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Monday, October 14, 2024

Shakespeare's Luffa: the Sonnets as Autobiography.

The question as to whether Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical has been asked ever since a Shakespeare industry arose in the mid-18th century. It was first asked, most pointedly, in respect of the sexuality they seemed to evidence.

I quote from my own Was Shakespeare Gay?1

Preemptive explanations were of the utmost importance. The venerable and irreproachable Steevens’ comments were cited.

—the master mistress of my passion,] It is impossible to read this fulsome panegyrick addressed, to a male object, without an equal mixture of disgust and indignation. We may remark also, that the same phrase employed by Shakspeare to denote the height of encomium, is used by Dryden to express the extreme of reproach.

“That woman, but more daub’d; or if a man,

Corrupted to a woman, thy man mistress.” Don Sebastian.

Let me be just, however, to our author, who has made a proper use of the term male varlet in Troilus and Cressida. See that play, Act V. sc. i. Steevens.2

Still, this read more as confused retreat than defense. It would take two footnotes (one citing the other) for Malone himself to find his ground. Between the two, he established what is for many still the proper line of explanation.

Some part of this indignation might perhaps have been abated, if it had been considered that such addresses to men, however indelicate, were customary in our authour's time, and neither imported criminality, nor were esteemed indecorous. See a note on the words— “thy deceased lover” in the 32d Sonnet. To regulate our judgment of Shakspeare's poems by the modes of modern times, is surely as unreasonable as to try his plays by the rules of Aristotle. Master-mistress does not perhaps mean man-mistress, but sovereign mistress. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note on the 165th verse of the Canterbury Tales, Vol. IV. P. 197. Malone.3

The phrase “imported criminality” refers to the fact that intimate physical same sex relations were, at that time, quite literally a crime. Among the lower classes the punishments were harsh, generally the death penalty. Among the upper, there was a strict policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. Upon the rare failure of that policy, the family lawyers would make excellent money providing alternative explanations before a judge who had better things to do with his professional time.

At that time, there was no considerable question on the matter. The sonnets were records of the poet's life — in particular, his intimate relationships — as was demonstrably the case in virtually every sonnet sequence by every poet.

Still, such phrases as “master mistress of my passion” (and there are more than a few) demanded an explanation. Among the most convenient was the persistent minority opinion that they were not to be interpreted as autobiography.

Was Shakespeare Gay? What do the sonnets really say?

In the year 1817 there appeared fateful book, by one Nathan Drake, entitled Shakespeare and his Times. It was generally well reasoned as any might be that was required to begin from the assumption that they were written by a grain-dealer from Stratford-upon-Avon, and, subsequently, that the earliest were written no earlier than 1597.

His most insupportable assertion, however, was that the first 126 sonnets were to one “lovely boy”. There is no evidence remotely sufficient to support this. A goodly number of the first 126 sonnets are indeed to the same person. The identity of that person disqualifies the Stratford man as the author.

So then, he was correct that the subject of many of the sonnets was clearly a member of the nobility. Combine that fact with the sole member of the nobility associated with the works as interpreted through what little we know of the Stratford biography and voila....

If we may be allowed, in our turn, to conjecture, we would fix upon LORD SOUTHAMPTON as the subject of Shakspeare's sonnets, from the first to the hundredth and twenty-sixth, inclusive.4

This is wrong on both counts, I submit, which explains the utter lack of evidence to support them.

This “conjecture” was followed by a discourse expanding Malone's on the use of the word “love(r)” in Tudor and early Stuart correspondence which is by and large correct but not conclusive. And is no explanation for “master mistress of my passion,” etc.

And with that Nathan Drake won the literary history lottery. In short order, the world of Shakespeare scholarship was nearly of one mind. It has only grown moreso since. Even proponents of alternative authorship subscribe to Southampton being the subject of the first 126 sonnets.

Drake's book was a starter's pistol of sorts. Ever since, scores of Shakespeare scholars have spent the centuries writing explanations of the autobiographical references in each sonnet. The Stratford grain-dealer with a modest paper trail has since been revealed to us as a man of aristocratic passions explained by the fact that such genius carries within itself its own inherent sense of nobility. Surely it is only a matter of time before a reference is discovered to his own personal luffa and the jeweled casket in which it accompanied him on his travels.

