Shakespeare and the Renaissance

1. Shakespeare and the Renaissance

2. Write for five minutes on One significant point of contrast you see between Sidney and Shakespeare as sonnet writers. Try to illustrate your idea(s) with example(s) drawn from a poem by each.

3. Shakespeare vs. Sidney Sidney is wittier, Shakespeare usually more serious Sidney is more detached (a large gap between him and Astrophil)--Shakespeare�s sonnets have a painful immediacy (they often read like naked autobiographical confession) Sidney has little or no interest in time, mortality Sidney usually employs the Italian rhyme scheme (abba abba cdcdcd), Shakespeare the English (abab cdcd efef gg) Both sonnet sequences, however, embody most of the central features of the English Renaissance (c. 1500 � 1680)

4. What makes a poem (or play) �typical� of the English Renaissance?

5. Six characteristics to look for Density of language Complexity of thought Complex mixture of moods and subjects Great self-consciousness and self-awareness Global awareness and dramatic intensity Unconventional conventionality

6. Density of language In contrast to the relatively simple Middle English (ME) lyrics of 300 years earlier, this is a literature Renaissance playwright Christopher Marlowe referred to as �infinite riches in a little room.� Rich, figurative language marked by ingenious and striking metaphor, often strikingly original and/or extended to great lengths (thus becoming a �conceit�).

7. Complexity of thought Renaissance poetry seems the product of (and it appeals to) intense cognitive activity. It�s often highly argumentative, rhetorical (a culture �steeped in the arts of persuasion,� says the Norton editor). Look for examples of �passionate thought� throughout this period. And look for manifestations of this love of thought in the sheer number of puns, riddles, paradoxes, oxymorons, etc. in the literature.

8. Complex mixture of moods and subjects ME lyrics typically strike a single tone or attitude, but Renaissance lyrics are characterized by a complex mixture. They are often playfully serious or seriously playful. Mood shifts within poems are common. Poems are sometimes both secular and sacred, about physical love and spiritual love.

9. Great self-consciousness and self-assertiveness Poems are more likely to be �about� the poet--and his effort to work out his attitudes toward death, time, art, love--as �about� the beloved, the state of being in love, or God. The Renaissance self is strong but often divided--a secular self vs. a sacred self, the soul vs. the body.

10. Global imagination and dramatic Intensity In contrast to ME lyrics, the poems often go off in unexpected directions, begin and end in surprising or abrupt ways, seem intensely �life-like.� Poems often seem like snippets from plays. The Renaissance poet is often detached from his speaker, not fully invested in his problems or moods. A great boldness and ENERGY here.

11. Unconventional conventionality In contrast to ME lyrics, Renaissance literature works within the literary conventions of the past (the sonnet, for example), yet bend these conventions to new ends. It uses what might look to us like imprisoning conventions (rhyme, meter, genre) in order to escape other conventions. More generally, this is a literature marked often by surface respect for authority or orthodoxy, yet an implicit (sometimes explicit) subversion of authority.

12. Shakespeare and the Renaissance Sonnet Sequence

13. The sonnet sequence in England About 60 years old when Shakespeare first wrote. HAD BEEN a sophisticated game for courtiers and aristocrats, a way of proving your mettle as a poet. The challenge was to sound intimate, self-revealing without really revealing anything. Something in the genre must have appealed to Shakespeare�s love of theater, artifice, words. He could reveal and conceal at the same time.

14. The Conventions of the sonnet-sequence, beginning with Petrarch The poet/lover in agonized pursuit of elusive female figure (his misery is emphasized, but paradoxically this produces a weird form of happiness) She�s beautiful but cold, symbolic of everything desirable yet unattainable in life She�s blond, like the sun Her virtue is so great that it still influences the poet after death

15. Shakespeare�s break with this tradition The beloved is (at least through the first 17 and perhaps 126 sonnets) a man The lady is dark, not blond She�s very obtainable (he�s contracted a STD from her!), thus not conventionally virtuous Though �obtained,� this doesn�t produce any great satisfaction As with Sidney, the sonnet sequence less �about� the beloved than about . . .

16. The power of art, of poetry in particular (18, 55, 130). It triumphs over time, replaces nature, nearly replaces God. Time, decay, mortality, death (55, 73, 116, 146) Love and lust (29, 87, 94, 129, 138, 144) What else?

17. Facts (or probabilities) about the sonnets Probably written throughout the 1590s, as Shakespeare was establishing himself as a playwright. There are 154 of them. Published as a book in 1609, after Shakespeare had retired to Stratford (and after sonnet writing was no longer popular). He MAY have arranged them. Contain a series of dramatic elements, namely . . .

18. Facts, continued The first 17 detail a relationship between the speaker and the younger, aristocratic man whom the speaker is counseling to marry and procreate. Many later ones reveal an emerging preoccupation with a rival poet, who has befriended the young aristocrat. And the final 20+ poems are about a dark-haired woman whom the speaker lusts for, and hates himself for lusting for. He is also concerned that BOTH of his beloveds are cheating on him�perhaps with each other!

19. Questions about the sonnets To what degree are they directly confessional, autobiographical? Were they authentic representations of his personal experience or simply exercises in dramatic art? Who was the dark lady, the fair young man, the rival poet? Why did Shakespeare write them? What�s the source of their greatness?

20. Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton

21. Scanning sonnet 73 That time / of year / thou mayst / in me / behold A When yel / low leaves, / or none, / or few, / do hang B Upon / those boughs / which shake / against / the cold A Bare ru / ined choirs / where late / the sweet / birds sang B In me / thou seest / the twi / light of / such day C As af / ter sun / set fad / eth in / the west D Which by / and by / black night / doth take / away C Death�s se / cond self / that seals / up all / in rest. D In me / thou seest / the glow / ing of / such fire E That on / the ash / es of / his youth / doth lie F As the / deathbed / whereon / it must / expire E Consumed / with that / which it / was nou / rished by. F This thou / perceiv�st, / which makes / thy love / more strong G To love / that well, / which thou / must leave / ere long G

22. The rhythm of sonnet 73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon the leaves which shake against the cold, Bare ruined Choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

23. Sonnet 73: what does it say? When you look at me, my beloved, you behold a man who feels old, dying--like leaves on a tree in late autumn. I�m like a decayed abbey, the moment when twilight is about to give way to darkness. I�m a fire about to go out, extinguished by the very force that once gave me life (you? Sex?). And seeing this makes you love me all the more, doesn�t it?--because you know you won�t have me much longer. (So perhaps all this despair is partly a form of emotional manipulation.)

24. In groups of 3 - 4 Looking at the characteristics we associate with Renaissance literature, show where and how ONE of the sonnets represents or embodies ONE or more of these characteristics. In Sonnet 18, what does the speaker mean when he says �thy summer shall not fade,� and what reason(s) does he offer for this argument? Why shouldn�t Sonnet 116 be read at weddings? Sonnet 130 is often referred to as an �anti-Petrarchan� poem. What is meant by that? Sonnet 138 offers several explanations for the fact that lovers often lie to (not simply with!) each other. What are they?