HERE'S ANOTHER ESSAY I WROTE IN AN ANTIQUE AGE that misses the mark. I include the prof's comments at the end and some of his editing in red. It's helpful to see where you get off track in order to get back on. I'm sure even Shakespeare wrote a turkey or two in his time.
I did rework it a bit, but it's mostly as is, and might be helpful for those afraid of poems and poets.
Cheers, Jake
IN SHAKESPEARE'S FIRST FOURTEEN SONNETS, THE SPEAKER ARGUES in favour of
procreation as a means to challenge time, and gives his criteria for doing so. These
poems present urgent appeals by the speaker to the addressee to have a child at
the earliest opportunity. Time is the destroyer of beauty and the only way to
ensure that the addressee’s beauty will be preserved is through the addressee’s
offspring. Interestingly, sonnets 15 and 16 signal a temporary break from this
theme and discuss instead poetry’s role in challenging time and preserving
beauty. In discussing these two sonnets that introduce Shakespeare’s
examination of the function of poetry, it is necessary to first review some
apsects of the preceeding “procreation” poems.
In the first fourteen sonnets there are insistent appeals by the speaker
for the addressee to have a child. and preserve his present beauty through his
future offspring. The speaker presents his appeals in a number of ways by, for
example, stating it is the addressee’s social responsibility, his duty,
to reproduce, that he woes it to the world to preserve a beauty such as his. By
reproducing, he will make others happy, including the speaker. The addressee
himself will be happy and in harmony with the world, and by reproducing he will
be showing love to others, and so on.
The appeals vary, but the stated reason for them remains constant: Time is
an enemy. It is cruel and unrelenting, and there is no escaping its effects. In
Sonnet 2 for example, time “shall beseige thy brow”; in Sonnet 5, the hours
will “play the tyrants”. Sonnet 12 characterizes old age as “hideous night”.
Time is seen as an implacable force against which beauty has no defence. Time
is the destroyer of beauty.
Shakespeare also characterizes time using imagery of the seasons: the
“gaudy spring” of Sonnet 1 and “forty winters” of sonnet 2, for example. He
uses images of both gardens and graves, of day and night, sunrise and sunset to
describe the movement from youth to old age. In addition, he uses images from
everyday life—a mirror, a clock, a house, music, even references to bookkeeping
and usury to depict time’s effect upon the beauty of the addressee and of the urgent
need the speaker feels for the addressee to preserve his beauty.
As well, up to the end of Sonnet 13, time is seen as an earthly
event. Its effects are visible and understandable in terms of the earth’s
natural cycles and events. However, in Sonnet 14 Shakespeare introduces a new
concept of time: ‘Astrological’ time. This concept introduces a view of time
that is both cyclical, that is, time as a continuous movement from birth to
death, an earthly time; as well as the view of time which is also mutable, that
is it is somehow affected by a higher power—the stars. When Shakespeare’s speaker uses the analogy
of astrological prophesy in the context of comparing the addressee’s eyes to
the “constant stars” that act to guide him in divining the future, the idea of
time being transcended is introduced. (This concept will be elaborated
on in Sonnet 15.)
If the future is predictable, then what the speaker has characterized as
the tyrany of time, is to some extent, overcome. This view of time being
transcended is an important one for the development of the theme of poetry
as an agent of immortality. Poetry will be claimed to have the function of
preserving that which time destroys.
In the procreation sonnets, then, the way time is to be challenged is by
having offspring. Sexual reproduction is the only route open to the addressee.
Sonnet 14 acts to destabilize this assumption somewhat by introducing the
transcendent as a possibility. By Sonnet 15, Shakespeare is ready, through his
speaker, to make a larger claim on time’s domain, by introducing poetry as
a method to combat the ravages of time.
In Sonnet 15 he argues in favour of poetry. So we must ask: How valid are
his criteria? And why is time seen as a tyrant that must be overcome? Why must
the addressee’s beauty be preserved? Can
you preserve beauty? And how do children guarantee this apparently literal
preservation of beauty? At the beginning of Sonnet 15, then, we are left with contradictions
that will not be addressed within the framework of this new theme of poetry
Shakespeare introduces here. Rather, he suggests, these questions will will be incorporated
into it.
As well, in the procreation sonnets Shakespeare characterizes his speaker
as being contradictatory around what
he wants to do: Does he want to preserve the addressee’s physical beauty, his
“substance” (Sonnet 5)? Is it the memory of his beauty he wishes to
preserve? Is it the addressee’s happiness, or his love of others, or his “truth
and beauty” (Sonnet 15) that needs preservation? By introducting in Sonnet 15 the
possibility of poetry as an alternative to procreation, the ‘how’ of
preserving the speaker’s beauty (whatever “beauty” finally means to the
speaker) is, for a short time, problematic. Will poetry or procreation prove to
be the most effective agent of preservation? Sonnets 16 and 17 debate this
point, while Sonnets 18 onward seem to conclude that poetry is the only way to
preserve whatever quality or characteristic of the addressee the speaker deems
important.
By Sonnet 15 we are presented with contradictions: the contradictions between
what the speaker wants to do and why, and how he will accomplish it.