It had only been a matter of time, after all, before the challenge to the authorship of the Stratford man led to mining the plays, as well, for autobiography. As the result, he gained orders of magnitude more personality. Seeing the danger, Stratfordians have desperately reversed course about the presence of autobiographical material in the works of The Bard. That part of the irrefutable traditional scholarship supporting the Stratford man was no longer irrefutable — nor had it ever been essential in any way to identifying him as the author of the works. Among the poets and playwrights of his day Shakespeare was utterly unique in that his work contains no references whatsoever to his biography — none, at least, that can't be applied to a grain-dealer, glover's son. Again, the inscrutable nature of such genius.




1Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Was Shakespeare Gay? What do the sonnets really say? (2015). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TWPBPP8 

2 Malone, ed. Edmond, The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare, Volume the Tenth. (1790). @ 207.

3 Ibid. @ 207.

4Drake, Nathan. Shakespeare and his Times (1817). II.62.



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Saturday, September 28, 2024

Stylistic Matches Between the Poetry of Edward de Vere and Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors.

A bit over a year ago, now, one of the Oxfrauds among us — Mark Johnson, as I recall — revived an old standby among his cohorts regarding a poem by Edward de Vere that appeared in the front matter of his one-time tutor's translation of Cardenas Comfort.

For hee that beates the bushe the byrde not gets.

But who sittes still, and holdeth fast the nets.

These are the final two lines of the poem Edward de Vere donated to the volume, first published in 1573.

This began in the comment thread to a post by group member Kerry Kirk comparing Vere's sometimes rampant alliteration to five lines from Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. I added that the early Shakespeare play Comedy of Errors is rife with fourteeners, Poulter's Measure and irregular couplets. 

You are on the right track, Kerry. Errors is almost certainly the earliest play in the accepted canon. Many lines in IV.ii. are written in fourteeners, the metrical line preferred by the young Edward de Vere and the similarity with his juvenal poems is striking.

It is by no means the only early play by Shakespeare or poem by Edward de Vere that include such matter.

I posted a reply shortly thereafter entitled “To D.W.R. In re the 'Frauds and Beating the Bush with Young Shakespeare” in which I pointed out two things:

1) The poem was a revision of an earlier poem by Vere, collected by Richard Edwards, master of the Children of the Royal Chapel, who died in 1566. Presumably, then, it was written when he was 16 years of age or younger. The original was written in the Poulter's Measure that was highly popular at the time. The 1573 version was converted into iambic pentameter. As in most such cases (and there are many), the conversion took something away from the quality of the verse.

2) That beating the bush and losing the bird was even then an old and highly popular proverb. My essay shows examples of its use in the writings of Rabelais and Edmund Spenser.

None of this received reply. In particular, Mr. Johnson continued as if neither Kerry nor I had so much as mentioned the Comedy of Errors.

My essay was posted again, recently, in the normal rotation at Edward de Vere Was Shakespeare Facebook Group. As always, in the comment thread, Johnson waxed glorious in his confidence that Shakespeare could not ever have written such a thing at any age.

Sing-song, immature, amateur verse, lacking in anyfigures of speech, cliched, full of excessive alliteration serving noaesthetic purpose (in the mid-century style he was accustomed to),clumsy scansion, simplistic language, etc. — hackneyed doggerel.

The collective 'Fraud yawp is that Shakespeare would never have written such doggerel and certainly not at 23 years of age. “Doggerel,” he triumphantly cried, “500, 1000 miles, a world away from Shakespeare.”

As it turns out, I am in-progress on my next book-length study, which will address at length, among other matters, the history and text of the Comedy of Errors. So then, I can justify taking precious time away for this particular post. For it is not time away.

The following swatch from Act III, Scene i, is a representative example for present purposes.

Ant. E. What art thou that keep'st me out from the house I owe?

Dro. S. [ Within.] The porter for this time, sir, and my name is Dromio.

Dro. E. O villain, thou hast stolen both mine office and my name!

The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.

If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,

Thou wouldst have changed thy face for a name, or thy name for a face.

Luce. [ Within.'] What a coil is there, Dromio? who are those at the gate?

Dro. E. Let my master in, Luce.

Luce.                             [ Within.] 'Faith no; he comes too late;

And so tell your master.

Dro. E.                         O Lord! I must laugh!

Have at you with a proverb;—Shall I set in my staff?

Luce. [ Within.] Have at you with another: that 's—When? can you tell?

Dro. S. [Within!] If thy name be called Luce, — Luce, thou hast answered him well.

