of quite different things within
> > the same poem.
>
> I find it beyond strange that you think I have not encountered this
> technique before simply because in some cases I don't believe it was
> used by Shakespeare where you say it was.
This is the first time you've admitted to
knowing about it. Your objections to it do
not take the form: "I don't think the poet
would have used the technique in this line"
but to the effect that no poet of the least
competence would _ever_ use such a
distracting, pointless and unknown
'method'.
This is what you wrote on 9 Oct
>>> Booth, I'm confident, is only referring to the connotational
>>> nimbus any good poet's best words carry, and which enrich his poems
>>> the way overtones enrich music--but which are not significant to any
>>> poem's major meaning.
>>>
>>> No comment on the rest of this except to say that I consider the most
>>> important requirement of a successful poem is that it cohere
>>> *reasonably well but inexactly* around a single strong meaning. Paul
>>> thinks that Shakespeare above such petty concerns.
> My simple point is that all words in a poem have many connotations,
> but that most of these connotations do not occur to a reasonable
> reader of the poem because the context of the poem prevents him from
> doing so.
Great poets will not feel obstructed by the
what Bob Grumman might imagine is the
'context of the poem' nor from referring to
what he might forecast a Bob Grumman to
see as a quite different topic. The poet
will have his own reasons for making his
own links. He may well wish to combine
two or more apparently quite disparate
topics.
Btw, have you continued to study Sonnet 63?
And does the sense of 'Or' = 'gold' sit any
better with you now . . in these lines
6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
7. Are vanishing, Or vanished out of sight,
Do you really maintain that _this_poet_
(a) could not have intended this pun
in line 7?
(b) would not have seen the possibility
of the pun?
(c) that there, in fact, is no pun in line 7
(d) my finding one -- that perfectly fits
the rest of my interpretation -- is just a
monstrously ingenious perversity
possibly combined with some
haphazard chance?
Paul.
Robert Stonehouse
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Bob Grumman" <bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
>news:5f7d2eb3.03101...@posting.google.com...
>> > >>Crowley wrote:
>> > Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
>> > "Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before the
>> > plurisignification of language and overlapping of multiple structures
>> > visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be satisfied by irresolution
>> > with respect to its fundamental gestalt - seems to me too ready a
>> > surrender to hermeneutic suspicion."
>> Her point of view here is certainly mine.
>
>Would you mind saying what you think
>her point of view IS. That is, I'd like your
>paraphrases in ordinary English of :
>
>(a) plurisignification of language
>(b) overlapping of multiple structures
the other the way the argument of the poem proceeds. These may
coincide. Surprisingly often in the Sonnets, the steps inthe argument
progress from one quatrain to the next without overlapping boundaries.
But sometimes the two are deliberately out of step. Helen Vendler
points to other kinds of structure based, for example, on the
placement of certain words. So, multiple.
>(c) irresolution with respect to its fundamental gestalt
>(d) surrender to hermeneutic suspicion
interpretation.
>
>Perhaps, to illustrate your answer you
>could respond to something you've
>somehow missed up to now, namely
>that the poet often _systematically_
>brings in ambiguities. A common one
>is 'my love' = 'my affection' and 'my
>beloved'. The sense taken will often be
>completely different. Yet the poet clearly
>intends us to read it both ways -- and
>enjoy the ambiguity.
>
>Have I made this point before?
He does this to force us to back-track. Often the first line of a
sonnet is delibrately misleading. We read it and think we understand,
but coming to the second or third we realise the poem is about
something else altogether and our understanding of the first line was
wrong. 'My love' is one of the commonest phrases he uses this way.
This is one reason why it's important to treat each sonnet as a
one-dimensional construction, a straight line, begin at the beginnning
and not try to sit in the middle and survey the scene. To get the
intended effect, we need to fall into the poet's traps.
So here he is using ambiguity, but not to leave the final meaning
indeterminate. There are two meanings, one right and one wrong, and he
tricks us into the wrong one at first.
I think it is pretty rare to find an ambiguity that is not resolved.
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:...
>>5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>>l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>It isn't particularly strange. Nosy, clayey, crispy are similar
>formations.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
(The England's Helicon publication of 1600. This is not generally
quoted in the dictionaries.)
...
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Bob Grumman" <bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
>news:5f7d2eb3.03101...@posting.google.com...
>
>> > I think
>> > you're conceding that Shakespeare does pun
>> > on 'my love' and he means 'my affection' in one
>> > sense and 'my beloved' in another. So that he
>> > intends two quite different meanings in one
>> > sentence.
>>
>> He may have intended two closely related meanings of "love" in one
>> sentence.
