Title page of the first edition of The Sonnets
"Sonnets are the key by which Shakespeare
open your heart"
William Wordsworth
According to the research of many literary scholars, Shakespeare's sonnets were written during the heyday of sonnet poetry in English literature, between 1592 and 1598. Philosophical depth, drama of feelings, musicality and lyricism of Shakespeare's sonnets have taken an outstanding place in the history of world poetry. They reveal the richness and beauty of the Renaissance man, the tragedy and grandeur of his existence, as well as reflections on life, creativity and art.
Shakespeare's sonnets are combined into a cycle, which is divided into several separate thematic groups, but constitutes a single plot integrity:
- Sonnets dedicated to a friend: 1-126
- Chanting a friend: 1-26
- Friendship Trials: 27-99
- Bitterness of separation: 27-32
- First disappointment in a friend: 33-42
- Anguish and fear: 43-55
- Growing alienation and melancholy: 56-75
- Rivalry and jealousy towards other poets: 76-96
- "Winter" of separation: 97-99
- A celebration of renewed friendship: 100-126
- Sonnets dedicated to the Swarthy (Dark) Lady: 127-152
- Conclusion - the joy and beauty of love: 153-154
English painter Frost. Disarmed Cupid. Sonnet No. 154
When compiling this material, we used:
1. William Shakespeare. Sonnets. Per. from English. S. Marshak. M.: "Fiction"; 1994.- 304s.
2. History of foreign literature. Shapovalova M.S., Rubanova G.L., Motorny V.A. - Lviv: Vishcha school. Publishing house at Lvov.un-those. 1982.- 440 p.
3. World artistic culture:
Sonnets by W. Shakespeare. main motives. Philosophical questions raised in sonnets.
Unlike the Petrarchists, Shakespeare did not rush into the ghostly heavenly spheres. The earth was dear to him, the flourishing earthly nature, the world of earthly man, contradictory, but beautiful, affirming itself in friendship, love and creativity.
The meaning of the sonnets: they reveal the spiritual richness and beauty of the Renaissance man, the greatness and tragedy of his existence. Sonnet 146 is dedicated to this. It sings of a man who, thanks to his spiritual quest and tireless creative burning, is able to gain immortality. Such a person is the lyrical hero of Shakespeare. All 134 sonnets are united in his image. The lyrical hero sings of his devoted friendship with a wonderful young man and his ardent love for the “dark lady”. Shakespeare's sonnets are a cycle, the structure of which is determined by the character and dynamics of the feelings of the lyrical hero.
Sonnets were written in the same years that comedies, historical chronicles and early tragedies were written; they are connected with the dramaturgy of Shakespeare. They express the idea of the triumph of life and love, the vicissitudes of feelings, the lyrical element, so characteristic of comedies, is conveyed; in the sonnets, a humanistic interest in the individual, ethical pathos, characteristic of tragedies and historical chronicles, manifested itself; they pose philosophical problems of life, deeply dramatic, and sometimes tragic motives sound, an image of a world arises in which trust and nobility come into conflict with cruelty and self-interest. The poet reflects on the troubles in the life of society and the disorder of the world. The world of feelings of the hero's lyric is rich, but he does not close on himself. His soul is open to life. Injustice is opposed by enduring values - friendship, love, art. Shakespeare's sonnets are the poetic commentary of the era. Talking about the life of the heart, the poet condemns the hypocrisy and cruelty of society.
Among the sonnets that develop important social ideas, you make the 66th sonnet. This is an angry denunciation of deceit and meanness, triumphant evil and injustice.
The picture of evil opens before the hero, and he calls for death.
1-126 sonnets are dedicated to a friend
All sonnets have the theme of love. Its variations are striking in wealth. Love awakens in the hero the ability to feel especially sharply and strongly, to perceive life in its entirety. Love is the source of strength and happiness. She is sung in sonnets as the greatest gift of life. Love has many faces. She gives not only joy and strength: “love is cunning, it needs streams of tears”; she can be cruel and treacherous.
The sonnets convey the wealth of feelings experienced by lovers; joy, hope, delight, admiration, passion, despair, sadness, pain, anguish, jealousy and again hope, happiness and exultation.
An important place in the sonnets belongs to the theme of time, the change of generations, the inevitability of old age. Turning to a friend, the lyrical hero advises him to marry and have children. Life continued in children will conquer death. You can’t limit life only to your own destiny, you can’t appropriate for yourself what nature “gives you to pass on”. Nature requires renewal, nothing can and should not stand still. Think about the future in the present
And although inexorable time triumphs over everything earthly, the creative impulse of man is capable of triumphing over him too. It is given to any person to prolong his existence in posterity (sonnets 2, 3, 4, etc.).
nevertheless, the movement of time is inevitable, it sweeps away all obstacles in its path and, bringing renewal, brings death closer. This theme is heard in the 64th sonnet.
The immortality of art is opposed to the power of time. It survives centuries, preserves the memory of the people sung by the poet, and the image of the poet himself (sonnet 55) A person finds his immortality in creativity. The poet continues to live in verse.