Ant. E. Do you hear, you minion? you'll let us in, I trow?

Luce. [ Within.] I thought to have asked you.

Dro. S.                        [Within.] And you said, no.

Dro. E. So; come, help: well struck! there was blow for blow.

Ant. E. Thou baggage, let me in.

Luce.                          [ Within.] Can you tell for whose sake?

Dro. E. Master, knock the door hard.

Luce.                          [ Within.] Let him knock till it ache.

Ant. E. You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.

Luce. [ Within.] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?

Adr. [ Within!] Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noise?

Dro. S. [ Within.] By my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys.

Ant. E. Are you there, wife? you might have come before.

Adr. [Within.] Your wife, sir knave? go get you from the door.

These lines are largely written in iambic hexameter, fourteeners and poulter's measure. Elsewhere in the play are prose and iambic pentameter lines apparently transformed from originals in poulter's measure and also described by scholars over the centuries as “doggerel”. Lines in each meter, throughout Errors, contain word inversions as does Edward's poem at the front of Cardenus Comfort.

Comedy of Errors is also strewn throughout with popular proverbs of the times many which presumably went back centuries. In the manner of “he who beats the bush” we find:

many a man hath more hair than wit.

Shall I set in my staff?

When? can you tell?

he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.

It seems that the early writings of Edward de Vere and of Shakespeare have a remarkable amount in common.



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Monday, September 16, 2024

The Sonnets of Shakespeare: Sonnet 108. Edward de Vere to his son, Henry.

 


108


WHat’s in the braine that Inck may character,

Which hath not figur’d to thee my true spirit,

What’s new to speake, what now to register,

That may expresse my love, or thy deare merit?

Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,

I must each day say ore the very same,

Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,

Even as when first I hallowed thy faire name.

So that eternall love in loves fresh case,

Waighes not the dust and injury of age,

Nor gives to necessary wrinckles place,

But makes antiquitie for aye his page,

Finding the first conceit of love there bred,

Where time and outward forme would shew it dead.




1. character] Schmidt (1874): Write, inscribe.


3. new . .. now] Malone (ed. 1780) emended to new . . . new


5. sweet boy] The only use of this phrase in the sonnets (but compare my lovely Boy, 126.1, and my sweet'st friend, 133.4).—Horace Davis (in Alden, ed. 1916)

8. [Neil (Ath., Apr. 27, 1867, p. 552) finds here a suggestion that this sonnet was addressed to the poet's son Hamnet; in which he is followed by Goedeke (Rundschau, 10: 407). If this be ingenious, it pales before the suggestion of Mrs. Stopes that the word "hallowed" alludes to the first time the friend was addressed as "Hal," or that of W. Underhill ( N. &Q., 7th s., 9: 227), who regards it as a pun on the name of a supposed W. Hall. The use of the word is due, of course, to the figure of the liturgy in lines 6-7. "Every morning since I began to worship you I have continued to say, 'Hallowed be thy name.'"] — Alden.


9. in . .. case] Malone (ed. 1780): By the case of love the poet means his own compositions. —Beeching: Such is love's fresh case, its state of always being fresh. [This interpretation of Beeching's I think is undoubtedly right; cf. "fresh" in 107, 10, where the word means, not new, but as good as new. Schmidt gives numerous instances of "case" in the meaning of state or condition.] — Alden


10. Waighes] Steevens (ed. 1780) explains as “cares for.” So Schmidt (1875).—Onions (1911): Attaches value to.


11. wrinckles] —Butler (ed. 1899, pp. 246, 250) found here and in 104 evidence of literal wrinkles on the friend’s fair brow.


12. ] —Brooke (ed. 1936): Turns old age into a schoolboy. [Here the meanings of both "antiquity" and "page" are rather curiously disputed. —Schmidt defines the former as "old age," (cf. 62, 10); —Tyler, as "the appearance of the beloved one in that olden time when the attachment commenced," followed substantially by Rolfe; —Wyndham, "the praise of ladies dead and lovely knights" by the "antique pen" of earlier generations. —Alden: Schmidt I think is undoubtedly right; "old age" is the more common Shakespearean meaning, and certainly pertinent to this quatrain. As for "page," Tyler apparently understands it as the page of a book, since he paraphrases " Ever sets before him the appearance," etc.; and he is followed by Miss Porter and Mrs. Stopes, the former commenting, "As of a page in a prayer-book for repetition forever," the latter, "Puts the mark in Life's book, at the old story of first love." I understand Wyndham to take the same view, though he does not make it perfectly clear. On the other hand, Beeching, in paraphrasing, "Love . . . never sees the workings of antiquity, which is always in its rear," seems to imply the image of a page following in the train of Love; (here, unfortunately, one cannot be certain just what is understood by "antiquity"). It argues against the former interpretation that Sh., despite his abundant mention of books, never (unless here) uses the word "page" in that connection, but always "leaf"; with the meaning "servant," on the other hand, it is very familiar. —Alden: I believe, therefore, that the line means simply, "makes old age his servant," instead of yielding it the mastery;


