1879 - Lewes Psychol. 64. It would be a an abstract science of Feeling, to stand beside the abstract science of Force - an Aesthetics parallel with Dynamics. (from Compact OED)
For Beauty:
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?--Shakespeare
Against Beauty:
HAMLET
Ay, truly; for the
power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty
from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can
translate beauty into his
likeness: this was
sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof.
******************************
Shakespeare - Sonnet 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation! Where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil or beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
*******************************
- In the overwrought atmosphere of the Poetomachia Hamlet appears as one of the Tribe of Ben. His comments on stage manners and his suspicion of appearances align with Jonson's. Hamlet's preference for a 'judicious' theatre of one is echoed in many writings and praises of Jonson. Horatio/Horace/Jonson all attack 'seeming' - which was the main charge against Edward de Vere (show and seeming, appearance, painting, emptiness) as opposed to the inner 'matter' of Virtue. In Hamlet, Shakespeare/Vere who had been accused of being all surFace, interrogates the 'substance' or matter of Jonson's inner worth - and the 'inwardness' that was the site of militant Protestant virtue. What I now think of as the lie of the golden core.
What is the Matter?
Between Who?
It is no matter.
The real Matter of Hamlet removed from room - arranged/posed as a seeming-soldier to suit the ends of militant Fortinbras.
********************************
Jonson, Prologue, Cynthia's Revels
Then cast those piercing Rays,
Round as a Crown, instead of honour'd Bays,
About his Poesie; which (he knows) affords
Words, above action: MATTER, above words.
********************************
Lecturing the Courtiers: Crites/Criticus/Jonson in
Cynthia's Revels:
O vanity,
How are thy painted beauties doted on,
By light, and empty Idiots how pursu'd
With open and extended Appetite!
How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath,
Rais'd on their Toes, to catch thy AIRY FORMS,
Still turning GIDDY, till they reel like Drunkards,
That buy the merry madness of one hour,
With the long irksomness of following time!
O how despis'd and base a thing is a Man,
If he not strive t'erect his groveling Thoughts
Above the strain of Flesh! But how more cheap,
When, even his best and understanding Part,
(The crown and strength of all his Faculties)
Floats like a dead drownd Body, on the Stream
Of vulgar humour, mixt with common'st dregs?
I suffer for their Guilt now, and my Soul
(Like one that looks on ill-affected Eyes)
Is hurt with mere intention on their Follies.
Why will I view them then? my sense might ask me:
Or is't a rarity, or some new object,
That strains my strict observance to this Point?
O would it were, therein I could afford
My Spirit should draw a little neer to theirs,
To gaze on novelties: so Vice were one.
Tut, she is stale, rank, foul, and were it not
That those (that woo her) greet her with lockt Eyes,
(In spight of all the impostures, paintings, drugs,
Which her Bawd custom dawbs her Cheeks withal)
She would betray her loath'd and leprous Face,
And fright th' enamour'd dotards from themselves:
But such is the perverseness of our nature,
That if we once but fancy levity,
(How antick and ridiculous so ere
It sute with us) yet will our muffled thought
Choose rather not to see it, than avoid it:
And if we can but banish our own sense,
We act our mimick tricks with that free license,
That lust, that pleasure, that security,
As if we practis'd in a Paste-board Case,
And no one saw the motion, but the motion.
Well, check thy passion, lest it grow too lowd:
"While fools are pittied, they wax fat and proud
How are thy painted beauties doted on,
By light, and empty Idiots how pursu'd
With open and extended Appetite!
How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath,
Rais'd on their Toes, to catch thy AIRY FORMS,
Still turning GIDDY, till they reel like Drunkards,
That buy the merry madness of one hour,
With the long irksomness of following time!
O how despis'd and base a thing is a Man,
If he not strive t'erect his groveling Thoughts
Above the strain of Flesh! But how more cheap,
When, even his best and understanding Part,
(The crown and strength of all his Faculties)
Floats like a dead drownd Body, on the Stream
Of vulgar humour, mixt with common'st dregs?
I suffer for their Guilt now, and my Soul
(Like one that looks on ill-affected Eyes)
Is hurt with mere intention on their Follies.
Why will I view them then? my sense might ask me:
Or is't a rarity, or some new object,
That strains my strict observance to this Point?
O would it were, therein I could afford
My Spirit should draw a little neer to theirs,
To gaze on novelties: so Vice were one.