>
>When the poet uses 'my love' mean
>(a) 'the person of my adored', and
>(b) 'my feelings of affection', he is
>intending two quite distinct meanings.
>
>> If both are to be thought significant in the poem, that would make
>> "love" a mild pun.
>
>What's a 'mild pun'? The sense of the words
>is entirely different (a person and a feeling).
>A sentence with such a pun has to be read
>twice -- in entirely different ways. Its meaning
>will be entirely different.
SNIP
But in both cases each meaning will mesh with the rest of the
words in the poem, to give a coherent overall meaning. Such is not
the case with your claim that a "o'er/ore" pun exists. You've
admitted that you cannot form a coherent paraphrase of the poem using
this alleged pun.
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 07:20:53 GMT, ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse)
>wrote:
>>On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 19:30:22 +0100, "Paul Crowley"
>><slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>...
>>>5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
>...
>>>l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>>It isn't particularly strange. Nosy, clayey, crispy are similar
>>formations.
>Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd:
>
>Come live with me, and be my love,
>And we will all the pleasures prove,
>That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
>Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
SNIP
Oh great! Now the Marlovians are going to get into the act.
- Gary Kosinsky
somebrent
Cratis-Is that alarman silenced.
Ster-Yea lord,these bones crushed his.
Tess-The Duke's hand is for your skill sir; keep it to place thy
councilors of the city in line.
Peter Farey
Gary Kosinsky wrote:
>
> Robert Stonehouse wrote:
>
> > Robert Stonehouse wrote:
> > >
> > > Paul Crowley wrote:
> >...
> > > > 5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >...
> > > > l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
> > >
> > > It isn't particularly strange. Nosy, clayey, crispy are
> > > similar formations.
> >
> > Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd:
> >
> > Come live with me, and be my love,
> > And we will all the pleasures prove,
> > That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
> > Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
>
> SNIP
>
> Oh great! Now the Marlovians are going to get into the act.
Don't panic, Gary, any Marlovian worth the name would have
thought of this one long before Robert posted it!
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Paul Crowley
news:3f8d03c8...@news.cityscape.co.uk...
> >> > Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
> >> > "Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before the
> >> > plurisignification of language and overlapping of multiple structures
> >> > visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be satisfied by irresolution
> >> > with respect to its fundamental gestalt - seems to me too ready a
> >> > surrender to hermeneutic suspicion."
> ...
[B.G]
> >> Her point of view here is certainly mine.
> >
> >Would you mind saying what you think
> >her point of view IS. That is, I'd like your
> >paraphrases in ordinary English of :
> >
> >(a) plurisignification of language
> The fact that words often have more than one meaning.
> >(b) overlapping of multiple structures
> Two obvious structures: one the quatrain structure and rhyme-scheme,
> the other the way the argument of the poem proceeds. These may
> coincide. Surprisingly often in the Sonnets, the steps inthe argument
> progress from one quatrain to the next without overlapping boundaries.
> But sometimes the two are deliberately out of step. Helen Vendler
> points to other kinds of structure based, for example, on the
> placement of certain words. So, multiple.
> >(c) irresolution with respect to its fundamental gestalt
> remaining uncertain what the poem as a whole is basically about.
> >(d) surrender to hermeneutic suspicion
> giving up the search for the meaning, not trusting any particular
> interpretation.
>> > Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
>> > "Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before the
>> > plurisignification of language and overlapping of multiple structures
>> > visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be satisfied by irresolution
>> > with respect to its fundamental gestalt - seems to me too ready a
>> > surrender to hermeneutic suspicion."
.
Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
"Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before
the the fact that words often have more than one meaning
[plurisignification of language] and overlapping of multiple
structures visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be
satisfied by remaining uncertain what the poem as a whole
is basically about [irresolution with respect to its
fundamental gestalt] - seems to me too ready a giving up
the search for the meaning, not trusting any particular
interpretation [surrender to hermeneutic suspicion]."
The conclusions seems a bit weak to me -- when
translated into English. Perhaps that's why she
didn't use the language!
[..]
> He does this to force us to back-track. Often the first line of a
> sonnet is delibrately misleading. We read it and think we understand,
> but coming to the second or third we realise the poem is about
> something else altogether and our understanding of the first line was
> wrong. 'My love' is one of the commonest phrases he uses this way.
>
> This is one reason why it's important to treat each sonnet as a
> one-dimensional construction, a straight line, begin at the beginnning
> and not try to sit in the middle and survey the scene. To get the
> intended effect, we need to fall into the poet's traps.