In the famous sonnet 130, a portrait of “a swarthy lady is created. Shakespeare creates the image of a real woman. The lyrical world of Shakespeare is the world of a person who not only feels, but also thinks. Shakespeare boldly broke established patterns for the sake of affirming the truth of life. In this regard, the cycle of his sonnets dedicated to the "swarty lady" (sonnets 127 - 152) is very remarkable. From Shakespeare's sonnets, the reader learns that the poet is in love with the "dark lady" and she at one time reciprocated, and then, carried away by the poet's friend, ceased to be faithful to him. Shakespeare's sonnets contain a frank confession of a lyrical hero. At the same time, contrary to tradition, the poet does not depict his chosen one as either ideal or superbly beautiful. The drama plays out in the mind of the poet.
1-17 - friend, his beauty, narcissism; continuation of one's own kind.
18+ eternal life in verse; image of time (lion, tiger)
55+ poetry theme, cat is stronger than death
62+ mirror image
116+ image of love
Lyric poetry under his pen approaches tragedy. The poet was well aware that the treachery of a friend and the deceit of a beloved is just a drop in the ocean of human grief raging around. In the book of intimate sonnets, like a lightning strike, sonnet 66 invades, echoing Hamlet's mournful monologue about worldly disorder.
Shakespeare's sonnets were translated into Russian by B. Pasternak, S. Marshak and O.B. Rumer, M.I. Tchaikovsky, A.M. Finkel.
39. Poetry of the Pleiades + sample verses
Pleiades (fr. La Pléiade) - the name of the poetic association in France of the XVI century, which was headed by Pierre de Ronsard. They were the first to write poetry in French, and not in Latin or Greek.
The Pleiades should not be considered a single poetic school (despite the fact that Ronsard's priority for all members of the group was indisputable). The general attitude of the Pleiades was to reject traditional (national) poetic forms (in this regard, the group argued with Clément Marot), regarding poetry as serious hard work (and not an empty pastime, which the poets of the school of great rhetoricians allegedly indulged in and the same Marot ) and in "singing of spiritual aristocracy". This aristocracy was nourished by the apologetic concept of the poet, characteristic of the Renaissance and associated with the influence of Neoplatonism. The latter is called upon to strive for Beauty, actively resorting to mythological imagery, neologisms and lexical borrowings, enriching the syntax with phrases characteristic of Latin and Greek. Instead of medieval genres (except for eclogues, elegies, epigrams, messages and satires, which still need to be preserved), it was proposed to turn to antique (ode, tragedy, epic, hymn) and characteristic of Italy (sonnet). The group's manifesto was signed by Du Bellay (but, apparently, composed with the active participation of Ronsard) the treatise "Protection and glorification of the French language" (La Deffence, et Illustration de la Langue Française, 1549). At the turn of the 1550s-1560s, the position of the Pleiadian poets, not without the influence of the socio-political situation, changed somewhat: there was a tendency to deepen philosophy, on the one hand, and civic pathos, on the other (however, the patriotic feeling colors the manifesto Pleiades).
What united the group? Some theoretical provisions, as usual. They were set forth in treatises, prefaces to collections of poems, poetic messages. The first place, both in time and in meaning, belongs here to the "Defense and glorification of the French language" by J. Du Bellet.
From the first steps, the activity of the Pleiades is distinguished by a general concern for all French literature in the name of the exaltation and glory of France: it defends the native language, without condemning Latin, it raises the language to the level of art, proclaiming Poetry the highest form of its existence.
The practical achievement of the ideal expression of national literature, according to Du Bellay's theory, should have been achieved through imitation not of the letter, but of the spirit of antiquity.
The best authors of the Pleiades, brilliantly applying the technique of Pindar, created a French ode, brought the poetic word to the highest degree of perfection. Ronsard, one might say, created a new French lyric, as Pushkin did with us. Ronsard, like Du Bellay, had a subtle sense of proportion, laconicism, and even rightly rejected Italian poets, who, in his words, "usually pile up four or five epithets in one verse."
The Pleiades theorists, referring to the work of Horace, urged not to rush to publish the works, but tirelessly polish their style. However, no amount of learning and diligence will save if the poet is not inspired by the Muses, and the poetic theory is built in accordance with the teaching of Plato, who claims that poets are the spokesmen for the divine inspiration descending on them.
Du Bellay spoke about the high destiny of the poet-creator, that he must make the reader "indignant, calm down, rejoice, grieve, love, hate."
"Pleiades" did another important thing - it freed the poet from complete dependence on the patron, made him a professional.
True, during the years of religious wars, in the context of the Counter-Reformation, the paths of the members of the group diverged and rather abruptly: Ronsard and Baif become court authors, Jodel goes into opposition, many others are no longer alive. But the thing was done in general terms: a national school was created, national poetry, moreover, the influence of the Pleiades spread throughout Europe: Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney are trying to implement a similar reform in England, in Poland in his work - the brilliant Jan Kokhanovsky, in Germany - Weckerlin and Opitz, even the Italian Kyaberra declares himself a supporter of the ideas of Ronsard.