Tut, she is stale, rank, foul, and were it not
That those (that woo her) greet her with lockt Eyes,
(In spight of all the impostures, paintings, drugs,
Which her Bawd custom dawbs her Cheeks withal)
She would betray her loath'd and leprous Face,
And fright th' enamour'd dotards from themselves:
But such is the perverseness of our nature,
That if we once but fancy levity,
(How antick and ridiculous so ere
It sute with us) yet will our muffled thought
Choose rather not to see it, than avoid it:
And if we can but banish our own sense,
We act our mimick tricks with that free license,
That lust, that pleasure, that security,
As if we practis'd in a Paste-board Case,
And no one saw the motion, but the motion.
Well, check thy passion, lest it grow too lowd:
"While fools are pittied, they wax fat and proud
********************************
Jonson identifies Amorphus of Cynthia's Revels as Edward de Vere (or at the very least associates Vere with Amorphus by having Amorphus speak some lines of poetry that had been dedicated to Vere) - and accuses Vere of being made more of curious surFaces than substance.
In the prologue to the Cynthia's Revels Jonson explicitly prioritizes 'matter' above words and action.
Hamlet references matter at least 26 times? (Ferguson. Letters and Spirits. 'Matter, we are told, is spoken 26 times in the play'.)
In the prologue to the Cynthia's Revels Jonson explicitly prioritizes 'matter' above words and action.
Hamlet references matter at least 26 times? (Ferguson. Letters and Spirits. 'Matter, we are told, is spoken 26 times in the play'.)
Hamlet is a mad romp in search of the 'matter' of Jonson's virtue - the matter that is supposed to give meaning and 'weight' to words and ultimately the 'ground' for action. Hamlet can't act because he can't materialize or determine the 'substance' of the inner gold/virtue/matter that he has been taught to revere. He cannot find the 'matter' to base his actions on.
He has been taught also that beauty is suspect.
********************************
Shakespeare
That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
*********************************
Whitney's Choice
of Emblemes 226
Amico ficto nulla fit injuria
Since fauninge lookes, and SUGRED SPEACHE prevaile,
Take heede betime: and linke thee not with theise.
The gallant clokes, doe hollowe hartes conceile,
And goodlie showes, are mistes before our eies:
But whome thou find'st with guile, disguised so:
No wronge thou doest, to use him as thy foe.
Fere simile, in Hypocritas.
A FACE DEFORM'DE, a visor faire dothe hide,
That none can see his uglie shape within;
To Ipocrites, the same maie bee applide,
With outward showes, who all their credit winne:
Yet give no heate, but like a painted fire;
And, all their zeale, is: as the times require.
Amico ficto nulla fit injuria
Since fauninge lookes, and SUGRED SPEACHE prevaile,
Take heede betime: and linke thee not with theise.
The gallant clokes, doe hollowe hartes conceile,
And goodlie showes, are mistes before our eies:
But whome thou find'st with guile, disguised so:
No wronge thou doest, to use him as thy foe.
Fere simile, in Hypocritas.
A FACE DEFORM'DE, a visor faire dothe hide,
That none can see his uglie shape within;
To Ipocrites, the same maie bee applide,
With outward showes, who all their credit winne:
Yet give no heate, but like a painted fire;
And, all their zeale, is: as the times require.
*********************************
Jonson satirized Amorphus'/Oxford's 'beauties', sociability and Italianate ways. He depicted Crites/Jonson/Horace viewing Amorphus and Asotus with a contemptuous/asnide manner that foreshadowed Hamlet and Horatio's opinions of Osric's courtly beauties/civilities:
Asotus. I do purpose to travel, sir, at spring.
Amorphus. I think I shall affect you, sir. This last speech of yours hath begun to make you dear to me.
Asotus. O lord, sir! I would there were any thing in me, sir, that might appear worthy the least worthiness of your worth, sir. I protest, sir, I should endeavour to shew it, sir, with more than common regard, sir.
Crites. O, here's a rare motley, sir. (Aside.)
Amorphus. Both your desert, and your endeavours are plentiful, suspect them not: but your sweet disposition to travel, I assure you, hath made you another myself in mine eye, and struck me enamour'd on your beauties.
Asotus. I would I were the fairest lady of France for your sake, sir! and yet I would travel too.