>
> So here he is using ambiguity, but not to leave the final meaning
> indeterminate. There are two meanings, one right and one wrong, and he
> tricks us into the wrong one at first.
>
> I think it is pretty rare to find an ambiguity that is not resolved.
I would say that it is rare to find an ambiguity
that IS resolved.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> >> If both are to be thought significant in the poem, that would make
> >> "love" a mild pun.
> >
> >What's a 'mild pun'? The sense of the words
> >is entirely different (a person and a feeling).
> >A sentence with such a pun has to be read
> >twice -- in entirely different ways. Its meaning
> >will be entirely different.
> SNIP
>
> But in both cases each meaning will mesh with the rest of the
> words in the poem, to give a coherent overall meaning.
No. It won't. Find one case where it does
and state the 'coherent overall meaning'.
Alternatively, (or additionally) look at the
standard commentators and quote from the
extensive range of 'coherent overall
meaning[s]' which they find.
> Such is not
> the case with your claim that a "o'er/ore" pun exists. You've
> admitted that you cannot form a coherent paraphrase of the poem using
> this alleged pun.
It is not possible to produce "a coherent
paraphrase" of most of the sonnets, nor
of the most of the work of many other
poets (and of non-poets).
Near-illiterate dopes like you and Grumman
will regard that as a fatal defect in such
works. Heck, how can you give them out
to high-school kids and score the work
adequately for term assessments?
(And what other purpose can literature
possess?)
It's like saying that the only music of any
value is that which can be transcribed for
a school recorder. Or the only painting
worth consideration is that which can be
reproduced so that it can be done by
numbers.
Paul.
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Gary Kosinsky" <gk...@vcn.bc.ca> wrote in message news:3f8dc794...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
>
>> >> If both are to be thought significant in the poem, that would make
>> >> "love" a mild pun.
>> >
>> >What's a 'mild pun'? The sense of the words
>> >is entirely different (a person and a feeling).
>> >A sentence with such a pun has to be read
>> >twice -- in entirely different ways. Its meaning
>> >will be entirely different.
>> SNIP
>>
>> But in both cases each meaning will mesh with the rest of the
>> words in the poem, to give a coherent overall meaning.
>
>No. It won't. Find one case where it does
>and state the 'coherent overall meaning'.
>Alternatively, (or additionally) look at the
>standard commentators and quote from the
>extensive range of 'coherent overall
>meaning[s]' which they find.
Robert Stonehouse has already done a good job of that in his
paraphrases of the Sonnets over the last couple of years.
>
>> Such is not
>> the case with your claim that a "o'er/ore" pun exists. You've
>> admitted that you cannot form a coherent paraphrase of the poem using
>> this alleged pun.
>
>It is not possible to produce "a coherent
>paraphrase" of most of the sonnets, nor
>of the most of the work of many other
>poets (and of non-poets).
And on this we disagree - at least in the case of the Sonnets.
>Near-illiterate dopes like you and Grumman
>will regard that as a fatal defect in such
>works.
SNIP
I can't speak for Bob, but this near-illiterate dope thinks
that the coherent meaning in the Sonnets is an integral part of their
value. And that your incoherent 'puns' are nothing more than
nonsensical wordplay.
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> >9. For such a time do I now fortify
> >10. Against confounding Ages cruel knife,
> >11. That he shall never cut from memory
> >12. My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life:
> >13. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
> >14. And they shall live, and he in them still green.
> >
> >
> >1. Against my love shall be as I am now,
> >a) Why did the poet feel so self-pitying at this time?
> He didn't particularly. This just draws attention to the process of
> aging, using the difference in age between the two as a an example.
Nonsense. Can you see anyone in their
thirties saying that sort of thing?
> Note that we are not necessarily entitled to deduce the way the
> individual person felt from what we find in a poem that may have been
> written for quite another purpose than to express what he felt.
Translation: "I have no faith whatsoever in
my paraphrase".
> >2. With times injurious hand crush'd and ore-worn,
> >
> >b) What does he mean by 'times injurious hand'?
> >c) Why does he use 'crushed'?
> >d) Why does he use 'ore-worne'?
>
> Time hasn't got hands. It simply isn't that kind of thing. So
> evidently we are faced with a metaphor. (Presumably nobody will
> suggest this means the hands of a clock?)
I have given one (i.e. Ralegh). But I'm sure
that the poet also thought of clocks. Why
not?
> The work of time is to wear
> things out, and to wear people out; that is what is meant by the word
> 'over-worn'.
Nope, It's ore"-worne".
> But before that more literal word we have another, more
> appropriate to hands. Time grasps and crushes things.
