Sonnets, Plain and Sugared
The Historian
various combinations, a mixture of the two main styles of the period,
referred to by C. S. Lewis as the 'drab' and 'golden.' In writing, or
choosing, lyrics to be set, Dowland shows a special affinity for the
'drab', or what his contemporaries called, less prejudicially, the
'plain' style, which they contrasted to the 'golden' or 'sugared'
style
of Spenser and Sidney.... The plain stylist, avoiding the elevated
diction common to the 'sugared' poets, did not scruple to use words
like 'grutch', and his favorite poetic pose - always tough, sometimes
cynical - was that of one man giving another man plain talk about
life.
Whereas Spenser devotes an entire book of *The Faerie Queene* to a
'sugared' celebration of the virtues of Friendship, the plain-stylist
Barnabe Googe begins his poem on the subject with 'Give money me, take
friendship who so list...'
-Edward Tayler, liner notes to Arabesque Recordings' "Awake Sweet
Love:
The Music of John Dowland"
We have an example of a "golden" or "sugared" sonneteer in
Shakespeare. Examples of the "plain" style?
Mark Houlsby
Interesting question, Neil. I assume that you're asking for examples
of the "plain" style with respect to Shakespeare sonnets, rather than
plain sonnets by other poets.
I was wondering whether Sonnet 107 might qualify. One might venture a
case for 113 too, what with its "deformed'st creature" and the closing
line's sentiment: "My most true mind thus mak'th mine eye untrue". The
latter might be convincingly argued to be, if not golden, then at
least aureate.
Of course, what strikes one is how *few* examples which fit your
description one can call to mind.
Regards
Mark
Mark Houlsby
It just occurred to me too that given that you were quoting a sleeve
note, perhaps you referred specifically to verse set to music. I shall
rack my brains, as soon as I get them down from the rack.
The Moderator
On Apr 4, 8:59 pm, "The Historian" <neil.thehistor...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> "The most impressive poems of the English Renaissance reveal, in
> various combinations, a mixture of the two main styles of the period,
> referred to by C. S. Lewis as the 'drab' and 'golden.' In writing, or
> choosing, lyrics to be set, Dowland shows a special affinity for the
> 'drab', or what his contemporaries called, less prejudicially, the
> 'plain' style, which they contrasted to the 'golden' or 'sugared'
> style
> of Spenser and Sidney.... The plain stylist, avoiding the elevated
> diction common to the 'sugared' poets, did not scruple to use words
> like 'grutch',
Hmmm, yet Spenser does in fact use the word 'grutch' in FQ.
But could not colour yet so well the troth,
But that their natures bad appeard in both:
For both did at their second sister [H] grutch,
And inly grieue, as doth an hidden moth
Perhaps 'plain style' is not well judged from mere choice of words?
>and his favorite poetic pose - always tough, sometimes
> cynical - was that of one man giving another man plain talk about
> life.
> Whereas Spenser devotes an entire book of *The Faerie Queene* to a
> 'sugared' celebration of the virtues of Friendship, the plain-stylist
> Barnabe Googe begins his poem on the subject with 'Give money me, take
> friendship who so list...'
Give money me, take friendship whoso list,
For friends are gone, come once adversity,
When money yet remaineth safe in chest,
That quickly can thee bring from misery;
Fair face show friends when riches do abound;
Come time of proof, farewell, they must away;
Believe me well, they are not to be found
If God but send thee once a lowering day.
Gold never starts aside, but in distress,
Finds ways enough to ease thine heaviness.
(Googe, Of Money)
> -Edward Tayler, liner notes to Arabesque Recordings' "Awake Sweet
> Love:
> The Music of John Dowland"
>
> We have an example of a "golden" or "sugared" sonneteer in
> Shakespeare. Examples of the "plain" style?
You are looking, I take it, for an eg of a plain style sonneteer? Will
have a look.
[As an aside, I think we can fairly say that WS uses the distinction
between plain and sugared style in his dramas. eg in Romeo and Juliet,
we have the titular characters engaging in what may be called a
romanticised or ''sugared'' version of love and we have other
(Mercutio one, AFAIR) characters expressing somewhat baser motives.]
Mark Houlsby
Indeed, and then there are those who arguably fit neither description
exactly, e.g. Malvolio in TN, whose romantic exploits are neither
plain *nor* sugared.
Ignoto
On Apr 4, 8:59 pm, "The Historian" <neil.thehistor...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> "The most impressive poems of the English Renaissance reveal, in
> various combinations, a mixture of the two main styles of the period,
> referred to by C. S. Lewis as the 'drab' and 'golden.'
In fact rhetoricians of the period (following classical precedent),
generally identified three styles:
"the great or mighty kind, when we use words, or vehement figures; the
small kind, when we moderate our heat by meaner words, and use not the
most stirring sentences; the low kind, when we use no metaphors nor
translated words, nor yet use any amplifications, but go plainly to
work, and speak altogether in common words."
(Thomas Wilson, Art of Rhetoric, 1585)
Marlowe is generally credited with successfully bringing the 'great'
or 'mighty' style to the stage.
[snip]