Amorphus. O, you should digress from yourself else: for, believe it, your travel is our only thing that rectifies, or, as the Italian says, vi rendi pronto all' attioni, makes you fit for action.
******************************
Jonson depicts Amorphus/Oxford as lacking in substance. All outside.
Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
Amorphus:
...For, let your Soul be as-
sur'd of this (in any rank, or profession whatever) the
more general, or major part of Opinion goes with the
Face, and (simply) respects nothing else. Therefore,
if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely,
thorowly, it is enough:
Amorphus:
...For, let your Soul be as-
sur'd of this (in any rank, or profession whatever) the
more general, or major part of Opinion goes with the
Face, and (simply) respects nothing else. Therefore,
if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely,
thorowly, it is enough:
******************************
Defined by Barthes, a writerly text allows for multiple possibilities of meaning, in that it is infinitely plural, or as he states, a "galaxy of signifiers, and not a structure of signifieds." Whereas a readerly text does not allow the reader to actively produce any activity from the text. (footnote 9, Extravagant Passing, Rosa Martinez)
******************************
******************************
TO THE
SPECIAL FOUNTAIN of MANNERS,
The Court.
SPECIAL FOUNTAIN of MANNERS,
The Court.
T
|
Hou art a
Bountiful and Brave Spring, and waterest all the Noble Plants of this Island. In thee the whole Kingdom dresseth it self,
and is ambitious to use thee as her Glass. Beware then thou render Mens Figures
truly, and teach them no less to hate their Deformities, than to love their
Forms: For, to Grace, there should come Reverence; and no Man can call that
Lovely, which is not also Venerable. It is not Powd'ring, Perfuming, and every
day smelling of the Taylor, that converteth to a Beautiful Object: but a Mind
shining through any Sute, which needs no False Light, either of Riches or
Honours, to help it. Such shalt thou find some here, even in the Reign of C Y N T H I A, (a C R I T E S and an A R E T E.) Now, under thy P H Å“ B U S,
it will be thy Province to make more:
Except thou desirest to have thy Source mix with the Spring of Self-love, and so wilt draw upon thee as welcom a Discovery of thy Days, as was
then made of her Nights.
*******************************
Jonson, Discoveries
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 a 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.
*******************************
Jonson, Speach According to Horace
(to the Tempestuous Grandlings)
...What love you then? your Whore? what study? Gate,
Carriage, and Dressing. There is up of late
The ACADEMY, where the Gallants meet ——
What to make Legs? yes, and to smell most sweet,
All that they do at Plays. O, but first here
They learn and study; and then practise there.
But why are all these Irons i' the Fire
Of several makings? helps, helps, t' attire
His Lordship. That is for his Band, his Hair
This, and that Box his Beauty to repair;
This other for his Eye-brows; hence, away,
I may no longer on these PICTURES stay,
These Carkasses of Honour; Taylors blocks,
Cover'd with Tissue, whose prosperity mocks
The fate of things: whilst totter'd Vertue holds
Her broken Arms up, to their EMPTY MOULDS.
Carriage, and Dressing. There is up of late
The ACADEMY, where the Gallants meet ——
What to make Legs? yes, and to smell most sweet,
All that they do at Plays. O, but first here
They learn and study; and then practise there.
But why are all these Irons i' the Fire
Of several makings? helps, helps, t' attire
His Lordship. That is for his Band, his Hair
This, and that Box his Beauty to repair;
This other for his Eye-brows; hence, away,
I may no longer on these PICTURES stay,
These Carkasses of Honour; Taylors blocks,
Cover'd with Tissue, whose prosperity mocks
The fate of things: whilst totter'd Vertue holds
Her broken Arms up, to their EMPTY MOULDS.