No, it does not. Or at least, it's a remarkably
far-fetched image, which needs some
justification.
> >3. When hours have drain'd his blood and fild his brow
> >
> >e) How could hours drain the beloved's blood?
> > (other than in the obvious one of time's progress
> > -- but then why use such a strange image?)
>
> It's not strange so much as striking and effective. Others have
> described the effect of time on the blood. It need not be
> physiologically correct so long as it conveys the right surface
> impression - this is not a medical text.
> >f) Does 'hours' pun on 'whores', and if so, who?
> No.
Yet 'whores' (taken as a word of general
abuse) fits the sentence perfectly.
> >g) What's the relevance of the drained/filled image?
>
> The loss or thinning of the blood makes a small contrast with the
> increasing of lines and wrinkles.
A very thin line of argument.
> One thing goes down, another up. Not
> a major feature of the poem, but a touch of detail.
>
> >h) How many other meanings do 'drained'
> > and 'fild' have? And what are they?
>
> (If this is vital, I'll get out the dictionary. But for this present
> marathon effort, I don't want to be balancing the Shorter Oxford on my
> knee as well as the computer!)
You should try balancing one of the two
volumes of the Compact OED ! Serious
damage often results. But such a tool is
essential. You should look up 'dreind'
and 'fild'.
> >4. With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
> >i) Why use the term 'lines'?
> >j) And 'wrinkles'?
>
> Lines are fine, thin things and wrinkles more deeply modelled. They
> both express related effects of age on the forehead.
And that's ALL?
> >5. Hath travailed on to Ages steepie night;
> >k) Does 'travail' have a sense here (as against 'travel')?
>
> Probably not,
Hey, you are talking about Shakespeare.
Your first reaction should be 'almost certainly'.
> though the fact that 'travel' and 'travail' were still
> the same word should have an effect on us.
It also had two quite different meanings -- the
ones we designate with 'travel' and 'troubles'.
> They tend to convey a troublesome journey.
Why not seek to reduce the poet's meaning?
That way, you fail to explain less. It's the
standard Stratfordian approach.
> >l) Why use the strange word 'steepie'?
>
> It isn't particularly strange. Nosy, clayey, crispy are similar
> formations.
It is very strange -- in this context. The
poet intended at least three quite
different meanings.
> >6. And all those beauties whereof now he's King
>
> >m) What is the significance of 'King'?
>
> He is the lord and master of his own beauties. Additionally, they give
> him grace and majesty.
Boring -- which our poet never was. How
come sonnet exegetists never seem to get
that point?
> >n) What are the 'beauties'?
>
> The various matters of appearance celebrated elsewhere in the Sonnets.
Very boring -- and see above.
> >o) How could the addressee be "King of various
> > beauties"?
> By being personally beautiful. Is anything else needed?
Much, MUCH more is needed.
> >7. Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
>
> >p) What is the point of the repetition of 'vanish'?
>
> At any given moment in the aging process, some points of
> attractiveness will be on the way out, while others will already have
> gone. The poet gives us the detail.
You have not even faced up to the implications
of Stonehouse's Rule.
> >q) What is the significance of each -- other than
> > in a general comment on age and time?
> As above.
Utterly boring.
> >8. Stealing away the treasure of his Spring;
> >r) How do the beauties steal the treasure of
> > the poet's love's Spring?
>
> By disappearing, they rob him of his attractiveness. The particular
> words 'stealing away' are transitional. At first sight we take them as
> intransitive, and 'stealing away' as a kind of 'vanishing'. But before
> the end of the line, we realise 'stealing away' is transitive; it is a
> kind of theft.
Sorry, this tediousness is making me go to
sleep.
It must be the ultimate in the anti-Shakespearean.
Our poet was _never_ like this.
> AGainst my loue shall be as I am now Son. 63.1
> With times iniurious hand chrusht and ore-worne, Son. 63.2
> When houres haue dreind his blood and fild his brow Son. 63.3
> With lines and wrincles,when his youthfull morne Son. 63.4
> Hath trauaild on to Ages steepie night, Son. 63.5
> And all those beauties whereof now he's King Son. 63.6
> Are vanishing,or vanisht out of sight, Son. 63.7
> Stealing away the treasure of his Spring. Son. 63.8
> For such a time do I now fortifie Son. 63.9
> Against confounding Ages cruell knife, Son. 63.10
> That he shall neuer cut from memory Son. 63.11
> My sweet loues beauty,though my louers life. Son. 63.12
> His beautie shall in these blacke lines be seene, Son. 63.13
> And they shall liue , and he in them still greene. Son. 63.14
Lynne
> Time hasn't got hands. It simply isn't that kind of thing. So
> evidently we are faced with a metaphor. (Presumably nobody will
> suggest this means the hands of a clock?) The work of time is to wear
> things out, and to wear people out; that is what is meant by the word
> 'over-worn'. But before that more literal word we have another, more
> appropriate to hands. Time grasps and crushes things.
