Shakespeare's Character:
Mentis Character - Style is the image of man, for man is but his MIND... (Puttenham)
At my abuses reckon up their own;
I may be straight, they themselves be bevel.
*By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown*,
Unless this general evil they maintain:
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.
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Character \Char"ac*ter\, n. [L., an instrument for marking,
character, Gr. ?, fr. ? to make sharp, to CUT into furrows,
to engrave: cf. F. caract[`e]re.]
1. A distinctive mark; a letter, FIGURE, or symbol.
character, Gr. ?, fr. ? to make sharp, to CUT into furrows,
to engrave: cf. F. caract[`e]re.]
1. A distinctive mark; a letter, FIGURE, or symbol.
Character - to cut, to engrave
Character - A distinctive mark; a letter, figure, or symbol.
TO THE READER.
This FIGURE that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle SHAKSPEARE CUT,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life :
O could he but have drawn his WIT
As well in brass, as he has hit
His FACE ; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
This FIGURE that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle SHAKSPEARE CUT,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life :
O could he but have drawn his WIT
As well in brass, as he has hit
His FACE ; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
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Shadowing Deformity:
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SONNET 59
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your IMAGE in some antique BOOK,
Since MIND at first in CHARACTER was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'er better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O, sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your IMAGE in some antique BOOK,
Since MIND at first in CHARACTER was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'er better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O, sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
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I've been reading an account of obscene and scatalogical content in jest/geste books - how originally they were read by aristocrats and were gradually abandoned (or at least publically disowned) as literature and humour began to be divided into categories of high and low. Shakespeare had a very broad sense of humour, and I have a strong sense that Jonson's understanding of literary decorum caused him to differentiate between the scurrility and obscenity of Shakespeare and his own 'chaste' book.
Addressing 'Playwright' in an epigram, Jonson distances himself from the popular/common use of bawdry and obscenity in contemporary plays. William Cartwright, a Son of Ben, later would accuse Shakespeare of exactly these qualities (see below). Scurrility, or indecorous jesting, presumably would be from Jonson's perspective far below the dignity of an Earl, and certainly should not be setting the tone at court.
From this perspective, Oxford's famous 'fart' - a grotesque, inverted form of laughter - may be further evidence of Oxfordian/Shakespearean indiscretions: his inability to rule or contain himself. I imagine 'Shakespeare', like Milton's Satan, was hurled headlong from the heaven of the court into the oblivion of a Stratford dunghill. With civil war on the horizon, did unreformed aristocratic indulgences such as 'Shakespeare' begin to go out of fashion?
Did someone think the 'bumpkinification' of the Earl of Oxford was a form of poetic justice - that he was properly immortalized as a vulgar country clown?
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E P I G R A M S . Jonson
XLIX. -- TO PLAYWRIGHT.
PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns,
He says I want the tongue of epigrams ;
I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean ;
For witty, in his language, is obscene.
Playwright, I loath to have thy MANNERS known
In my CHASTE book ; profess them in thine own.
He says I want the tongue of epigrams ;
I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean ;
For witty, in his language, is obscene.
Playwright, I loath to have thy MANNERS known
In my CHASTE book ; profess them in thine own.
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Willam Cartwright, a Son of Ben, described Shakespearean transgressions against good taste and form in much the same language that Jonson had used to criticize 'Playwright':
William Cartwright
Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lyes I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes;
Old fashion'd wit, which walkt from town to town
In turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the Clown;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,
And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:
Nature was all his Art, thy veine was FREE
As his, but without his SCURILITY;
Jonson's opinion of Shakespeare's lack of discretion is evident in his comment that Shakespeare had to be 'ruled' or restrained; and a similar thought regarding the restraining/ruling of Shakespearean extravagance is echoed in Jasper Mayne's tribute to the deceased William Cartwright, where Cartwright is eulogized as a successor to Ben:
For thou to Nature had'st joyn'd Art, and skill.
In Thee Ben Johnson still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:
A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,
As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.
Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,
Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)
In Thee Ben Johnson still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:
A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,
As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.
Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,
Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)
William Cartwright's 'lamp' was well supplied with Roman and Greek 'Oyle' - to be contrasted with Shakespeare's 'small Latine, and lesse Greeke'. W Towers, in a eulogy for William Cartwright, also takes aim at ignorant clownish poets with 'little Latin and no Greek':
W. Towers to William Cartwright:
...Thy skill in Wit was not so poorely meek
As theirs whose LITTLE LATIN AND NO GREEK
Confin'd their whole Discourse to a Street-phrase,
Such Dialect as their next Neighbour's was;
Their Birth-place brought o’th’stage, the Clown and Quean
Were full as dear to them as Persian Scean.
Thou (to whom Ware, thus offer’d, smelt as strong
As the CLOWN'S foot)
Was Oxford one of the poets that Cartwright credits Jonson for 'excluding from life in after-time' [fame]? Does the 'monument Shakespeare' obscure his name? (My name be buried where my body is,/
And live no more to shame nor me nor you./ For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,/ And so should you, to love things nothing worth.)
And live no more to shame nor me nor you./ For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,/ And so should you, to love things nothing worth.)
...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and th'ages fashion did make hit;
*Excluding those from life in after-time*,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made commendation a BENEVOLENCE:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within..
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In _Speculum Tuscanismi_ Gabriel Harvey described the deformed 'English Poet' the Earl of Oxford as 'nos'd unto Naso'. Nasal deformity signified a 'lack of discretion or discernment' (see below).
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The Companion to Southern Literature...Joseph M. Flora
The Grotesque
...The grotesque exhibits a strong affinity with the physically abnormal in complex representations. The Hebrew term mum, ("deformity" or "blemish") occurs primarily in Leviticus, where it is uses to describe not only the types of growths and malformations usually associated with the English terms, but also such infirmities as blindness, lameness, "a flat nose, or any thing superfluous," a man that is "broken-footed, or broken-handed, or crookbacked," or one who has "a blemish in his eye" or is "scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken" (castrated), or who is a dwarf (Leviticus 21:18-23)...
(snip)
...St. Augustine, in his De Civilitate Dei, uses the concept of deformity in order to discus the problem of humanity's limited perspective, and in the late middle ages, the Glossa Ordinaria gives deformity its fullest tropic expression through both typology and allegory. The glosses on Leviticus 21:18-23 give a moral figurative value to each of the enumerated deformities, thus associating physical deformities with moral and mental deficiencies. For instance, blindness is interpreted as the exterior sign for one who is suppressed by darkness of this present life, ignorant of the light of contemplation; lameness is seen as an inability to follow God; and a deformed nose is said to signify a lack of discretion or discernment.
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Gabriel Harvey, Speculum Tuscanismi
...A little Apish flat couched fast to the pate like an oyster,
French camarick ruffs, deep with a whiteness starched to the purpose.
Every one A per se A, his terms and braveries in print,
Delicate in speech, quaint in array: conceited in all points,
In Courtly guiles a passing singular odd man,
For Gallants a brave Mirror, a Primrose of Honour,
A Diamond for nonce, a fellow peerless in England.
Not the like discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out,
Not the like resolute man for great and serious affairs,
Not the like Lynx to spy out secrets and privities of States,
Eyed like to Argus, eared like to Midas, nos'd like to Naso,
Wing'd like to Mercury, fittst of a thousand for to be employ'd,
This, nay more than this, doth practice of Italy in one year.
French camarick ruffs, deep with a whiteness starched to the purpose.
Every one A per se A, his terms and braveries in print,
Delicate in speech, quaint in array: conceited in all points,
In Courtly guiles a passing singular odd man,
For Gallants a brave Mirror, a Primrose of Honour,
A Diamond for nonce, a fellow peerless in England.
Not the like discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out,
Not the like resolute man for great and serious affairs,
Not the like Lynx to spy out secrets and privities of States,
Eyed like to Argus, eared like to Midas, nos'd like to Naso,
Wing'd like to Mercury, fittst of a thousand for to be employ'd,
This, nay more than this, doth practice of Italy in one year.
(snip)
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Nasutum volo, nolo polyposum. Martial.
