Richard Vallance keygenerator CPUCool keygenerator CPUCool

Vallance Review, February, 2003 "Describe Adonis, and..."  Shakespeare's Sonnet 53 © by Richard Vallance, 2003 INTRODUCTION I have chosen this loveliest of sonnets for several very good reasons this month: It is February, and Valentine's Day is just around the corner. This truly delightful sonnet is perhaps one of the quintessential celebrations of love at its most exalted in the entire repertoire of English lyric poetry. keygenerator CPUCool It just so happens this is also one of my all-time favourite sonnets. Certainly, I would consistently rank it in the top ten on my own chart, regardless of how I might feel at any particular time or moment in my life. This is a good barometer of the sonnet's remarkable staying power, as a masterpiece should stand on its own merits, regardless of anyone's passing moods or feelings (especially a critic's). keygenerator CPUCool Thirdly, it is this very sonnet which, almost exactly two years ago, fortuitously stirred me to such depths it inspired me to found the first ever poetry group in our now rather extensive family of Yahoo Arts and Humanities groups featured at our poetry clearinghouse forum, la nouvelle Plèiade = The New Plèiades, with which you are perhaps already familiar.  Now, as many of you know, that poetry group is called, Describe Adonis, the title of which is comprised of the first two words of the fifth verse of Shakespeare's Sonnet 53. THE SONNET William Shakespeare needs no introduction; neither does his lucent sonnet, Sonnet LIII [§81, §91]* What is your substance [§79], whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? [1] Since everyone hath, everyone, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit [2] [§77] Is poorly imitated [3] after you; On Helen's cheek [4] all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires [4] are painted new [§85, §89]. Speak of the spring and foison [5] of the year, The one doth shadow of your beauty show [§77], The other as your bounty [6] doth appear; And you in every blessed shape we know [7].    In all external grace you have some part [8],    But you like none, none you, for constant heart [§86]. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) keygenerator CPUCool Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema (Dutch: 1826-1912) "Ask me no more." (ca. 1906) NOTES ON THE SONNET: [§81, 91] The notes preceded with the § sign refer to Percy Bysshe Shelley's apology for the self-same principle in his Defence of Poetry (1821). Indeed, we may consider this entire sonnet as a timeless and placeless encapsulation of Shelley's own incisive conclusions in his centuries later Defence [§81, 91]. It is essential we adequately grasp the fundamental symbolic and even allegorical meaning(s) of these tropes which Shakespeare, a supremely Renaissance man, uses here in his sonnet 53. I wish to stress that none of these phonemes carry their "modern" meaning(s), as we understand them. To assign such meanings to these words would clearly violate the Neo-Platonic philosophical underpinning of this luminescent sonnet. I shall return to this question below. [1] "tend' = "attend" - cf. the French, attendre, i.e. "wait (upon you)". On the allegorical plane, these shadows (i.e. worldly forms of beauty, including all feminine and masculine physical beauty, however refined) are but pale shadows [§79, §85] in comparison with the flooding Light of "your" eternal Beauty, where "your" refers to the idealized addressee of the sonnet. [2] "counterfeit" = "imitation" See also References and Notes. [3] "imitated after you". In other words, "the semblance (or imitation) of the real thing (transcendent Beauty) is poorly imitated after you." But, what does "after" imply? Evans has it as, "modelled on you". Here again, we must not fall into the error of assigning the modern meaning of "after" to the present context or content. Indeed, Shakespeare is referring to an imitation of an imitation of a mere description of an absolute Neo-Platonic ideal, Adonis himself, in all his unalloyed splendour.  Shakespeare is summarizing and clarifying the implicit meaning and symbolism of verses 1 & 2, where he has rhetorically challenged us with the impossible questions: (a) "What is your substance?" and (b) "How is that millions of shadows attend to you and on you?" Nor are we meant to answer these hypothetical questions, because in this transient world of forms = "shadows", we simply have not the means, rational or imaginative, to do so. Indeed, everything we imagine about the transcendent Beauty Shakespeare here addresses, all our thoughts, all our apprehensions, are but mere shadows, or descriptive imitations of the ineffable Truth that is both Beauty and Love. As the sonnet inexorably progresses towards its conclusion, this allegorical undercurrent rises perceptively to the surface. We may think we can somehow describe Adonis; but we surely cannot apprehend his sublime Beauty. He is not of this realm. His is the Beauty of eternal exaltation, quite beyond our grasp, even beyond the lover's spiritual capacity to gaze upon the object of his love, the idealized Helen. [4] "And you in Grecian tires are painted new." Metonymy (for its definition and further commentary, See References and notes [4]): to the Renaissance mind, the philosophical and poetic ideals espoused by the ancient Greeks were the summa eloquentia or unsurpassable height of human eloquence.  