*********************************
Sidneian (and Militant Protestant) Inwardness -
Fulke Greville - Recorder of Stratford
Sonnet LXV
Sidneian (and Militant Protestant) Inwardness -
Fulke Greville - Recorder of Stratford
Sonnet LXV
Let him then
first set straight his inward spirit,
That his Affections in the seruing roomes,
May follow Reason, not confound her light,
And make her subiect to inferiour doomes;
*For till the inward moulds be truly plac'd,
All is made crooked that in them we cast.*
That his Affections in the seruing roomes,
May follow Reason, not confound her light,
And make her subiect to inferiour doomes;
*For till the inward moulds be truly plac'd,
All is made crooked that in them we cast.*
*********************************
John Oldham on Jonson
II
Never till thee the Theater possest
A Prince with equal Pow'r, and Greatness blest,
No Government, or Laws it had
To strengthen, and establish it,
Till thy great hand the Scepter sway'd,
But groan'd under a wretched Anarchy of Wit:
Unform'd, and void was then its Poesie,
Only some pre-existing MATTER we
Perhaps could see,
That might foretell what was to be;
A rude, and undigested LUMP it lay,
Like the old Chaos, e're the birth of Light, and Day,
Till thy brave Genius like a new Creator came,
And undertook the mighty Frame;
No shuffled Atoms did the well-built work compose,
If from no lucky hit of blund'ring Chance arose
(As some of this great Fabrick idly dream)
But wise, all-seeing Judgment did contrive,
And knowing Art its Graces give:
No sooner did thy Soul with active Force and Fire
The dull and heavy MASS inspire,
But strait throughout it let us see
Proportion, Order, Harmony,
And every part did to the whole agree,
And strait appear'd a beauteous new-made world of Poetry.
II
Never till thee the Theater possest
A Prince with equal Pow'r, and Greatness blest,
No Government, or Laws it had
To strengthen, and establish it,
Till thy great hand the Scepter sway'd,
But groan'd under a wretched Anarchy of Wit:
Unform'd, and void was then its Poesie,
Only some pre-existing MATTER we
Perhaps could see,
That might foretell what was to be;
A rude, and undigested LUMP it lay,
Like the old Chaos, e're the birth of Light, and Day,
Till thy brave Genius like a new Creator came,
And undertook the mighty Frame;
No shuffled Atoms did the well-built work compose,
If from no lucky hit of blund'ring Chance arose
(As some of this great Fabrick idly dream)
But wise, all-seeing Judgment did contrive,
And knowing Art its Graces give:
No sooner did thy Soul with active Force and Fire
The dull and heavy MASS inspire,
But strait throughout it let us see
Proportion, Order, Harmony,
And every part did to the whole agree,
And strait appear'd a beauteous new-made world of Poetry.
****************************************
Exquisite and Elegant Edward de Vere is not Hamlet. Hamlet's intellectual habits, his prejudices and his humanist education mark him as a 'Son of Ben'.
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? - -Shakespeare Sonnet 65
HAMLET
Are you fair?
OPHELIA
What means your lordship?
HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?
HAMLET
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
*******************************
Escape from Elsinore:
"Oxford flaunts a COPIOUS rhetoric in this poem in
contrast with the more direct, unembellished commendatory verses of his
predecessors. His greatest innovation, however, lies in his application of the
same qualities of style to the eight poems assigned to him in the 1576 Paradise
of Dainty Devices, pieces that Oxford must have composed before 1575."
(Steven May. _The Elizabethan Courtier Poets_)
********************************
Natalino Sapegno –
Historic Overview of Italian Literature
In the image of the
courtier the highest spirit of the Renaissance is made concrete: the ideal of
the man who has conquered full knowledge of things and perfect control over
himself, who has ordered his own life with admirable equilibrium, in a
harmonious balance between physical and spiritual faculties, between individual
and social needs, between man and nature…In literature the Cortegiano is one of
the most beautiful books of the Cinquecento, inasmuch as even its style itself realizes
that idea of serene and luminous dignity, of clear and unaffected elegance,
which was the fundamental norm of courtesy.
**********************************
Che Bella Figura!
Gloria Nardini:
Bauman says
(discussing Castiglione’s descriptions of sprezzatura in presentation of self) -
It is part of the
essence of performance that it offers to the participants a special enhancement
of experience, bringing with it a heightened intensity of communicative
interaction which binds the audience to the performer in a way that is specific
to performance as a mode of communication. Through his performance, the
performer elicits the participative attention and energy of his audience, and
to the extent that they value his performance, they will allow themselves to be
caught up in it.
This ‘special
enhancement of experience” which, according to Bauman, “heightens the intensity
of communicative interaction’ Italians understand culturally as the performance
of bella figura. Barzini would seem to agree. He explains that in Italy
...The show is as
important as, many times more important than, reality. This is perhaps due to
the fact that the climate has allowed Italians to live mostly outside their
houses, in the streets and piazza; they judge men and events *less by what they
read or learn, and far more by what they see, hear, touch and smell*. Or because
they are naturally inclined towards arranging a spectacle, acting a character,
staging a drama; or because they are more pleased by display than others, to
the point that they do not countenance life when it is reduced to unadorned
truth…Whatever the reason, the result is that at all times *form and substance
are considered one and the same thing*. One cannot exist without the other. The
expression is the thing expressed.