Of course it's a clock metaphor (as well as suggesting much else). It
is particularly apt as I believe most clocks in the sixteenth c
(please correct me if I'm wrong)had only one hand. As Shakespeare says
elsewhere (R and J):
"The bawdy hand of the dial is upon the prick of noon." Or words to
that effect. I expect I have it right. I always remember the ruder
lines.
:)LynnE
Paul Crowley
> >> But in both cases each meaning will mesh with the rest of the
> >> words in the poem, to give a coherent overall meaning.
> >
> >No. It won't. Find one case where it does
> >and state the 'coherent overall meaning'.
> >Alternatively, (or additionally) look at the
> >standard commentators and quote from the
> >extensive range of 'coherent overall
> >meaning[s]' which they find.
>
> Robert Stonehouse has already done a good job of that in his
> paraphrases of the Sonnets over the last couple of years.
Robert has made a brave effort -- but has
failed to produce anything convincing, let
alone pleasant.
Why do the standard commentators never
attempt anything along Robert's lines?
-- because it can only be disastrous.
Of course, they don't tell us that, nor even
if they ever tried to produce a paraphrase.
Paul.
Gary Kosinsky
Okay, Paul, you've made a point. The commentators do not
offer a paraphrase of each Sonnet. (And I don't think I've ever
realized how unique Robert Stonehouse's efforts are along these
lines.)
What they do do, however, is to (generally) explicate a word
or phrase in such a way that accords with the overall meaning of the
sonnet.
It is precisely this which you do *not* do. In a poem, such
as Sonnet 63, which we agree is at least superficially about the
effects of time (or Time) on beauty, you claim the poet suddenly
throws in a reference about his mining activities. Such a reference
obviously has no connection with the 'superficial' meaning of the
Sonnet. You also admit it is not a theme that is sustained in the
Sonnet, or at least that there is no coherent way of paraphrasing that
theme if it is sustained. Taken together, both these points suggest
to me that the poet did not intend to make any reference to mining
activities in the poem, and that you are simply 'reading in' some
bizarre references in order to advance your idiosyncratic theory that
the poems were written by Edward de Vere.
- Gary Kosinsky
Robert Stonehouse
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
>"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.uk> wrote in message
>news:3f8d03c8...@news.cityscape.co.uk...
>>> > Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
>>> > "Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before the
>>> > plurisignification of language and overlapping of multiple structures
>>> > visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be satisfied by irresolution
>>> > with respect to its fundamental gestalt - seems to me too ready a
>>> > surrender to hermeneutic suspicion."
>.
>Helen Vendler comments (Introduction, page 13):
>"Yet Booth's critical stance - that the critic, helpless before
>the the fact that words often have more than one meaning
>[plurisignification of language] and overlapping of multiple
>structures visible in a Shakespearean sonnet, must be
>satisfied by remaining uncertain what the poem as a whole
>is basically about [irresolution with respect to its
>fundamental gestalt] - seems to me too ready a giving up
>the search for the meaning, not trusting any particular
>interpretation [surrender to hermeneutic suspicion]."
>
>The conclusions seems a bit weak to me -- when
>translated into English. Perhaps that's why she
>didn't use the language!
Aha, you want a coherent paraphrase!
"Booth holds that any critic is overwhelmed by the variety of meanings
of words and the clashes of different structures that are to be found
in a Shakespeare sonnet, and so can do no better than remain uncertain
about what the whole thing means. I think that is too easy a surrender
to doubts about whether we can achieve a successsful interpretation."
...
Bob Grumman
> >translated into English. Perhaps that's why she
> >didn't use the language!
>
> Aha, you want a coherent paraphrase!
> "Booth holds that any critic is overwhelmed by the variety of meanings
> of words and the clashes of different structures that are to be found
> in a Shakespeare sonnet, and so can do no better than remain uncertain
> about what the whole thing means. I think that is too easy a surrender
> to doubts about whether we can achieve a successsful interpretation."
> ...
No, he wants very ordinary critical language, as used by Helen
Vendler, who is about as clear a writer as any critic writing, brought
down to the level of a person who has read almost no criticism of
poetry, and knows less than nothing about it ("less than nothing"
because arrogant erroneousness is less than pure ignorance).
--Bob G.
