Bardisms (17 page)

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Shakespeare’s plays will forever enshrine him in the pantheon of world literary giants, but they’re not the only distinguished collection of verse he wrote. His series of 154 fourteen-line sonnets, of which the Bardism here is number eighteen, is also astonishingly great. Written over many years beginning in the early 1590s, the sonnets weren’t published until 1609, although versions of Sonnets 138 and 144 first appeared in a volume called
The Passionate Pilgrim
ten years earlier.

The circumstances surrounding the composition and publication of the sonnets are mysterious. Many scholars believe that Shakespeare never intended the poems to be published at all, because surviving evidence suggests they had been circulated privately to a small group of friends and insiders comprising mostly prominent London literati and connected noblemen. One of these readers might have slipped a manuscript to a publisher without Shakespeare’s authorization. This theory is buttressed by the fact that the author’s name is given an unusual hyphenated spelling—“Shake-Speare”—on the title page of the 1609 text and throughout the volume. Had Will himself been involved in the publication, his name surely would have been spelled correctly.

Another mystery is the dedication that precedes the poems. It’s signed not by Shakespeare but by “T.T.”—the initials of the volume’s publisher, Thomas Thorpe—and it labels “Mr. W.H.” as “the onlie begetter” (literally, sole parent; i.e., inspiration) of the poems. To this day, no one knows who this W.H. was. Literary sleuths adduce all sorts of evidence in support of various candidates (even such luminaries as Oscar Wilde and the philosopher Bertrand Russell turned their considerable minds to the question). Here are a handful of the theories, in increasing order of outlandishness:

W.H. is any of a number of well-known aristocratic patrons of the arts who supported Shakespeare’s early career, including William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (to whom the First Folio was dedicated), or Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare’s patron and the dedicatee of both
Venus and Adonis
and
The Rape of Lucrece
), whose initials are here reversed to help preserve his anonymity—and yes, there are some fascinating theories as to why he’d want to be anonymous now when he didn’t care before, and these sound like cloak-and-dagger stuff worthy of a Jacobean John Le Carré.

W.H. is some other individual in Shakespeare’s life: his nephew, the actor William Hart; his friend the playwright William Haughton; the eminent publisher William Hall; or the young socialite William Hughes.

“W.H.” is an unfortunate misprint for either “W.S.” or “W. Sh.”: William Shakespeare. Or “W.H.” is short for “William Himself”: again, Shakespeare. (Those who argue this theory perform some circus-caliber contortions as they attempt to explain why Shakespeare would dedicate a book of his poetry to himself.)

“W.H.” means “Who He,” a formulation commonly used at the time by authors who wished to hide their identities. If this theory is correct, then Thomas Thorpe (and/or Shakespeare) was obfuscating on purpose, encouraging a public guessing game about “W.H.” in order to confer on the sonnets a certain frisson of notoriety or even scandal, and, as a result, to increase book sales. What I love about this argument is that while it’s a 10 on the ludicrous scale, it’s also the only theory of “W.H.” that’s supported by what’s actually happened over the course of four hundred years—an endless and complicated cat-and-mouse pursuit of the elusive W.H.

Despite the rampant silliness of some of the speculation, the true identity of W.H. is not without consequence. This is because the 154 sonnets, read in sequence, tell a very personal story, and W.H., as its “onlie begetter,” may well have been a leading character in the tale. Most of the poems are addressed by their author to a handsome young man (referred to by scholars as the “Fair Youth”). The first seventeen sonnets compliment the Fair Youth on his uncommon beauty and urge him to preserve and perpetuate it in the form of a child who will resemble him. Sonnet 18 suddenly reveals that the poet not only admires the Fair Youth but also has romantic feelings for him, and the next 108 sonnets chronicle a turbulent relationship between the two men. Frequently this relationship is described in the language of erotic love; indeed, by sonnet 126, the poet has been so hurt by unrequited passion for the Fair Youth that he rejects him and has an affair instead with a woman known as the “Dark Lady.” But this affair turns painful when the poet discovers that the Dark Lady is also in love with the Fair Youth and may even have had an affair with him herself! As if all this weren’t byzantine enough, a “Rival Poet” enters the picture and ratchets up the complications by vying for the Fair Youth’s attention with love poems of his own.