(snip)
Thus, when Italians
fare bella figura, they speak, gesture, act, live with a sense of performance
that is second nature. This sprezzatura has a deep historical base and a broad
moment-by-moment expression. It is reflected in their viewpoint, their
language, their art and civic life, the whole of their culture; and it carries
over as they encounter other cultures and/or blend into them.
*******************************
'I know not seems'
The weather determining introversion/extraversion. The national character of the English more like the Danes? Trapped in their houses until Whitsun?
*******************************
Jonson vs. Oxford/Shakespeare:
Framing Authority: Sayings, Self, and Society in
Sixteenth-Century England
By Mary Thomas Crane
…[It] was a deeply threatening idea that a particular kind of
education (or, indeed, a prose style indicative of that education) could
replace birth and wealth as criteria for access to power. It posed the greatest
threat, as Lawrence Stone points out, to the aristocrats whom it
disenfranchised, and until they were able, in the seventeenth century, to
recast educational credentials on the basis of attendance at certain elite (and
expensive) schools, they were forced to reassert an alternative training for
aristocratic youth. It also threatened the humanists themselves, who saw in
their own upward mobility not only potentially dangerous eminence but also a
disquieting acquiescence in capitalist and republican tendencies and a palpable
threat to the concepts of order and hierarchy that they promulgated. These
issues surface (in the 1520s through the 1540s) in the form of preoccupation
with “value,” and in discussions of what society ought to value and how
“wealth” (both monetary and cultural) should be displayed and shared.
Stone has shown how the “educational revolution” effected by
English humanists contributed to the “crisis of the aristocracy” in the
seventeenth century. He argues that in the sixteenth century, the new ideal of
“gentleman” based on education “increased the opportunities of the gentry to
compete for office on more equal terms with the nobility.” There are signs,
however, of ARISTOCRATIC RESISTANCE to the humanist model of counsel, and in
this resistance lie the seeds of the alternative model of courtly advancement,
the ITALIANATE COURTIER. According to this model, “WORTH” is manifested through
the conspicuous consumption of “worthless” TRIFLES (clothes, jewelry) and
participation in frivolous pastimes (hunting, dicing, dancing, composing love
lyrics).
*******************************
Shakespeare:
How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are
*******************************
Cultural Aesthetics: Renaissance Literature and the Practice of Social Ornament
Patricia Fumerton
This book is about the fragmentary, the peripheral, and the
ornamental – what may be called, in terms specific to the culture I am dealing
with, the trivial. My focus is the trivial selfhood of the aristocracy in the
English Renaissance: a sense of self, as we will see, that was supported and,
indeed, constituted by bric-a-brac worlds of decorations, gifts, foodstuffs,
small entertainments, and other particles of cultural wealth and show.
My correlative interest is the way this sense of self arose
at the intersection between historical and aesthetic arenas of life. “Trivial”
is my general term for an analytic of the fragmentary, peripheral, and
ornamental addressed at once to the context of historical fact and to the texts
of aesthetic artifact. Under the rubric of the trivial, I consider first a
primary level of past existence where historical context appeared to the
aristocratic self as radical disconnection. The luxurious bric-a-brac of the
aristocrat’s everyday life was one with a cosmos in which even central
historical configurations seemed broken apart and marginalized in incoherence,
and where self was thus fixed in fracture. History, we may say, was a broken
confectionary plate whose sweet pieces…might be puzzled back together again by
the shattered self but never in such a way as to recover the fancied
roundedness of original unity.
To study history as a broken confection or disjointed pile,
as I intend to do, will seem trivial to historians seeking mainstreams and
currents of development (…).To think in Braudel’s terms, indeed, I wish to
study a layer of history even more superficial than the ‘surface disturbances,
crests of foam’ of ‘l’histoire evenementielle.” Over the transitory foam of
political events rises my métier: an even more ephemeral foam of culture whose
waves are only as substantial as a wave machine in an Inigo Jones masque. But
while I embrace “trivial” as a concept, I reject its derogatory connotation.