In this sense, "tires", which means, "attire", refers not only to the outward or external appearance(s) of Grecian attires, such as we might, for instance, so admiringly behold in the exquisite statue, Nikei, or "The Victory of Samothrace" (in the Louvre, Paris), but as Shakespeare so eloquently asserts, "you", the belovèd, are "painted new", in the substance of Eternal Beauty. At our finite level of the human imagination and its store of symbols, "tires" may also allude to the Olympian laurel, which we so often see associated, in ancient Greek and Renaissance Art alike, with the gods, as their unique prerogative, or with Olympian heroes and with the office of poet laureate. This crown of laurels could just as easily grace the brow of Adonis, and, on the plane of human existence, the locks of both the lover and his belovèd, who are thereby exalted by the poet's imaginative symbolism to a higher plane of existence signifying the Eternal. This clear and present assignation of Neo-Platonic meaning, both explicit and implicit, is reaffirmed by Michael S. Seiferth, in his brilliant exposé, English 2322: The Renaissance, in which he stresses, "Recalling (Philip) Sidney's distaste for realism, ... passim... the reader should steer clear of a literal interpretation of the sonnets. Instead, in the light of the Platonic tradition, he should regard the sonnet cycle as a poetic allegory of Platonic love and beauty..." (pg. 13 of 18 of HTML printout). Now, the primary significance of this citation is not that it refers specifically to William Shakespeare, but that it cites Sir Philip Sidney, that quintessential Renaissance Man, whose own inspired (Renascence Editions) Defence of Poesie (1595), clearly expounds Neo-Platonic Idealism as it applies to the poetry of his Age and more to the point, to the sonnet itself.  In his own sonnet sequence, (Renascence Editions) Astrophel and Stella, Sidney's Astrophel (or "star-lover") is star-struck by his idealized paragon of Beauty, Stella (the Star). William Shakespeare has clearly inherited the furniture of Sidney's symbolism in this very sonnet, 53, where he exalts the beloved to the station of none other than Helen (of Troy) herself, whose legendary fame brought Ilium to its knees! Now, as the idealized human personification of all that is love and beauty, Helen in turn falls under the protection and aegis of (Greek) Aphrodite or (Roman) Venus. It is but one small step further to Shakespeare's ultimate allegorical association of Venus herself with Adonis, in his immortal pastoral, Venus and Adonis. To my mind, sonnet 53 is a cameo encapsulation of all Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis portrays vis-à-vis the ideals of Love and of Beauty. [5] "foison" = Renaissance English = French for "(plentiful) harvest, bounty". Here, yet again, the munificent splendour of Shakespeare's imagery is nothing short of breathtaking. Even the exquisite beauty and freshness of Spring "shadow of your beauty show". We note that he says, not "a shadow", but merely "shadow", implying that the form of Spring is Shadow in comparison with the resplendent Light of the belovèd's ineffable Beauty. This verse he then parallels with the next, where he exults that the abundant harvest that is Autumn's "as your bounty doth appear" -  and the keyword here is, of course, "appear".  Ah yes, the bounteous rewards of Fall's "foison" appear to be as, i.e. a semblance (imitation or counterfeit) of your bounty; but they are not. They are, once again, mere "shadow". Thus, the image of "millions of shadows", first introduced in verse 2, is reinforced over and over throughout the sonnet, becoming, like the seasons and like the Earth and her bounty, cyclical - and for that, evanescent and fading. Yet, for all this, the key to this sonnet lies not in the transience of earthly life and love, but in the immortalized permanence of Platonic ideal Love, as typified through the (albeit imperfect) description of Adonis, which in turn exalts both the lover and his belovèd to a higher plane of existence. What truly distinguishes this one from all of Shakespeare's other sonnets is that, here, in this one sonnet alone, he is not obsessed with the passage of imperious Time and the ravages it lays to all that is mortal, including human love on the sensual, earthly level. Whereas all-devouring Time, which Shakespeare all but personifies as the slayer of mankind, imperiously dominates his sonnet repertoire, in this sonnet alone, Time is made subservient to the illuminating constancy of ideal Platonic Love, which removes the veil of illusion, or "shadows" from our eyes, if we dare love deeply. [6] "bounty" Cf. [5] above. The cycle repeats yet again; yet even here, Fall's cornucopia of earthly delights merely "doth appear" as (the image of) "your bounty", as the latter is, "measureless to man" (to echo