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Monday, November 27, 2023

The Sonnets of Shakespeare: Sonnet 74.







Sonnet 74


But be contented when that fell arest,

With out all bayle shall carry me away,

My life hath in this line some interest,

Which for memoriall still with thee shall slay.

When thou revewest this, thou doest revew,

The very part was consecrate to thee,

The earth can have but earth, which is his due,

My spirit is thine the better part of me,

So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,

The pray of wormes, my body being dead,

The coward conquest of a wretches knife,

To base of thee to be remembred,

The worth of that, is that which it containes,

And that is this, and this with thee remaines.




Sample commentary by line:



fr. Rollins:


6.] consecrate Pooler (ed. 1918): The older and more correct form of “consecrated.” [See 87.4 n., Abbott (1870, p. 244), and Franz (1909, pp. 155 f.)]—With the line Tyler (ed. 1890) compares Martial, Epigrams, VII.84, “certior in nostro carmine vultus erit.”

11.] Cartwright (ed. 1859, p. 34) explains: This body, the coward conquest of death’s knife. [So Tucker (ed. 1924).]—Palgrave (ed. 1865): Must allude to anatomical dissection, then recently revived in Europe by Vesalius, Fallopius, Paré, and others.—Furnivall (ed. 1877, p. lxv n.): [The line does not refer] to an attempt to stab Shakspere. I believe it is the “confounding age’s cruel knife” . . . [63.10].—Dowden (ed. 1881): Does Shakspere merely speak of the liability of the body to untimely or violent mischance ? Or does he meditate suicide? Or think of Marlowe’s death, and anticipate such a fate as possibly his own? Or has he . . . been wounded? Or does he refer to the dissection of dead bodies? Or is it “confounding age’s cruel knife?”—Verity (ed. 1890): Surely the last alternative is the only feasible one.—Olivieri (Sh.’s Sonetti, 1890, p. 313) proposes: [Sh.] is alluding to the . . . death of Christopher Marlow, slain ... in a tavern brawl because of jealousy over women.—Tyler (ed. 1890): The meaning is, that what of him had not been treasured up in his verse was mean and base, liable to succumb to the assassin’s knife.—Wyndham (ed. 1898): Metaphorical: the destruction of the body by death and its subsequent corruption is a squalid tragedy.

fr. Alden:


12.] remembred. Wyndham: There is little authority [for the modern spelling.] The verb is almost invariably "remembre" in the writings of Sh. and his contemporaries. If so, the line is defective; cf. 66, 8, "disabled." [Nevertheless, Wyndham puts "remembered" in his text.]



Commentary on Sonnets as Autobiography:


Rollins, II.134] One of the earliest Englishmen to express approval of the “Friedrich von Schlegel’’-Wordsworth dogma was an anonymous writer (probably John Wilson) in Blackwood's, 1818 (III, 586). He wrote of the sonnets as “invaluable, beyond any thing else of Shakspeare’s poetry, because they give us little notices, and occasional glimpses of his own kindred feelings, and of some of the most interesting events and situations of his life.” But dissent quickly manifested itself, as in Boswell (ed. 1821, p. 220): “I am satisfied that these compositions had neither the poet himself nor any individual in view; but were merely the effusions of his fancy, written upon various topicks for the amuse¬ ment of a private circle.”

Rollins, II.134-5] In terms reminiscent of A. W. von Schlegel’s the sonnets were discussed by Tieck (Penelope Taschenbuch, 1826, pp. 314-339). To him it was incomprehensible (p. 315) that the English commentators “did not find them remarkable as the confessions of a man about whom we know so little, and who, for that very reason, had excited and whetted the curiosity of so many for two centuries.”

Rollins, II.135] The poet Campbell held other views. In the New Monthly Magazine, 1829 (XXVI, 577-583), he ridiculed Schlegel’s pronouncements, calling the sonnets (pp. 580 f.) “insignificant as an index to his [Sh.’s] biography,” and denying that “they unequivocally paint his passions, and the true character of his sentiments.”

Rollins, II.137] In 1838 Heine (Sammtliche Werke, 1876, III, 177) asserted that the sonnets are “authentic records of the circumstances of Shakspeare’s life,” reflecting deep “human misdre,” and Kuhne (Weibliche und mdnnliche Charaktere, 1838, II, 22) echoed: “To come nearer to Shakspeare’s personality and his habits as a man, cognizance of his lyrical effusions is indispensable.” C. A. Brown, in Sh.’s Autobiographical Poems, 1838 (see pp. 76 f., above), also proceeded on the assumption that the lyrics made their author’s life an open book.


Commentary on Sonnet 74:


Rendell, 142] Sonnets § 71-4, which contain some of the most perfect lines in the sonnets, are written under some apprehansion of approaching death.

The coward conquest of a wretch's knife §74.11

I take to be an unmistakeable reference to disabling injuries received in the duel (1582) with Sir Thos. Knyvet, from the effects of which he never wholly recovered —

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie. §73.10

The hours of weakness quickened the sense of dependence on his friend's affection, the desire to kindle sympathetic response; and nowhere is freer rein given to the touch of self-pity, and of sentiment in the affections.


Purdy, Edward de Vere wasShakespeare, 144] “Oxford and servants accompanying him were set upon by Thomas Knyvet, Gentleman to the Privy Chamber and uncle to Anne Vavasour, and his retainers. The place of the attack is not recorded but it was probably in London. Both Knyvet and Oxford were injured — the Earl more seriously. But not so seriously as to forego a sonnet to inform his Queen:...”


Surely, this sonnet was written in hopes to re-engage the sympathies of the queen lost when Edward was discovered to have impregnated her lady-in-waiting Anne Vavasour. Forbidden to attend the Royal Court, involved in a vicious dispute with the members of his own Court faction, and now seriously wounded, he had to be feeling depressed and desperate. It was essential to somehow get back into the good graces of Her Majesty.



Sources Cited:


Alden, Raymond Macdonald. The Sonnets of Shakespeare from the Quarto of 1609 with variorum readings and commentary (1916).

Anon. “The Confessions of William Shakspeare,” New Monthly Magazine, 1835, XLIII, 1-9, 306-312, XLIV, 319-336, XLV, 47-69.

Kiihne, F. G. Weibliche und mannliche Charaktere, vol. II. Leipzig, 1838.

Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Edward de Vere was Shake-speare: at long last the proof (2013, 2017). https://www.amazon.com/dp/1543136257/ 

Rendall, Gerald H. Personal Clues in Shakespeare's Poems and Sonnets (1934)

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

Tieck, Ludwig [and Dorothea], “Ueber Shakspears Sonette einige Worte, nebst Proben einer Uebersetzung derselben,” Penelope Taschenbuch fur das Jahr 1826 (ed. Theodor Hell, Leipzig), pp. 314-339.

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