Any such derogation, I believe, is at last only a repression pinpointing the
anxiety of both mainstream and Annales history: the fear of the naked datum, of
the fact that seems mere fact unsupported by any continuous structure or
ground. How did the past itself think its naked facts so that a sense of
identity, of selfhood, could arise even amid historical incoherence?
Here lies the design of my sliding scale of triviality: the
fragmentary and peripheral were at last also ornamental. My answer is that the
past aestheticized itself. It was precisely the broken, disconnected, and ‘detached’
quality of historical fact that enabled the Renaissance to achieve an aesthetic
understanding of itself as a cultural artefact. A truly historical view of
Renaissance aristocracy will therefore be one that recognizes the necessity of
aesthetics in understanding past culture. When approached in a historicized
manner, aesthetics provides a meditation between the Renaissance and our own
age of postmodernity that is not a dismissal of history but precisely a
representation or interpretation of history.
**********************************
Shakespeare
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
This I do vow and this shall ever be;
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
This I do vow and this shall ever be;
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
******************************************
Shakespeare, Show and Seeming:
(seems to shake a lance)
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to SHOW
To whom all SCENES of Europe homage owe. (scene - painted cloth)
He was not of an age, but for all Time !
To whom all SCENES of Europe homage owe. (scene - painted cloth)
He was not of an age, but for all Time !
--Jonson
*******************************
Ben Jonson and Cervantes
Yumiko Yamada
...We have proved the hypothesis proposed at the start of this chapter: that the texture of Jonson's poem [Shakespeare's First Folio poem] has been woven for its meaning to be wholly reversible. What is whole-hearted praise in the eyes of certain readers can be read as pungent criticism from the viewpoints of others.
Elsewhere Jonson wrote for different readers: in the 1612 quarto of Catiline, he prepared two kinds of dedication, i.e. to "The Reader in Ordinarie" and to "the Reader Extraordinarie". Yet there the stress was laid only on the degree of comprehension, and there was no reversal of meaning, according to the ability of the reader.
Whatever his motive, writing poetry to celebrate Shakespeare's 1623 Folio risked undermining Jonson's 1616 Folio - intended as the antithesis of Shakespearean dramaturgy. If he were to be faithful to the readers of his Folio, he must remain critical. On the other hand, were the tone of mockery discernible to all, it would have been excluded from the commemorative folio of the deceased poet. Obliged to satisfy both sides' opposing values, Jonson probably thought of using the two parties' differing speech habits, as adroitly summed up in Sackton's brief account:
In Shakespeare (and most other writers) emphasis is on what is said: often, in Jonson, the dramatic effect depends much more on how it is said.
Heir to Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe, Shakespeare sought a flamboyant and intricate style to attract public attention, but rarely adjusted the style to the character and occasion, or varied the meaning to suit the style adopted. On the other hand, Jonson demands careful examination of the style of each speech: literal interpretation is often misleading.
The tribute seems "Jonson's finest poem of praise of another poet" (van den Berg) in the eyes of people used to stressing "what is said"; and immortal poet blessed with "Nature" and "Art", Shakespeare surpasses Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont, overshadows Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe and cast ancient writers back into the shade. No doubt Jonson would have classified Shakespeare with this category of readers. When the same poem was read by those who care "how it is said", Shakespeare became a huge, abortive flower of the loathed age, falling far below Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont in rank, but became the wonder (or monster) of the stage by outdoing Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe in the use of hyperbole, and by devastating the classical drama tradition. (pp. 81-82)
Yumiko Yamada
...We have proved the hypothesis proposed at the start of this chapter: that the texture of Jonson's poem [Shakespeare's First Folio poem] has been woven for its meaning to be wholly reversible. What is whole-hearted praise in the eyes of certain readers can be read as pungent criticism from the viewpoints of others.
Elsewhere Jonson wrote for different readers: in the 1612 quarto of Catiline, he prepared two kinds of dedication, i.e. to "The Reader in Ordinarie" and to "the Reader Extraordinarie". Yet there the stress was laid only on the degree of comprehension, and there was no reversal of meaning, according to the ability of the reader.
Whatever his motive, writing poetry to celebrate Shakespeare's 1623 Folio risked undermining Jonson's 1616 Folio - intended as the antithesis of Shakespearean dramaturgy. If he were to be faithful to the readers of his Folio, he must remain critical. On the other hand, were the tone of mockery discernible to all, it would have been excluded from the commemorative folio of the deceased poet. Obliged to satisfy both sides' opposing values, Jonson probably thought of using the two parties' differing speech habits, as adroitly summed up in Sackton's brief account:
In Shakespeare (and most other writers) emphasis is on what is said: often, in Jonson, the dramatic effect depends much more on how it is said.