Coleridge). [7] Is not verse 12 the inescapable conclusion to all the cyclic shadow images Shakespeare has accumulated with such skill in this astounding sonnet? But there is more! [8] If verse 12 is the sum of the 11 verses preceding it, and the sum is (as we often hear) greater than the sum of its parts, then the final heroic rhyming couplet must duly drive this conclusion firmly home. And that is precisely what it does. Everything we have seen so far in this sonnet, even the description of Adonis himself, all is only shadow and redundancy of shadows. Everything we have seen and we see in this world of ours, whether through the medium of this sonnet, in our everyday experiences, and indeed in our loves, all of this merely appears as "external grace". But, "external" grace is not real Grace.  And, Shakespeare asserts, "you" (idealized Beauty) have "some part" in all of this, bar nothing. And yet, in spite even of this, nothing of love in this world of ours can touch you for constancy of heart (Shelley [§85, §89]) IS THERE ANY "CRITIC" WORTHY OF THIS SONNET? There is one, par excellence, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his Defence of Poetry (1821). Nor can have any critic as consummately pinpointed the very essence of this truly remarkable sonnet as did Percy Bysshe Shelley, in his grandiloquent and revolutionary, Defence of Poetry (Part 1) 1821 [5a], even though he never mentions the sonnet as a poetic genre once in the whole essay. But close inspection of his core thesis reveals that he unerringly typifies the most exalted poetry as  ...§77 the temporary dress in which his (the poet's) creations must be arrayed, and which cover without concealing the eternal proportions of their beauty. The beauty of the internal nature cannot be so far concealed by its accidental vesture, but that the spirit of its form shall communicate itself to the very disguise; and indicate the shape it hides from the manner in which it is worn. §80 A majestic form, and graceful motions will express themselves...  §81 Few poets of the highest class have chosen to exhibit the beauty of their conceptions in its naked truth and splendour; and it is doubtful whether the alloy of costume, habit etc. be not necessary to temper this planetary music for mortal ears. passim §85 Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world; and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it re-produces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it co-exists. §86The great secret of morals is Love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action or person, not our own. §88 The great instrument of moral good is the imagination: and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause. §89 Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating to their own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and interstices.  §91 A Poet therefore would do ill to embody his own conceptions of right and wrong which are usually those of his place and time in his poetical creations, which participate in neither. (italics mine)keygenerator CPUCool Shakespeare said it in Sonnet 53, Shelley in his Defence of Poetry ...and both encapsulated the internalized welling up of Eternal Beauty twinned with Love, as perceived through the auspices of the human soul, communicating its Illumination with consummate grace to all mankind through the medium of their own respective messages. It is a specious error to imagine, because Shakespeare poured forth his views in rhymed formal verse in his sonnets (here, specifically, Sonnet 53), and since both Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote their respective Defenses of Poetry in prose, that the genius of the former is poetic and of the latter two is not. Shelley himself made this abundantly clear where he stated, in his remarkable Defence: §52 Plato was essentially a poet   the truth and splendour of his imagery and the melody of his language is the most intense that it is possible to conceive.   §53 He rejected the measure of the epic, dramatic and lyrical forms, because he sought to kindle a harmony in thoughts divested of shape and action, and he forbore to invent any regular plan of rhythm which would include under determinate forms, the varied pauses of his style. That said, Plato was a poet, Spenser was a poet, Shakespeare was a poet and Shelley was a poet, whether or not any of them wrote prose, poetry or drama. At the same time, whenever Spenser or Shakespeare or Shelley wrote verse, and specifically, sonnets, they were participating in that discipline of the imagination which renders all it touches surpassingly beautiful. And they have been far from alone in the annals of the history of poetry. Sonnet 53, which is one of Shakespeare's most verbally economical poems, containing as it does fewer discrete words than any of his other sonnets, is a truly refined expression of the classical ideal of Neo-Platonic Love as espoused by the Renaissance sonneteers. The Great "Cyclic poem of Time": Homer, Shakespeare & Shelley Recall Shelley's express conclusion that the most exalted of poetry cannot and indeed ought not participate in the mores