Sonnet Book We have a run of 750 sonnetbooks. Each book signed by William S
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It’s Risjaar de modderfokker this week. That speech opening the play on a London street is a killer talking about how good it feels to be a killer. Unashamed evil portrayed friendly-like as with those others Iago, Aaron, Edmund. These characters are the mirrors of the dark side of the soul. We could put them in the same row as Adolf, Saddam, Joseph. It’s a thin line between love and hate.
Compare this:
That hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,
Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;’
with this:
‘ No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,’
and if you’re thinking, ‘gosh! yes, Richard wooing Anne; Act 1, Scene 2: of The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the landing of Earle of Richmond, and the battle at Bosworth Field versus Sonnet 40, you are correct. But look here further parallels…
‘Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.
And when a woman woos, what woman’s son,
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed.’ Sonnet 41.
compare with:
‘Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?
Was ever woman in this humour won?’ R3.
In fact while we’re comparing similarities in theme between Sonnets try these:
HOw can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest ?
When day’s oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night and night by day oppress’d.
And each (though enemies to either’s reign)
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the Day to please him thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st th’ even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger. Q28,
versus
WHen most I wink then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected,
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow’s form, form happy show,
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so?
How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,
By looking on thee in the living day?
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. Q43
versus
IS it thy will, thy Image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenour of thy Jealousy?
O no, thy love though much, is not so great,
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watch-man ever for thy sake.
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near. Q61.
almost soporific isn’t it? almost 13:31 on this sunday and my secular butt is off for a ciggie. Pathetic habit!
…it’s 2006 and I want to write another book on Sh. Sonnets without looking like a complete and utter pretentious twat. Why, i ask myself, have i spent all these years memorising his 154 Sonnets? What motivated me to continue and what exactly have i discovered? Well I found, or think i’ve found, the obvious.
Simply i believe Sh. wrote a series of 154 sonnets because it is the maximum number of syllables in a sonnet. Normally a sonnet is 14 lines of masculine lines, with 10 syllables to a line. That’s a maximum of 140 syllables. Add an extra syllable to the line and it becomes feminine (or weaker), bringing the total to 154 syllables.
Now if you add 1+4+0= 5. Now add 1+5+4=10. Curiously if you add the series of numbers 1-17 in the following manner, 1+2+3+4+5 etc. it adds up to 153. 1+5+3=9. The number 9 contains itself 3 times, 3×3=9 3+3+3=9. Now 1-9 is the basic chain of numbers. 0 and 10 are nothing and beginning, ending and start, 11-19, 21-29, 31-39 etc.
Now i’m not a conspiracy theorist, though i love a good conspiracy theory, my problem is this numerological bollocks above is irrelevant to enjoying these poems.
‘Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in thy store’s account I one must be,
For nothing hold me so it please thee hold,
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lovest me for my name is Will.’ Q136.
…What is the point of memorizing the Sonnets?
Why suck the dew from a rose? An element of English eccentricity I guess. I needed to have an intimate knowledge of the sonnets and somewhere to keep them where they wouldn’t get misplaced or lost, since my short-term memory sucks. It took only 6 years to memorize them, fortunately poetry is still one of the few Arts you can carry around with you. Having the Sonnets embedded in my brain allowed me to digest this fascinating body of work, reach my conclusions and be able to present the bard to the masses.
Why love Shakespeare?
It’s hard not to love a man who was a Mensch and not an elitist. His language and skill in handling that language along with his thoughts and emotions captured human behavior like none other. His observations echo through time and are as relevant today as when they were penned, humans haven’t changed much in that respect. Plus he hated sycophants and boot lickers.
Why should we love Shakespeare?
It’s up to the reader. The proof is in the pudding but you have to take a bite. He was a man not God or a snob. I have my Shakespeare – you have yours. We all find our inner selves mirrored in his words, our doubts, fears and pain played out in his verse. He’s alive through all that read him, commit him to memory and perform him because of the power of his words, not his looks. Actors love him because he hands them roles that challenge their skill to the extreme. Audiences love him, well why actually?
How do you commit a Sonnet to memory?
The same way you get to Carnegie Hall or Beckham kicks that ball: practice, practice, practice. How great is your need? Funnily enough the hardest sonnets to learn are the ones about memory.
Go through the sonnet aloud and follow the string of sounds you make. See their relationship to one another. Ignore the meaning for now, that’ll change. Try saying it to a friend or someone who won’t laugh at you.
Get your tattered sonnet filled with scribbles out and do it properly this time. Repeat this process until the paper is no longer necessary. I also record it on computer or minidisk and play it repeatedly until I foam at the mouth because I still get it wrong. Actually I have them microscopically tattoed on my fingertips and excellent close-up vision.