The poet who narrates this melodramatic love story is a middle-aged man confused by the power of his sexual urges, and frustrated and heartbroken over a dashing young man with ice in his veins. By turns jealous, vengeful, desperate, apologetic, abashed, gracious, and finally philosophical and resigned, the poet experiences and describes the whole wide gamut of human emotion. Many of the sonnets seem to revel in the resemblances between this poet and Shakespeare himself, such as number 135, which puns incessantly on the word
will
and all but announces that Will Shakespeare is not only the author of the verses but also their star. Therefore, if W.H. was indeed an actual person, and if he was in fact the Fair Youth of the Sonnets, and if the Dark Lady and the Rival Poet were also real figures from the Elizabethan world, then these 154 sonnets reveal an enormous amount about Shakespeare’s personality, emotional and psychological wiring, and private life.

But whether or not we choose to read these 154 poems as a kind of Shakespearean crypto-autobiography, we cannot deny their scope, beauty, and power. Even as they chronicle the vexed romantic interactions of four Elizabethans, the sonnets address countless broader themes: the corrosive powers of time; the enduring beauty of poetry; the disappointments and dissatisfactions of day-to-day existence; the paradoxical ability of sexual passion to generate new life even as it often leaves dejection and humiliation in its wake. The sonnets may well be a glimpse into the heart, mind, and soul of one the greatest geniuses in human history, but they are also one of the most sublime collections of verse ever composed.

SHAKESPEARE ON LOVEMAKING

Kiss me, Doll.

—F
ALSTAFF
,
Henry IV, Part II
, 2.4.236

In my life as a Shakespeare teacher, I now and then work with high-school-age students. I’ve learned to look forward to a moment that usually comes while I’m talking about one of the Kate-Petruchio scenes in
The Taming of the Shrew
, or one of the Olivia-Sebastian scenes in
Twelfth Night
, or one of the Rosalind-Orlando scenes in
As You Like It
. Maybe it will be when we get to Petruchio’s line about putting his tongue in Kate’s tail. Maybe it will be when Rosalind threatens Orlando to be careful about marrying her, because she plans to be the kind of wife who dallies with the pool boy. Maybe it will be when Olivia sees her lover boy’s identical twin and, imagining double her fun, exclaims, “O wonderful!” At one of these points, or at any of a million others, I see a light snap on in my students’ eyes. “Hey!” it says, in lurid red neon. “This is Shakespeare. And it’s got
sex!
”

“It sure does,” I tell them. “And why not? Shakespeare writes about every other aspect of the human experience. Why would he skip this one that’s so very, very central to it?”

It disappoints me that the average high schooler doesn’t know how much sex there is in Shakespeare—they’d read a lot more of him if they knew—but it doesn’t surprise me. The American curriculum typically introduces Shakespeare with plays that seem to me rather bizarre choices for teenagers.
Macbeth
is one, that wholesome study of unhinged ambition, marital perfidy, and violence more brutal than that found in the latest release of Grand Theft Auto.
Julius Caesar
is another, that all-singing, all-dancing journey into political assassination, betrayed friendships, and—a favorite of teenage girls everywhere—self-mutilation as an attention-getting ploy. Even
Romeo and Juliet
, Shakespeare’s hottest play, when taught to kids somehow lurches toward the morality tale and becomes a finger-wagging lecture on the perils of connubial precociousness.

That young people meet a Shakespeare bleached of his throbbing, sweaty, erotic urges is one of the lasting legacies of our English forebears still at the center of American culture: the mutually reinforcing prudishness of Victorian shame and old-school Puritanism. Shakespeare would’ve burst a blood vessel if he’d known, because animus toward all such restrictive, pleasure-canceling ideologies was one of the driving forces of his dramaturgy.

I say, if we’re to presume ourselves worthy of working on this great writer’s plays, the least we can do is honor his memory by resuscitating the horny heart that pounds them hormonally to life. Let’s put the shagging back in Shakespeare! Let’s give some Cialis to
Cymbeline
! Time to cop a feel off sweet Ophelia! Time to coriol-spank a little
Coriolanus
!

To kick things off, then, here’s Shakespeare on the Occasion of the Dirty Deed.

MAY I SMOOCH YOU?

We’ll start slowly, with gentlemanly refinement.

May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

—U
LYSSES
,
Troilus and Cressida
, 4.5.48

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