Paul Crowley
> Okay, Paul, you've made a point. The commentators do not
> offer a paraphrase of each Sonnet. (And I don't think I've ever
> realized how unique Robert Stonehouse's efforts are along these
> lines.)
>
> What they do do, however, is to (generally) explicate a word
> or phrase in such a way that accords with the overall meaning of the
> sonnet.
>
> It is precisely this which you do *not* do.
The exercise of the standard commentators is
trivial. In most sonnets, I don't disagree with
them, as such -- but they only deal with the
superficial and miss almost everything of
significance.
> In a poem, such
> as Sonnet 63, which we agree is at least superficially about the
> effects of time (or Time) on beauty, you claim the poet suddenly
> throws in a reference about his mining activities.
No. He does not 'suddenly throw in' those
references. The sonnet is _mostly_ about
the birth of his infant son, and about several
other matters in his current life, as I have
explained many times. He weaves them into
the tapestry of a sonnet that is only
superficially about the effect of Time on
beauty.
It's as though all you can see is the fabric
of the plain cloth, and you miss all the
coloured threads which tell a variety of
different stories.
> Such a reference obviously has no connection
> with the 'superficial' meaning of the Sonnet.
On the contrary, Time does not work in some
idle, neutral manner. Our lives are dominated
by accidents and events -- wonderful, tragic
enhancing and devastating. The poet was
talking about the extraordinary ones in his life
by which, at different times, he was inspired
and exalted and at others, drained and crushed.
> You also admit it is not a theme that is sustained in the
> Sonnet, or at least that there is no coherent way of paraphrasing that
> theme if it is sustained.
Perhaps there is, and I've not been up
to it. In any case, it's not been one of
my concerns.
> Taken together, both these points suggest
> to me that the poet did not intend to make any reference to mining
> activities in the poem, and that you are simply 'reading in' some
> bizarre references in order to advance your idiosyncratic theory that
> the poems were written by Edward de Vere.
If I were 'reading them in' -- and they
weren't present in the sonnet, then it
would be extremely obvious. You would
be able to show that in each and every
case -- as I distort the sense and twist
the context, or misread the OED or
misinterpret the history -- to suit the
'pun' or the 'allusion'.
You have a choice:
(a) I am a genius of invention beyond
compare. I have been able to 'show' that
the sonnets relate to the life of Edward
de Vere at a level one-thousand-fold
better than any Strat has ever been
able to demonstrate that they relate to
the life of the Stratman; OR
(b) The references and puns I find are
actually present in the sonnets.
Which is it?
Paul.
John W. Kennedy
> Of course it's a clock metaphor (as well as suggesting much else). It
> is particularly apt as I believe most clocks in the sixteenth c
> (please correct me if I'm wrong)had only one hand. As Shakespeare says
> elsewhere (R and J):
>
> "The bawdy hand of the dial is upon the prick of noon." Or words to
> that effect. I expect I have it right. I always remember the ruder
> lines.
Yes. The minute hand was invented in 1577, and took a while to make it
into regular use. (Few clocks were accurate enough to make a minute
hand useful until the introduction of the pendulum.)
--
John W. Kennedy
"You can, if you wish, class all science-fiction
together; but it is about as perceptive as classing the
works of Ballantyne, Conrad and W. W. Jacobs together
as the 'sea-story' and then criticizing _that_."
-- C. S. Lewis. "An Experiment in Criticism"
Paul Crowley
"Booth thinks that the sonnets are so
complex that we can never say what they
mean. I think that sometimes, maybe,
we can."
(Ah, the benefits of an academic training!
Never in the field of human bullshit have
so many words of such length been used
to say so little.)
However, she herself nowhere sets out
to present paraphrases of the sonnets--
and nearly always appears to be quite
"satisfied by irresolution with respect
to its fundamental gestalt"
Paul.
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:
Well, I called it a dark saying myself - I did think this was one of
the less transparent sentences. And I don't feel entitled to complain
when Paul puts together my explanations to produce an incoherent
paraphrase, or not very much, because I have done the same with his.
Mind, I only did it because he refused to produce any paraphrase at
all!
Gary Kosinsky
<slkwuoiut...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
SNIP of stuff we've been around and through before
>You have a choice:
>(a) I am a genius of invention beyond
>compare. I have been able to 'show' that
>the sonnets relate to the life of Edward
>de Vere at a level one-thousand-fold
>better than any Strat has ever been
>able to demonstrate that they relate to
>the life of the Stratman; OR
>(b) The references and puns I find are
>actually present in the sonnets.
>
>Which is it?