'I approve of a man with a nose: I object to one with a polypus'
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C Y N T H I A 'S
R E V E L S,
O R,
The Fountain of Self-Love.
Nasutum volo, nolo polyposum. Mart.
R E V E L S,
O R,
The Fountain of Self-Love.
Nasutum volo, nolo polyposum. Mart.
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Nasutus, Polyposus: these character names derive from a line in an epigram by Martial: ‘nasutum volo, nolo polyposum', which translates as, 'I approve of a man with a nose: I object to one with a polypus' The phrase 'with a nose' meant to be an excellent critic; hence, Nasutus is a worthy critic, while the judgements of Poluposus are ill- informed and malevolent.
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Jonson
'Apologetical Dialogue' spoken at the end of Poetaster, but once.
T O T H E R E A D E R.
I F, by looking on what is past, thou hast deserv'd that Name, I am willing thou should'st yet know more, by that which follows, an Apologetical Dialogue; which was only once spoken upon the Stage, and all the Answer I ever gave to sundry impotent Libels then cast out (and some yet remaining) against me, and this Play. Wherein I take no pleasure to revive the Times; but that Posterity may make a difference between their Manners that provok'd me then, and mine that neglected them ever. For, in these Strifes, and on such Persons, were as wretched to affect a Victory, as it is unhappy to be committed with them. Non annorum canities est laudanda, sed morum.
The P E R S O N S. N A S U T U S, P O L Y P O S U S, A U T H O R.
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Discoveries, Jonson
DE VERE argutis. - I do hear them say often some men are not witty, because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more foolish. If an eye or NOSE be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye or NOSE! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin, lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but in wresting and writhing our own tongue! *NOTHING is fashionable till it be deformed*; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet-bags, and night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it is so curious.
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Much Ado about NOTHING
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O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
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De corruptela MORUM There cannot be one colour of the MIND; another of the wit. If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, the wit is so; that vitiated, the other is blown, and deflowered. Do we not see, if the mind languish, the members are dull? Look upon an effeminate person: his very gait confesseth him. If a man be fiery, his motion is so; if angry, 'tis troubled, and violent. So that we may conclude: wheresoever manners, and fashions are corrupted, language is. It imitates the public riot. The excess of feasts, and apparel, are the notes of a sick state; and the wantonness of language, of a sick MIND. (Discoveries 1171, Jonson)
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Sonnets of Narcissus:
SONNET 69
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy MIND,
And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy MIND,
And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
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And because this continuall course and manner of writing or speech sheweth the matter and disposition of the writers MINDE, more than one or few words or sentences can shew, therefore there be that haue called stile, the image of man (MENTIS CHARACTER) FOR MAN IS BUT HIS MIND, and as his minde is tempered and qualified, so are his speeches and language at large, and his inward conceits be the mettall of his MINDE, and his manner of vtterance the very warp |&| woofe of his conceits, more plaine, or busie and intricate, or otherwise affected after the rate. -- Puttenham
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U N D E R W O O D S .
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
XLII. — THE *MIND* OF THE FRONTISPIECE
TO A BOOK.
From death and dark oblivion (near the same)
The mistress of man’s life, grave History,
*Raising the world to good and evil fame*,
Doth vindicate it to eternity.
Wise Providence would so : that nor the good
Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,
But both might know their ways were understood,
When vice alike in time with virtue dured :
Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand
Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs,
And guided by Experience, whose straight wand
Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things ;
She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,
Assisted by no strengths but are her own,
Some note of which each varied pillar bears,
By which, as proper titles, she is known
Time's witness, herald of Antiquity,
The light of Truth, and life of Memory.
The mistress of man’s life, grave History,
*Raising the world to good and evil fame*,
Doth vindicate it to eternity.
Wise Providence would so : that nor the good
Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,
But both might know their ways were understood,
When vice alike in time with virtue dured :
Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand
Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs,
And guided by Experience, whose straight wand
Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things ;
She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,
Assisted by no strengths but are her own,
Some note of which each varied pillar bears,
By which, as proper titles, she is known
Time's witness, herald of Antiquity,
The light of Truth, and life of Memory.