or socio-cultural norms of the Age in which the poet lives [§91]. All truly refined poetry (as in "the refiner's fire") must of essence transcend the constraints of both time and space. That Sonnet 53 achieves this lofty ideal there can be little doubt. Beyond considerations of genre, like other great historic masterpieces of poetry on its higher plane, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Sonnet 53 does far more than that, and indeed is in essence far more than that [§81]. Shelley's far-ranging, incisive mind really does "burst its circumference" (to use a phrase almost identical to his own), for he affirms that poems, on their most exalted and universal plane, are not the work or the product of any single poet or any one Era, but are "... the episodes of that cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of men.   [§166] The Past, like an inspired rhapsodist, fills the theatre of everlasting generations with their harmony." Surely Sonnet 53, as harmonious, all-encompassing and surpassingly beautiful as it is, fits this "description". In passing, I regret that, sadly, we have not the space or the time (if you will pardon my levity) to do ample justice to the exquisite beauty of this sonnet. However, in closing, I should like to draw your attention to a few critical sources of great merit. These are: (a) Helen Vender's, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, a truly formative work, in which she sensitively treats of sonnet 53 on pp. 257-260 [6a]; In her exegesis of this sonnet, Helen Vendler has us realize that Shakespeare resorts to no less than 18 variants of the phoneme "on(e)" in sonnet 53. This is evidenced throughout. The word "one" itself is repeated no less than five times; "on" three times (four if you count the last syllable of "foison"); and "none" twice. There is also the related phoneme, "some" (which Vendler somehow misses), and the assonance of the open "o", which frequently recurs throughout in "shadow(s)". This "arbitrary pattern", as Vendler construes it [8a], this paradigm further serves to substantiate the underpinning role of the Neo-Platonic conceit, which we may typify as One-ness, or the universal Harmony brought about by the Lover's unstinting progress towards his own internalized ideal, Helen, the paragon of idealized Beauty and Love. (b) Blakemore Evans' The Sonnet, which I have already alluded to previously [1]; and (c) Michael S. Seiferth's clearly informed essay, "The Renaissance", which provides a truly thorough-going synopsis of the lasting impact of Christianized Neo-Platonic Ideals on Renaissance literature and poetry from the Thirteenth through to the end of the Sixteenth Centuries. In parting, I leave you with one last tantalizing thought. Can you believe that this sonnet will somehow be revisited in next month's Vallance Review? What can this mean? Stay tuned! © Richard Vallance, January 25th., 2003 REFERENCES & NOTES: [1] Evans, Blakemore, ed. The Sonnets Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 96. 296 (297) pp. ISBN 0-521-29403-7. In his study of Shakespeare's sonnets, Evans defines "on you tend" as "attend upon you (as servitors or vassals)". pg. 161. [2] In Thesaurus.com "counterfeit", as used by Shakespeare and his French and English Renaissance contemporaries, is meant to convey, not a simulacrum or a sham, but this: coun·ter·feit (kount' r-ft'), a. [F. contrefait, p. p. of contrefaire to counterfeit; contre (L. contra) + faire to make, fr. L. facere. See Counter, adv., and Fact.] 1. Representing by imitation or likeness; having a resemblance to something else; portrayed. "Look here upon this picture, and on this- The counterfeit presentment of two brothers." (Shakespeare) [3] Ibid. pg. 161 [4] Ibid. 8 tires apparel (aphetic form of 'attires') with perhaps some reference to 'tire' = head-dress. (pg. 162) My comment: but since Shakespeare employs metonymy, the rhetorical figure where the part designates the whole, when he describes "On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,", it appears more than likely that he has resorted to the same device with "tire". [5a] Shelley, Percy Bysshe. DEFENCE OF POETRY. PART FIRST (1821), by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Copytext: from the electronic edition published in the CD-ROM in Using TACT with Electronic Texts (New York: Modern Language Association, 1996). Source: a new encoded transcription from the photographic facsimile in The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts: A Facsimile Edition, XX, ed. Michael O'Neill (New York and London: Garland, 1994): 20-83; PR 5401 1986 v20 Robarts Library, University of Toronto. (Shelley never actually wrote "Part the Second".) [6a] Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 97. xviii, 672 pp. ISBN 0-674-63711-9 [7a] For Michael S. Seiferth's thoughtful essay on the all-pervasive and profound influence of Platonic Ideals tinged with Christian overtones, please refer to English 2322: The Renaissance (18 pp. printout). I cannot recommend this brilliant essay highly enough. It serves as a fine complement to this review. [8a] op. cit. [6a], pg. 258 keygenerator CPUCool