The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 26.498  Thursday, 22 October 2015

 

[1] From:        Peter T Hadorn <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

     Date:         October 21, 2015 at 2:31:50 PM EDT

     Subject:    Re: SHAKSPER: Sonnets 

 

[2] From:        William Sutton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

     Date:         October 22, 2015 at 5:47:48 AM EDT

     Subject:    Re: SHAKSPER: Sonnets 

 

[3] From:        Ian Steere <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

     Date:         October 22, 2015 at 9:12:13 AM EDT

     Subject:    Shakespeare's Sonnets 

 

 

[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------

From:        Peter T Hadorn <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         October 21, 2015 at 2:31:50 PM EDT

Subject:    Re: SHAKSPER: Sonnets

 

Regarding bawdy language in the sonnets, I support Ian Steere’s reading of 52.  (Fwiw, the “being had” innuendo of line 14 can also be seen in Antonio’s line to Sebastian in “12N”: “there you shall have me” [3.2.42].)  Being the master of language that he was, it is unthinkable (for me) to believe that Shakespeare was unaware of what his words could potentially mean to his listeners/readers.  That he’s not above such wordplay appears everywhere in Shakespeare.  In the sonnets, the best examples are 135 &136.  Booth and Pequigney are especially alert to these double entendres.

 

But this is what interests me and perhaps readers can help me in this.  I do not think the sonnets are autobiographical.  As my students remind me, if you write four sonnets you’re in love with someone; if you write 154 sonnets, you’re in love with sonnets.  Shakespeare’s sonnets are no more autobiographical than are Petrarch’s, Sidney’s, and Spenser’s.  To be sure, the writer wants us to associate the speaker of the poems with the writer, but I firmly believe that the speaker is a created persona, which for me makes the poems much more interesting.  So here’s my question: why in serious matters does Shakespeare employ bawdy wordplay?  I believe it is more than just the bad-boy Shakespeare sniggering over his dirty jokes.  

 

Consider the following examples.  On the one hand, we have the bad-boy dirty jokes of Mercutio in 2.1.  Fine. But what should we make of the Nurse’s speech in Friar Laurence’s cell to the hysterical Romeo: “. . . stand an you be a man,/ For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.  Why should you fall into so deep an O” (3.3.38-40)?  I don’t believe the Nurse is aware of what she is saying (in the bawdy sense).  So why is Shakespeare suddenly inserting something that could get laughs in a scene that is quite serious?  Is it similar to the scene when the dying Antony is being lifted into Cleopatra’s monument (“A heavy sight”: nothing bawdy here; just unexpected humor in a serious scene)?

 

Here’s my second example.  If we read Lucio’s lines in 2.2 of “Measure for Measure,” he appears to be encouraging Isabella to perform oral sex.  Why?  I would like to think that Shakespeare is associating the persuasive power of rhetoric with sex.  But that doesn’t help me with, say, Sonnet 50.  I’m sorry, but I see in this poignant poem about the speaker leaving his beloved behind pervasive language suggesting anal sex: made (maid), thrusts, groan, my joy behind.  And don't get me started on 75. 

 

So far, the best that I can come up with is that Shakespeare is playing with his reader, showing us what language can do in whipping us back and forth in our attempts to interpret the poem.  Or, if we take the speaker as a created persona, perhaps the persona is unconsciously embedding language that reveals his most personal desires.

 

Any suggestions would be welcomed.

 

Best,

Peter T. Hadorn

Associate Professor of English

Department of Humanities

University of Wisconsin-Platteville

 

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------

From:        William Sutton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         October 22, 2015 at 5:47:48 AM EDT

Subject:    Re: SHAKSPER: Sonnets

 

Sonnet eroticism:

 

Sonnet 52 at a stretch. The most obviously erotic are Sonnet 56, 129, and 151. The punning alone proves it.

 

All the best

Will

 

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------

From:        Ian Steere <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         October 22, 2015 at 9:12:13 AM EDT

Subject:    Shakespeare's Sonnets

 

Here is a summary of certain views expressed or implied by Jim Carroll in this thread:

 

1. He can see no eroticism of any kind in the Sonnets;

2. The content of their prefatory material is insignificant (except where W.H. is to be taken as as W.SH.);

3. The begetter of a venture is not a begetter;

4. Parallels with precedent works are highly significant in determining the background to composition - except where these conflict with his construction, whereupon they become “out of context”.

5. Those who allow the possibility of poetic inspiration from real relationships are all “true believers”, who project their fantasies into their interpretations.

6. There is no need to assess the evidence which I have offered, because this would defy “common sense”.

 

One other consideration aside, I would leave things at that. Jim has said enough to let readers weigh his philosophy and approach. However, the one consideration is an issue which Jim has consistently fought shy of addressing. I presented it in this thread thus:

 

X is an author fond of, and skilled in, the use of puns. He produces a work, Y, whose puns and other circumstances point to the tribulations of a common poet, who has no formal higher education and who is sometimes called Will. Will has only ever dedicated his poetry to one person. Initially, he receives encouragement from a young, marriage-resistant, androgynous-looking lord. He then feels let down by a change in attitude and the aristocrat's preference of a rival. In response he directs reproaches and insults towards his social superior, the young noble. 

 

I asked Jim “Please tell us: (a) how these messages do not provide extraordinary parallels with much of the content of, and themes in, the sonnets; and (b) why, assuming that Y precedes the sonnets, it should not then be used in the interpretation of those poems?".

 

Of course, Jim knew where I was going with this. I had already provided a short-cut to the conclusion. However, that short-cut may have disguised some important steps of assessment, which should be brought out.

 

First, the above work, Y, exists, as I have earlier indicated. It does indeed provide extraordinary parallels with much of the content of, and themes in, the sonnets. These parallels are more distinctive and more extensive than any quoted by Jim in order to infer the technical inspiration for some of the poems (or their fragments). On these qualities alone, Y should be at the forefront of sources to be examined under Jim’s methodology.

 

However, there are other dimensions. For X is also the author of the sonnets. Now, it is not just a matter of partial imitation or re-working of others’ techniques. We see two works by the same author which promote the same highly distinctive messages. Who will now deny the strong probability that each work is founded upon  the same influences?

 

But now the aspect fatal to Jim’s preferred theory: Y is undoubtedly expressed in his own voice by Shakespeare and is clearly addressed to Henry Wriothesley. It is the dedication of Venus & Adonis. That poem itself contains strong echoes of Wriothesley’s recorded qualities (of the early 1590s) and those perceptible in the addressee of many of the subsequently published sonnets.

 

Any true scholar presented with this evidence would wish investigated the theory that compositions of the sonnets (and/or their supply) were grounded in a relationship between Shakespeare and Wriothesley. One who did investigate would find other highly unusual parallels between the sonnets and Wriothesley’s history. He or she would find no inconsistencies with the core theory; s/he would find a simple explanation (previously lacking) for all the problematic circumstances of publication of the poems - supported by Wriothesley’s history (but no one else’s). In short, s/he would find plenty of objective evidence and common sense. S/he would, however, remain confronted by the most interesting, unresolved question of this thread. Why do “Shakespearians”, as a body, look the other way?      

 

 

 

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