Neither. Obviously I do not think the 'references' and 'puns'
you find are actually present in the sonnets.
However, that you are able to use the Crowleyan Realistic
Approach to Poetry (CRAP) to find references to your chosen author,
Oxford, does not make you a super genius of invention, any more than
my ability to find references to William Shakespeare in Sonnet 63
(none of which, incidentally, you have yet been able to refute) makes
me a super genius of invention. Or, for that matter, Peter Farey's
ability to do a reading of Sonnet 112, focussing on his chosen author,
makes him a super genius of invention. It simply shows that if one is
so inclined, one can read all manner of 'meanings' into the Sonnets.
And at this point I expect you to dismiss the 'references' and
'puns' that I may have found in the Sonnet as being unworthy and
invalid, while yours are not. Which leads me to a question: Can you
spell out the criteria by which you judge whether a 'pun' or
'reference' actually exists? And how this objective standard allows
for the inclusion of all *your* 'puns', and excludes any other puns,
including mine, and Bob's, and Peter's, and Lynne's, and whoever
else's? I think a clear statement of this principle would help us all
understand your CRAP a bit better, if you can make it.
- Gary Kosinsky
Bob Grumman
This is an excellent attempt to bring Vendler down to your level,
Paul, but it
leaves a lot of things out, as all paraphrases must. For instance,
the reference to "hermeneutic suspicion" is--hey, irony--aimed at
certain critics (the way you insert your contempt for "Strats" into so
much you write). "Plurisignificance" is probably an attempt at making
her style somewhat interesting with a coinage, something Shakespeare
also did. It also is sums up the many words which might otherwise be
needed.
> "Booth thinks that the sonnets are so
> complex that we can never say what they
> mean. I think that sometimes, maybe,
> we can."
That's neither what Vendler said nor what Robert's paraphrase said.
Mainly, Vendler does not say that we sometimes can figure out what the
sonnets mean; she says we should not assume we can't figure out their
major meanings, with a strong suggestion that we almost always can.
> (Ah, the benefits of an academic training!
> Never in the field of human bullshit have
> so many words of such length been used
> to say so little.)
>
> However, she herself nowhere sets out
> to present paraphrases of the sonnets--
That would surprise me, if true. Which I don't know, not having read
her on the sonnets (that I remember). Unless she takes it for granted
that anyone reading her would know what any of the sonnets was mainly
about.
> and nearly always appears to be quite
> "satisfied by irresolution with respect
> to its fundamental gestalt"
>
> Paul.
I rather doubt that. She's not that kind of critic.
--Bob G.
Paul Crowley
> >You have a choice:
> >(a) I am a genius of invention beyond
> >compare. I have been able to 'show' that
> >the sonnets relate to the life of Edward
> >de Vere at a level one-thousand-fold
> >better than any Strat has ever been
> >able to demonstrate that they relate to
> >the life of the Stratman; OR
> >(b) The references and puns I find are
> >actually present in the sonnets.
> >
> >Which is it?
>
> Neither. Obviously I do not think the 'references' and 'puns'
> you find are actually present in the sonnets.
Yet you are sedulous in your care
never to criticise any in detail.
Congratulations.
> However, that you are able to use the Crowleyan Realistic
> Approach to Poetry (CRAP) to find references to your chosen author,
> Oxford, does not make you a super genius of invention, any more than
> my ability to find references to William Shakespeare in Sonnet 63
> (none of which, incidentally, you have yet been able to refute) makes
> me a super genius of invention. Or, for that matter, Peter Farey's
> ability to do a reading of Sonnet 112, focussing on his chosen author,
> makes him a super genius of invention. It simply shows that if one is
> so inclined, one can read all manner of 'meanings' into the Sonnets.
>
> And at this point I expect you to dismiss the 'references' and
> 'puns' that I may have found in the Sonnet as being unworthy and
> invalid, while yours are not. Which leads me to a question: Can you
> spell out the criteria by which you judge whether a 'pun' or
> 'reference' actually exists?
Yes. That's very easy -- although you'll
have to do a tiny amount of work first.
A pun or punning allusion has to play
on at least one other meaning -- which
should follow the same (or another)
grammatical sense of the words as
printed.
So all you have to do is to set out all
the rules of English that determine both
grammar and meaning. Then we can
see whether or not the second (or
third or fourth, etc) meanings also fall
within those rules.
Can you get it done before Monday?
While we wait for you to complete that
minor, trivial task, you might appreciate
why I keep asking for criticisms of my
puns. Without all those rules clearly
set out, we have to rely on our own
'innate knowledge' of what works and
what doesn't. We can all instantly spot
an expression or use that breaches a
rule -- even if we have never heard or
seen it articulated. So when someone
says 'the red big house' instead of 'the
big red house' we know that he is
probably not a native speaker of English.