My biggest helper was making a phonetic transcript of the sonnets on music paper (I gate-crashed a phonetics class at the University of Amsterdam). Learning to speak a second language fluently helped me appreciate the nuance and flow of the bard’s writings. Anyone who has tried to learn another language knows the frustration of not being able to say exactly what you want to say. Look at the English and the Scots.
Why Why love Shakespeare?
I’m a populist and believe the Sonnets are the perfect introduction to manipulating and speaking Shakespeare’s verse. Understanding the man and his times is a great help as well. Nowadays there seems to be a Renaissance happening in how one studies, views and performs Shakespeare. There is no standard anymore for speaking the verse except to ride the sound energy within the words. First Folio facsimiles abound and people are studying them as blueprints for performance. Film-makers are stripping the language and showing us the power of storytelling. The IT revolution is opening possibilities like the Printing Press did in Shakespeare’s time. If he came back I think Shakespeare would be an amazing DJ.
‘I hope to show clearly and convincingly that the answer is to be found in the patent fact that human beings possess in varying degrees a certain natural faculty or power or capacity which serves at once to give them their appropriate dignity as human beings and to discriminate them, not only from the minerals and the plants but also from the world of animals, this peculiar or characteristic human faculty or power or capacity I shall call the time-binding faculty or time-binding power or time-binding capacity.
The matter of definitions.. is very important. I am not now speaking of nominal definitions, which for convenience merely give names to known objects. I am speaking of such definitions of phenomena as result from correct analysis of the phenomena. Nominal definitions are mere conveniences and are neither true nor false; but analytic definitions are definitive propositions: and are true or else false. ..” pp. 58-59
If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function. A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various activities, they are not “living.”
The plants have a very definite and well known function–the transformation of solar energy into organic chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up ; in that sense they are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy ; and so
I define THE PLANTS AS THE CHEMISTRY-BINDING class of life.
The animals use the highly dynamic products of the chemistry-binding class–the plants–as food, and those products–the results of plant-transformation–undergo in animals a further transformation into yet higher forms ;
and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of life ; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power which the plants do not possess–
I mean the freedom and faculty to move about in space; and so I define ANIMALS AS THE SPACE-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.
And now what shall we say of human beings ?
What is to be our definition of Man ?
Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them–
I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past ;
I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present ;
I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success ;
I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom ;
I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity.
And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.
These definitions of the cardinal classes of life are, it will be noted, obtained from direct observation ; they are so simple and so important that I cannot over-emphasize the necessity of grasping them and most especially the definition of Man.’
The use of bold is mine. The breaks in the original paragraphing are mine too. it doesn’t really matter the definition is quite clear. WS 2006.
you can’t beat good lovin’!
Bad lovin however is better off beat. Beat it!
Good lovin’ people, that’s what i’m talkin’ bout!
If you got good lovin’ you’re a lucky person.
Nurture it people. Keep the lovin’ good lovin’.
I’m just a-musin’ here an’ amusing it is, if you got good lovin’.
…is a popular Auntie Beeb show where entrepreneurs face investors and try to convince them to invest in their ideas. Imagine me pitching a show based on the Sonnets of Shakespeare with possibility for an accompanying Sonnetbook, website and DVD! The honing laughter rings with imaginary puissance in my ears. And yet there is a part of my brain that is convinced this idea is a fortune spinner. This is called wishful thinking.
So far ekeing out a living in the more basal depths of paid acting and comedy work has funded this wish-fulfillment. But time is inexorable and the energies of youth meet the cares of middle age. I began as a late-bloomer and damn it intend to carry on that way.
It’s like the botanists waiting for an orchid to bloom, create a lively stink for a day or two, then phoenix-like collapse in on itself. What agency is at work to do? To be, no problem! We all are, whether we like it or no. But to do? What if all were done and gone? What’s to come? Will I be doing or being when death arrives?
‘The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right’. (come on, you know the play by now).
Now that’s a catchy title designed to make you rush to read it. But it has to do with my own obsession with lists. The tabling of knowledge in a seeming order with a logical overview: to get the whole at a glance. Roget’s Plan of Classification for his Thesaurus is probably one of the simplest. His Thesaurus is divided into six basic classes:
- Abstract Relations, deals with ideas such as Number, Order and Time;
- Space, is concerned with movement, shapes and sizes;
- Matter, covers the physical world and humankind’s perception of it by means of the five senses;
- The Human Mind, i.e. the intellect, the exercise of the mind in the formation and communication of ideas;
- The Human Will, i.e. Volition, the exercise of the will, whether individual or social;
- The Human Heart and Soul, i.e. the exercise of Emotion, Religion and Morality.