13. 14.] —Dowden (ed. 1881): Finding the first conception of love, i.e., love as passionate as at first, excited by one whose years and outward form show the effects of age.—Pooler (ed. 1918): The meaning may be—finding the first conception of love, i. e. the old love reborn, in eyes that are bright no longer, or it may be more general—finding love as young as ever in those who no longer have youth and the freshness of youth.



—Rendall (ed 1930, p. 252): ...we shall assign Sonnets 108‐125 to the months following the death of Elizabeth in March 1603, and place the termination of the whole series before 1604.




I offer the following prose redaction of the sonnet. Of course, I agree with Samuel Neil that the sonnet is written to Shakespeare's son. Just not the son of the Stratford man. Vere's son was born in 1593 and he had to wonder — given his seriously declining health during the mid to late 1590s — whether he would survive long enough for his son to get to know him. With this for context, the sonnet makes perfect sense. He reflects that his son would know him unusually well through his plays and poems. So then, I assign this sonnet to the mid to late 1590s. No later than 1604.


While I cannot assert the pun Ms. Stopes sees on “hallowed,” with confidence, Vere's son was named “Hal” (Henry). Shakespeare clearly identified with Henry V whose friends in the play call him “Hal.” More than a few critics have suspected a double entendre on the word “page” in line 12, myself among them.


Lines 1-2] What can the brain reveal through ink that I do not leave to you so you may know me?


Lines 3-4] What more could be said, what more written, to express my love or pride in you?


Lines 5-6] Nothing, sweet boy. But still I must repeat my words like reciting prayers.


Lines 7-8] Rejecting no theme for being old. You mine, I yours, even as first I hallowed your name [at your christening].


Lines 9-10] So that love, eternal, remains forever young, does not grow dust-laden or lame with age


Lines 11-12] Nor wrinkled with the passage of years but turns the past into its page [double entendre]


Lines 13-14] finding the first feelings of love bred there when time will bring my body dead.



Sources:



Alden, Raymond MacDonald. The Sonnets of Shakespeare... with variorum readings (1916).


Butler, Samuel. Sh.'s Sonnets, reconsidered and in part rearranged (1899).


Dowden, Edward. 1881. Sonnets of W. Sh. (1881).


Malone, Edmund. Steevens, George. Supplement to the edition of Sh.'s Plays published in 1778 (1780).


Neil, Samuel. (Ath., April 27, 1867, p. 552)


Rendall, Gerald H. Shakespeare Sonnets And Edward De Vere (1930).


Rollins, Hyder Edwards. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets (1944).


Schmidt, Alexander. Shakespeare Lexicon (1875).


Stopes, C. C. Sh.'s Sonnets. (1904).


Wyndham, George. Poems of Sh. (1898).



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Sunday, September 08, 2024

Discovered: Another New Poem by Shakespeare?

Thomas Watson's name is in the air of late. Those who've read my Shakespeare in 1573: Apprenticeship and Scandal are already aware of his close relationship to Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, and the man who wrote the works that go under the name of “Shakespeare”. Watson dedicated his Hekatomopathia to the Earl:
To the Right Honorable my very good Lord Edward de Vere, Earle of Oxenford, Vicount Bulbecke, Lord of Escales, and Badlesmere, and Lord High Chamberlaine of England, all happinesse.
This was followed by a letter that explained that the Earl had read the poems in manuscript and recommended them for publication.

I left a bookmark in my studies of Watson several years ago. As is my custom, I've let the resurgence of his name remind me to return to them. As I read the Hekatompathia with a wider ranging eye I notice that Arber wonders out loud if sonnet LXVII (67) might have been associated with Vere.1 While most of the introductory paragraphs refer to “the Author” in the third person, the annotator who wrote the introductory paragraph to LXVII seems to be Watson himself referring to the product of a dear friend. Not a product of his own.