Likewise, if there was anything wrong
with the puns (or punning allusions)
that I find in the sonnets, all the Strats
(and 'fair youth' theorists) in this NG
would be down on me like a ton of
bricks.
So I can rest assured that there is little
or nothing wrong with them.
The kind of crap that you and Bob
Grumman occasionally produce is so
bad that it is not worth comment. And
you know it -- as does everyone else
around here. (Spam Scone had a go
at much the same sort of thing a few
months ago.)
Tuesday will do for that list, btw, if
you're busy over the weekend.
Paul.
Gary Kosinsky
You're dodging, Paul. The fact is, you cannot give us a
rational explanation as to why the 'puns' and 'references' which you
find are valid, and the 'puns' and references' which the rest of us
find are not valid. The validity of your entire interpretation is
based on nothing more than your say-so. And unfortunately for your
interpretation, your say-so doesn't carry much weight around here.
>While we wait for you to complete that
>minor, trivial task, you might appreciate
>why I keep asking for criticisms of my
>puns.
As do I, for criticisms of my puns. And you never oblige.
>Without all those rules clearly
>set out, we have to rely on our own
>'innate knowledge' of what works and
>what doesn't.
Okay. Yours don't. Mine do.
> We can all instantly spot
>an expression or use that breaches a
>rule -- even if we have never heard or
>seen it articulated. So when someone
>says 'the red big house' instead of 'the
>big red house' we know that he is
>probably not a native speaker of English.
>Likewise, if there was anything wrong
>with the puns (or punning allusions)
>that I find in the sonnets, all the Strats
>(and 'fair youth' theorists) in this NG
>would be down on me like a ton of
>bricks.
As seems to be happening.
>So I can rest assured that there is little
>or nothing wrong with them.
>The kind of crap that you and Bob
>Grumman occasionally produce is so
>bad that it is not worth comment. And
>you know it -- as does everyone else
>around here. (Spam Scone had a go
>at much the same sort of thing a few
>months ago.)
To quote yourself: "Yet you are sedulous in your care
never to criticise any in detail. Congratulations."
- Gary Kosinsky
Paul Crowley
> >> And at this point I expect you to dismiss the 'references' and
> >> 'puns' that I may have found in the Sonnet as being unworthy and
> >> invalid, while yours are not. Which leads me to a question: Can you
> >> spell out the criteria by which you judge whether a 'pun' or
> >> 'reference' actually exists?
> >
> >Yes. That's very easy -- although you'll
> >have to do a tiny amount of work first.
> >A pun or punning allusion has to play
> >on at least one other meaning -- which
> >should follow the same (or another)
> >grammatical sense of the words as
> >printed.
I was too hasty here. The general rules are
more complex -- and would be well worth
setting out in some detail, if anyone ever
gets the time. Maybe someone has done
it?
Many puns rely on sound, so the printed
words are only a guide. As in:
'confounding Ages' = 'confoundin gages'
Wit is another major element -- possibly
THE major one. But who is to outline the
range covered by 'wit'? Shakespeare's
puns are full of superb wit, whereas the
'puns' of Gary and Bob are as flat and as
worthless as a hammered coin.
Strats (and other 'fair youth' theorists)
probably fail to appreciate much of the
wit in the puns I've located, and perhaps
I should try to explain them in more detail.
Or perhaps not. If you don't get a joke,
it's usually impossible for anyone to
explain it to you. Speed and timing are
everything.
Much of Shakespeare's wit comes from
the contrasting images -- especially
between the faux-sublime and the utterly
mundane. So Time (with his cruel knife)
in 'confounding Ages' is set against this
ill-written confused challenge from a low
provincial fellow addressed to the 17th
Earl -- the man actually thought the
thing was reasonable!. But there are
real knives around and the poet does
intend to fortify himself against them.
Or in this sonnet, the hackneyed image
of the rising sun in its journey across the
sky is portrayed in 'youthful morn' and
that is set against the howling cries of a
new-born infant -- with the implicit
assertion that the latter is of far greater
value. Shakespeare constantly sets out
to undermine poetic pomposity.
This aspect will greatly disturb Strats
(and FY theorists) around here. They
LIKE poetic pomposity. In fact, they
don't know what else poetry should be
about other than hackneyed images --
such as that of TIME -- and the sun on
its daily journey across the sky. For
them, poetry can only be about
pomposity -- and have no other aim.
Paul.