Heir to Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe, Shakespeare sought a flamboyant and intricate style to attract public attention, but rarely adjusted the style to the character and occasion, or varied the meaning to suit the style adopted. On the other hand, Jonson demands careful examination of the style of each speech: literal interpretation is often misleading.
The tribute seems "Jonson's finest poem of praise of another poet" (van den Berg) in the eyes of people used to stressing "what is said"; and immortal poet blessed with "Nature" and "Art", Shakespeare surpasses Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont, overshadows Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe and cast ancient writers back into the shade. No doubt Jonson would have classified Shakespeare with this category of readers. When the same poem was read by those who care "how it is said", Shakespeare became a huge, abortive flower of the loathed age, falling far below Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont in rank, but became the wonder (or monster) of the stage by outdoing Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe in the use of hyperbole, and by devastating the classical drama tradition. (pp. 81-82)
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Book/Heir/Foundling
Billy Budd/Beauty - noble foundling
'Yes, Billy Budd was a
foundling, a presumable by-blow, and, evidently, no ignoble one. Noble descent
was as evident in him as in a blood horse.' (Melville, _Billy Budd_)
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1850: "Hawthorne and His Mosses" by Herman Melville
"Would that all excellent BOOKS were FOUNDLINGS, without father or
mother, that so it might be we could glorify them, without including
their ostensible authors."
“I know not what would be the right name to put on the title-page
of an excellent book, but this I feel, that the names of all fine
authors are fictitious ones, far more than that of Junius,-- simply
standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding SPIRIT of all
BEAUTY, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius. Purely imaginative
as this fancy may appear, it nevertheless seems to receive some
warranty from the fact, that on a personal interview no great author
has ever come up to the idea of his reader. But that dust of which our
bodies are composed, how can it fitly express the nobler intelligences
among us?”
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1850: "Hawthorne and His Mosses" by Herman Melville
"Would that all excellent BOOKS were FOUNDLINGS, without father or
mother, that so it might be we could glorify them, without including
their ostensible authors."
“I know not what would be the right name to put on the title-page
of an excellent book, but this I feel, that the names of all fine
authors are fictitious ones, far more than that of Junius,-- simply
standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding SPIRIT of all
BEAUTY, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius. Purely imaginative
as this fancy may appear, it nevertheless seems to receive some
warranty from the fact, that on a personal interview no great author
has ever come up to the idea of his reader. But that dust of which our
bodies are composed, how can it fitly express the nobler intelligences
among us?”
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Billy Budd - Melville
Claggart comments/mock-praise after Billy spilled a bowl of soup. Misunderstood by Billy/Beauty
Claggart - "Handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it too!"
handsome is as handsome does
proverb
character and behavior are more important than appearance.
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Where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid? -- Shakespeare
Vladimir Nabokov:
Shakespeare
Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv'ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard - in all of this
you were like other men... Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre's alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your MONSTROUS GENIUS
beneath a mask; and yet, your phantasm's echoes
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff's visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear..
You are among us, you're alive; your name, though,
your image, too - deceiving, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved LETHE...
Shakespeare
Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv'ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard - in all of this
you were like other men... Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre's alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your MONSTROUS GENIUS
beneath a mask; and yet, your phantasm's echoes
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff's visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear..
You are among us, you're alive; your name, though,
your image, too - deceiving, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved LETHE...
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Form crushing Sense/Feeling:
Billy Budd - Melville
The drum-beat dissolved the multitude, distributing most of
them along the batteries of the two covered gun decks. There, as wont, the guns' crews stood by their respective cannon
erect and silent. In due course the First Officer, sword under arm and standing in his place on the quarter-deck,
formally received the successive reports of the sworded Lieutenants
commanding the sections of batteries below; the last of which reports being
made, the summed report he delivered with the customary salute to the
Commander. All this occupied time, which in the present case, was the object of
beating to quarters at an hour prior to the customary one. That such variance
from usage was authorized by an officer like Captain Vere, a martinet as some deemed him, was evidence of the necessity for unusual action implied in
what he deemed to be temporarily the mood of his men. "With mankind,"
he would say, "forms, measured forms are everything; and that is the
import couched in the story of Orpheus with
his lyre spell-binding the wild denizens of the wood." And this he once
applied to the disruption of forms going on across the Channel and
the consequences thereof.