LXVII.


A man singuler for his learning, and magistrate of no small accoumpt, upon slight survey of this booke of passions, eyther for the liking he had to the Author, or for his owne private pleasure, or for some good he conceyved of the worke, voutchsafed with his own hand to set down certaine posies concerning the same: Amongst which, this was one, Love hath no leaden heeles. Whereat the Author glaunceth throughout al this Sonnet; which he purposely compyled at the presse, in remembrance of his worshipfull frend, and in honour of his golden posie.


WHen Cupid is content to keepe the skies,

He never takes delight in standing still,

But too and froe, and ev'ry where he flies,

And ev'ry God subdueth at his will,

As if his boaw were like to Fortunes wheele,

Him selfe like her, having no leaden heele.

When other whiles he passeth Lemnos Ile,

Unhappy boy he gybes the Clubfoote Smith,

Who threatens him, and bids him stay a while,

But laughing out he leaves him he forthwith,

And makes him selfe companion with the Winde

To shew, his heeles are of no leaden kinde.

But in my selfe I have too trewe a proofe

For when he first espyde my raunging Heart,

He Falcon like came sowsmg from aloofe.

His swiftly falling stroake encreast my smart

As yet my Heart the violence it feeles,

Which makes me say, Love hath no leaden heeles.



This poem would hardly be called Shakespearean. But, then, it was written sometime before 1582. Works belonging the Shakespeare canon do not begin to appear in records or text before 1589-90 thus are more mature. Add to that the fact that the younger Vere was more than occasionally lazy about writing poetry to order.

Moreover, Sonnet LXXI is addressed to a dear friend who is addressed as Titus and the author as Gysippus. These are the main characters of Boccaccio's Decameron (Day 10, Novella 8), as retold by Thomas Elyot, which was highly popular circa 1580. Oxford's secretary at the time, John Lyly, patterned much of his Euphues, the most popular novel of the late Tudor era, on the story. Gysippus favored Titus due to their close friendship. So much so that Gysippus surrendered his lover to his friend, who had fallen in love with her, as he seems to have done here. 

In the original tale Gysippus is shunned for his act. In this, however, he finds another lover who pleases him even more. In LXVII, Watson's friend waxes philosophical about the whole affair.

 

While Arber does not mention it, LXVII fits quite well as a reply to LXXI. It fits the description the reader is given: “...voutchsafed with his own hand to set down certaine posies concerning the same [themes]: Amongst which, this was one, Love hath no leaden heeles.” We've already seen that Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 is a precise fit as a call-and-response answer to Watson's VII. It seems he, too, “voutchsafed with his own hand to set down [a] certaine posie”.


LXXI.

The Authour writeth this Sonnet unto his very friend, in excuse of his late change of study, manners, and delights, all happening through the default of Love. And here by examples he proveth unto him, (calling him by the name of Titus as if him selfe were Gysippus) that Love not onely worketh alteration in the mindes of men, but also in the very Gods them selves; and that so farre forth, as first to drawe them from their Celestiall seates and functions, and then to ensnare them with the unseemely desire of mortall creatures, a Passion ill befitting the majesty of their Godheads.


ALas deere Titus mine, my auncient frend,

What makes thee muse at this my prefent plight,

To see my woonted ioyes enioy their end

And how my Muse hath lost her old delight ?

„ This is the least effect of Cupids dart,

„ To change the minde by wounding of the heart.

Alcides fell in love as I have done,

And layd aside both club and Lions skinne:

Achilles too when he faire Bryses wunne.

To fall from warres to wooing did beginne.

Nay, if thou list, survey the heav'ns above,

And see how Gods them selves are chang'd by Love,

Jove steales from skies to lye by Loedaes side;

Areas descendes for faire Aglaurus sake,

And Sol, so soone as Daphne is espied,

To followe her his Chariot doth forsake :

No mervaile then although I change my minde,

Which am in love with one of heav'nly kinde.

The reader may recall that my Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof (2013, 2017) is actually a short biography for a projected Collected Poems of Shakespeare. Among the factors that have postponed the poems time and again is the success of my search through the dark corners of the digital facsimile world for previously unknown and/or obscure Shakespeare poems. For the moment, Hekatompathia LXVII goes in the “possible Shakespeare poem” category.



1 Arber, Edward. Thomas Watson Poems (1910). 9.


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