The Living Poetry Project: Part Seven
Shakespeare really is THAT good.
For me, the sonnets explain why he is THAT good.
When I write a full length poetry collection, I use Shakespeare’s sonnets as a model. I could (and would) never claim to achieve Shakespearean success as a writer, however I love to emulate him—how he weaves the elements of a theatre with poetry / poetry with theatre. The entrances and exits of a persona’s presence is one of my favorite parts of any work by Mr. William Shakespeare.
This weekend, my son and I helped our local theatre company, The Antelope Valley Thespians (AVT), with auditions for Wittenberg. This play borrows the character of Hamlet for a plot that takes a comedic look at our higher education system. I was in charge of greeting people at the door and helping with line reads. My four year old wanted to know what a “line” is—to my delight, my explanation for a play’s line is similar to my definition of the poetic line.
JJ and I made masks with Shakespeare quotes to give to people at the auditions. (Please see photos below.)
After auditions, JJ and I went to visit our friends (The Jennings-Tafarella Family) for a play-date. Rachelle Jennings teaches Shakespeare at Antelope Valley College; she can recite most of the Sonnets by heart. Her favorite (for the moment) is Sonnet #2:
SONNET 2
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
Rachelle fell in love with Sonnet #2 when a joke turned into a fistful of tears.
(I should explain, Rachelle is a very talented actor and theatrical person. I’ve seen her explain the intrigue of the 42nd sonnet to her students using toothbrushes as puppets. She is a great teacher, full of passion for her students and the works of Shakespeare. She is always finding creative ways to bring Shakespeare to others.)
On her fortieth birthday, Rachelle thought it would be funny to recite a poem about the woes of being forty. With the help of her (beautiful young-man) nephew, Rachelle enacted the commissioned advice of Shakespeare (procreate while you’re young to find immortal beauty within your children).
While her nephew stood on a table posing with “the warmth” of his young limbs, Rachelle said aloud, “When forty winters shall besiege thy brow.” The poetry-play was funny, until the last lines of the poem…
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold
…ambushed her.
Looking at her new born daughter, Rachelle began to sob. As she put it, “I looked over at my little baby and realize the last call for the eggs had come.” Rachelle pointed out how the poem isn’t exactly kind to women, “The original poem is of an older man talking to a younger, but in my situation it was an “old” woman realizing she’d just had a baby before her time had run out.” Time, according to Shakespeare, is extra cruel to women (whose eggs stop calling).
My favorite thing about the sonnets is Shakespeare’s ability to begin in jest and end with tears—the poem must shift as life is in constant flux. I asked Rachelle to point out a few other things to love about the second sonnet, and these are the jewels she offered.
Rachelle loves the mixing of military and agriculture metaphors, such as with the word “trenches” and “field.”
She explained the importance of the high-forehead—the “brow” being the ultimate mark of beauty during Shakespeare’s time. To ravage that part of the body, is to demolish all of the body. The word “brow” (along with many other words in the sonnet) make great use of synecdoche (the use of the part of something to stand for the full). To harm the “brow” is to ruin the whole.
Rachelle often interrupted herself by saying, I love his abundance—referring to Shakespeare’s use of rhyme and alliteration.
She also loves how filthy Shakespeare can be—the word “treasure” referring to a young man’s semen. The poem literally is asking, “what have you done with your sperm?”
The poem is written in the Italian form. It has the English rhyming pattern, but the argument is presented in the Italian. When I asked Rachelle why Shakespeare might have made this form choice she offered, “probably because he was commissioned to persuaded a young man to get married. The 6 lines to give his argument would allow him more time to persuade.”
Rachelle concluded our short interview by explaining why the final lines brought her to tears. “It is the opposition between seeing and feeling” that makes the poem work. The warmth of youth can be seen by the elderly, while they can only feel the cold of their own age.
Wow.
This is why I love Shakespeare; this is why I love poetry.