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Captain Edward Fairfax Vere:
The father in him, manifested towards Billy thus far in the scene, was replaced by the military disciplinarian. -- Melville, Billy Budd
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Vere
Captain Edward Fairfax Vere:
The father in him, manifested towards Billy thus far in the scene, was replaced by the military disciplinarian. -- Melville, Billy Budd
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Vere
SONNET 35
No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud(d).
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
(Thy adverse party is thy advocate)
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate
That I an accessary needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud(d).
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
(Thy adverse party is thy advocate)
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate
That I an accessary needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
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Thy adverse party is thy advocate:
Billy Budd, Melville - Chapter 23
Thy adverse party is thy advocate:
Billy Budd, Melville - Chapter 23
It was Captain Vere himself who of his own motion
communicated the finding of the court to the prisoner; for that purpose going
to the compartment where he was in custody and bidding the marine there to
withdraw for the time.
Beyond the communication of the sentence what took place at
this interview was never known. But in view of the character of the twain
briefly closeted in that state-room , each radically sharing in the rarer
qualities of our nature--so rare indeed as to be all but incredible to average
minds however much cultivated--some conjectures may be ventured.
It would have been in consonance with the spirit of Captain
Vere should he on this occasion have concealed nothing from the condemned
one--should he indeed have frankly disclosed to him the part he himself had
played in bringing about the decision, at the same time revealing his actuating
motives. On Billy's side it is not improbable that such a confession would have
been received in much the same spirit that prompted it. Not without a sort of joy
indeed he might have appreciated the brave opinion of him implied in his
Captain's making such a confidant of him. Nor, as to the sentence itself could
he have been insensible that it was imparted to him as to one not afraid to
die. Even more may have been. Captain Vere in the end may have developed the
passion sometimes latent under an exterior stoical or indifferent. He was old
enough to have been Billy's father. The austere devotee of military duty,
letting himself melt back into what remains primeval in our formalized
humanity, may in the end have caught Billy to his heart even as Abraham may
have caught young Isaac on the brink of resolutely offering him up in obedience
to the exacting behest. But there is no telling the sacrament, seldom if in any
case revealed to the gadding world, wherever under circumstances at all akin to
those here attempted to be set forth, two of great Nature's nobler order
embrace. There is privacy at the time, inviolable to the survivor, and HOLY OBLIVION, the sequel to each diviner magnanimity, providentially covers all at
last.
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Foundling Billy Budd/Beauty in the Darbies: Melville
But me they'll lash me in hammock, drop me deep.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease this darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair,
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease this darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair,
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
*************************************
How with this rage shall BEAUTY hold a plea,
Whose ACTION is no stronger than a flower?
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Word Origin and History for AESTHETICS:
n.
aesthetic
n.
1798, from German Ästhetisch or French esthétique, both from
Greek aisthetikos "sensitive, perceptive," from aisthanesthai "to
perceive (by the senses or by the mind), to feel," from PIE *awis-dh-yo-, from
root *au- "to perceive" (see audience ).
Popularized in English by translation of Immanuel Kant, and used originally in the classically correct sense "the science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception." Kant had tried to correct the term after Alexander Baumgarten had taken it in German to mean "criticism of taste" (1750s), but Baumgarten's sense attained popularity in English c.1830s (despite scholarly resistance) and removed the word from any philosophical base. Walter Pater used it (1868) to describe the late 19c. movement that advocated "art for art's sake," which further blurred the sense. As an adjective by 1803. Related: Aesthetically.
Popularized in English by translation of Immanuel Kant, and used originally in the classically correct sense "the science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception." Kant had tried to correct the term after Alexander Baumgarten had taken it in German to mean "criticism of taste" (1750s), but Baumgarten's sense attained popularity in English c.1830s (despite scholarly resistance) and removed the word from any philosophical base. Walter Pater used it (1868) to describe the late 19c. movement that advocated "art for art's sake," which further blurred the sense. As an adjective by 1803. Related: Aesthetically.
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Aesthetics - a non-category in 1600?
SONNET 127
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.
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Sonnet LXXII
O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
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.
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
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.