You notice the gradual movement and logical progression from abstract concepts, through the material universe, to humankind itself. Simply put, the world of human experience described from outside to inside.
Now there is a lot to be argued there, if we must, about Will and Souls; but basically you are looking at a Shakespearean world-view. This is Sh’s playground.
My play of the moment is Henry V. Go, if you will, to Act 3, Scene 3. and read how Harry addresses the governor of Harfleur, a town on the verge of being ransacked by the English forces. Stone-cold killer talking. No wonder this play is Rumsfeld’s favourite. No mockery here, real bloodshed, rapine and vengeance tempered by a civilising nature, if only you do as he says.
Harry’s defiance is David to Goliath. A little pretext and a foreign prince’s mock of tennis balls in Act 1, Sc. 2. line 405. start this invasion. This mock is echoed in Act 4, Sc. 3, line 93-95.
‘Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?
The man that once did sell the lion’s skin
While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him’
(The tennis balls serve a similar purpose in Love’s Labours Lost, written about 10 years before Henry V).
The Chorus, whose monologues begin each of the 5 Acts, and whose epilogue is written in the form of a Sonnet (!), is the embedded reporter throughout the piece. All in all Henry V is a fine piece of propaganda in which Shakespeare got to show off the French that he knew.
According to the concordance on the Shakespeare’s words website there are 76 instances of this phrase in Sh’s canon (including Two Noble Kinsmen). None in the Sonnets.
The outline of what will be a new show and thesis is in place. Now comes the fun part of working it into shape.
So much for ‘back to blogging with a vengeance’. Anyone would think I was Hamlet the speed I move.
The dissertation is about halfway typed up and should be posted on the i love shakespeare site real soon, said the procrastinator to his ego.
‘I have seen…’ appears 62 times. Thrice in Sonnet 64.
‘When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced…’ is one.
You can see the others yourself.
Ok kids get your thinking caps on! which play is the above taken from? The moody Dane should be a big enough clue. Too, too easy!
When the whole is taken as this, this is all my argument. This can be three generations eating and drinking in front of fire. This is the mood, the atmosphere, the interaction; or what one calls ‘gezellig’ in Dutch and ‘gemutlich’ in German.
This in the sonnets is love. This is also his verse, which originates because of his love. Ergo that is this. This is the basis of the two in one philosophy, i.e. we cannot be separated because you are in me and I am in you.
 ‘The worth of that, is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.’ Q74.
Back home in the damage. Toronto is visited and my dear father’s 80th birthday is done and gone. So back to the blogging with a vengeance. I so love your comments gentle readers, and appreciate your reading. I encourage you therefore to leave your opinions and comments so i won’t have to wade through spam only. Links and shout-outs are much appreciated too.
We visited NYC for 4 days and I had the chance with Lovejoy the webmaster to simplify our sister site. That sweet place where the sonnets dwell at www.iloveshakespeare.com. There you will find the sonnetbook for your perusal, edited to retain the original punctuation of Q1609.
You will also find links that deal with the show, which you can hear, see and potentially, book, by downloading the pdf of reviews and specifications. My goal is to get onto the North American Campus Activities circuit with a new show based on my theory of the sonnets. (think a da vinci code celestine prophecy piss-take, instead of those boring old human contenders to Oor Wullie’s throne).
The most exciting aspect of a recent lazy evening after gigging, entails what i consider to be the answer to why there are 154 sonnets. I am working offline to produce a paper on it and will post it when it is ready. It’s the most basic of symbolism and worthy of an ‘I’m dysfunctional, you’re dysfunctional’ kind of thinking.
In the meantime I’ve been thinking about negative capability in language. I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason-John Keats.
The thought that triggered this writing occurred while watching Russel Crowe and David Caruso posturing macho in the movie ‘Proof of Life’. It’s the negative capability of David Caruso as elite team leader, judging his wounded team-member’s chance of survival. Guys hired and trained by himself.
It takes place in the climactic ‘helicopter escape to freedom, riches and renown as the all-time ballsy guy’ scene, alongside his weepy new partner Russel. He grabs the devoted wounded supine hispanic figure by the lapels and says, ‘Who am I?’ to which the reply is, ‘You’re an asshole’.
Butch guys can get a lump in the throat at such negative posturing. But it’s the language twist that I love. It should be an insult but is imbued with love and forgiveness and recovery and continued friendship. It speaks paragraphs and even pages of prior relationship. It smacks of the reality of true brothers-in-arms camaraderie.
Good buddies do the same thing daily in life. They use the negative in language to show their affection. Comics I know do it offstage constantly. It strips the ego and is as honest and true as a good rugby tackle.
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