Future sonnets concerned with poetry as their theme are also contradictatory. They
often emphasize how ineffective poetry or the poet’s skills are in
accomplishing their aims. Poetry’s aims, too, are at times as contradictory as
they are are varied. In some sonnets we are told the poem is to be read as a
record of the speaker’s love for the addressee. In others, its purpose is to
compete with rival poets to represent the addressee’s beauty faithfully, or
else to record the speaker’s inspiration, or to record the memory of the
addressee, or his youth or beauty. Again, these often conflicting purposes for
using poetry as a means of preservation remind the reader that the speaker’s
logic is flawed. In Sonnet 15, the speaker presents his criteria for writing a
poem. He writes his poem, or “engraft[s]”, he tells us, because he must
preserve “perfection” which lasts “but a little moment”. He goes on to say that
humankind are like actors—“showes”—on a stage and are dominated by a “secret
influence” of the stars. Time will not be transcended through astrological
influences, as was suggested in Sonnet 14. Rather, it will be assisted in its promotion of decay by
the stars. In the second quatrain, time’s power of decay is further emphasized
by the more earthly images of men as plants rising in “their youthful sap” and
declining into rot. The speaker tells us that these considerations, as outlined
in the first two quatrains, bring the image of the addressee to his mind, in
the third quatrain. Here he envisions time and decay debating over ways to
alter the addressee’s youth into “sullied night”. This, in turn, demands of the
speaker that he engage “time” in a war to preserve the addressee’s youth. As
“time” takes from him, he, the speaker, will “engraft” the addressee “new”.
This final line of Sonnet 15 provides an unsettling image of stasis: the
cycle of decay and preservation is
suggested, rather than the more natural one of decay and rebirth. The speaker seems to want ot halt the process of time
in a kind of poetic ‘embalming jar’. And the reader must ask: Why should
perfection be preserved? If perfection lasts but a brief moment, as the speaker
suggests, what then do we make of all the other moments of existance? If
perfection, by his definition, does indeed last but a brief moment, then
preserving it would seem to violate one of its necessary components—its
impermanence. Also, one asks why is youth considered the only ‘perfection’
worth preserving? Would not the addressee be considered worthy of preservaton
if he were older? Apparently not. As well, are we just “showes” at odds with [the poem talks of
"communicating" and "influencing"--not of being "at
odds" per say] time and the stars? Again, the question is asked : Why are
we “all at war” with time? These questions cannot be answered, of course, but
only be raised as we examine the conflicting logic of many of the sonnets that seem
to ask poetry to perform impossible tasks. These are the preoccupations of the
speaker assigned to him by Shakespeare. He operates within this world view and
his logic is influenced by his obsessions with time and preservation. Poetry
cannot preserve life or beauty or youth; neither can having children, for that
matter. Poetry is art, not nature. A
poem is a record of an experience (or a memory). It is experience translated,
and as such it is an interpretation of nature. It can neither substitute for
nature nor be equated with it.
When in Sonnet 16, the speaker refers to his poetry as “barren rime”, his
self criticism, while extreme, is nevertheless informative: A poem, as a
recording of experience is, at best, second rate. Great poets may be able to
provide great poetry, but even the greatest work will always pale in comparison
to the actual experience they draw their inspiration from. Shakespeare
implicitly argues, through his speaker’s contradictatory arguments, that Art
will always fall short of Nature.
Sonnet 16 continues with the absurd image of warring against “tirant”
time, but interestingly, the line “And fortifie your selfe in your decay”,
implies a contradictatory viewpoint. “[Y]our decay” can be interpreted as the
decay imposed by the enemy time or it can mean that decay is a natural part
of one’s existence. However, the second meaning is difficult to maintain when connected to the
seige imagery of the first two lines. But, if it is connected with the image of
fortifying oneself against decay by the more “blessed” means of procreation, as
the second quatrain suggests, then we are presented with a perfect example of
the speaker’s difficulties. He cannot maintain the logic of his argument (that
we are at war with time), and thus he slips into contradiction (or as he often
does in other poems, slips into unresolved ambiguity). The absurdity of
his position conflicts with the logic of his arguments. The speaker cannot
decide which way to go and ends up confused, and confusing the reader.
Further contradictions in Sonnet 16 force the reader to ask: Why should
life repair life’s “lines”? Why does the speaker argue for this unnatural
reversal? He follows this illogical statement with a further passage whose
meaning is ambiguous: [unclear
passage: isn't reproduction one of the common attributes of life forms: an
innate should.]
Which this (Times pensel or my pupill pen)
Neither in inward worth nor outward faire
Can make you live your selfe in eies of men,
This passage is confusing because Nature, referred to as “Times pensel”,
is equated with Art by having one of Art’s tools—a “pensel”—which is
impossible. And we are given to understand that neither “Times pensel”
(Nature), nor his “pupill pen” (Art) [this artist] can make
the addressee live in the “eies of men”. The ambiguity arises because it seems
that the speaker is saying that both Nature and Art are incapable of making the
addressee live. It would seem impossible to suggest that Nature cannot make
someone live. But perhaps his confusion is more clearly understood in his apparent
willingness to promote Art as Nature’s equal and allow it to do the job of
nature, as we have earlier examined? Art is confused with Nature, [or at least with
time--which may transcend Nature] it
seems, at this point.
The sonnet’s couplet, however, emerges from ambiguity, into a clearer [?] resolution, and we are provided with some relief
from the speaker’ confusing logic. He says the addressee, in giving himself
away, keeps himself still. Initially, this would again seem to be
contradictatory. How can you give yourself away and at the same time keep
yourself? But when procreation suggests itself here, in terms of giving away
your seed, you still can maintain yourself; you give away a part of yourself
and still keep yourself. When the image of being drawn “by your owne sweet
skill,” is matched with the procreation motif, the couplet resolves the
sonnet’s ambiguity. The couplet suggests the person of the addressee as
existing in nature, articulating his own existence and begetting children,
independent of the poet and his poetry.
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Ed. Stephen Booth. New
York:. Yale University Press, 1977.
Prof Comments:
Randy Grade=79.