But theories are theories, and literature is created primarily by geniuses. Such geniuses were given to France by the Pleiades, and France to the whole world. These geniuses were Josage du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard.
2. Joashing du Bellay
Let's start with the oldest. Joachin du Bellay was born in 1522, lived for the classical thirty-eight years for a poet, and died in 1560.
Let's try to imagine the time of Du Bellay.
In 1525, the troops of Charles V captured the French king Francis I. And this was just one of the episodes of the bloody war for supremacy in Europe, a struggle that cast a shadow over the poet's life.
This, moreover, is also a time of scientific research and explosions of wild superstitions, double fanaticism - fierce Catholics and implacable Huguenots. France is at war almost continuously - now with Charles, now with the British. The Habsburg Empire frightens the world with its power. Charles V, who was born in Flanders and reigned in Madrid, ruled Germany and Mexico, Holland and Italy. The French then for the first time started talking about "European equilibrium". Francis offered an alliance to the Turkish sultan. He negotiates with both Muslims and German Protestants, which does not prevent him from burning homegrown heretics at the stake.
The ideas of the Renaissance that came from Italy shake the enlightened French. The nobles read the Odyssey and talk about the discoveries of Copernicus, while students embarrass their loved ones with Petrarch's poems. The king sends the great Titian from Italy, who paints a portrait of an enlightened monarch. The king founds the College de France - the first higher secular school. He patronizes philosophy, philologists, poets, artists. He gives speeches on the importance of printing. At the same time, he burns at the stake one of the best printers in France, the philologist Dole. Speakers are the first students of Ignatius Loyola, militant Jesuits. Calvinists protest against the fanaticism of the Catholics, but they themselves do not disdain their methods. In Catholic Paris, the Spanish doctor Servet teaches medicine, he studies the circulatory system. From the persecution of the church, he leaves for Geneva, where Calvin organized a Protestant republic. Of course, Calvin condemns the Inquisition, but the scientific justification of the world worries him, perhaps more than even the pope himself ... And the freedom-loving Huguenots solemnly burn the physician Servetus at the stake. And more importantly, a new class, the bourgeoisie, is growing rapidly. Such is the environment in which the poets of the Pleiades work, the world in which Du Bellay lives.
Coming from a poor branch of the famous family of bishops, governors, diplomats, generals, he was orphaned early, was in poor health. As a young man, he goes to Poitiers to study law at the university. There he met with Ronsard. According to legend, they met by chance in a suburban tavern. And from the first meeting they became friends forever. In 1547, the 25-year-old Du Bellay quit law, moved to Paris, entered the Cocre College, where his friend Ronsard was studying. Both of them live in a boarding school, are fond of Italian poetry, roam the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter, fall in love with girls who are invariably compared to Petrarch's Laura.
Two years later, Du Bellay publishes a collection of poems "Oliva" - this is how the poet calls the object of his love. There are many beautiful sonnets in the book. Almost simultaneously, the glorification of the French language appears.
And three years later he renounces his first book, that is, Petrarchism:
Words are lofty and bright
And everything is pretense, everything is words.
Hot Ice. Love is dead
She has no skill
Enough to imitate Petrarch.
......................................
I want to love without looking back.
After all, apart from poses and apart from phrases,
Cupid's arrows, Gorgon's eyes,
There is that love that knits us.
I don't play hide and seek anymore.
We are tired of paper passions -
Let me live with a living wife!
Which, in my opinion, only proves once again how narrow and at the same time eternal a number of poetic themes.
By 1553, Du Bellay was already a completely sick person. Tuberculosis has tormented him since adolescence, and poverty - almost from birth.
At this time, he visits Rome as a secretary for financial affairs as part of the mission of Henry II, headed by a relative of the poet, Cardinal Jean Du Bellay. The Habsburgs and France fought for the unfortunate, torn apart Italy.
The poet spent four years in Italy. He was struck by the life that goes on in the ancient ruins. In those years, Rome was not only the ruins of its former glory: the frantic Michelangelo also worked, liturgies were performed, architects created palaces, combining the harmony of the "golden age" with the first whims of extravagant baroque.
And Rome revealed to him the face of vice. In sonnets, he described all this: the intrigues and cheating of cardinals and diplomats, the shamelessness of courtesans, a mixture of half-naked girls with cassocks, incense with wine fumes, a rosary with bankers' calculations. He described - and yearned for his homeland, and fled to France, and created a poetic book "Regrets" - a diary of observations, reflections, confessions. A book of living love for a living and married woman, Roman Faustina, about their difficult and stormy love. And, nevertheless, not love - the main thing in the final book of Du Bellay. He understood that Ronsard writes about love better, and therefore wrote about life, about himself, about time.
The deafness that came upon him, but also let go of him (even they had a common ailment with Ronsard!) in 1599 returned completely. Other diseases were also tortured. The poet is down. When relief suddenly came, he got out of bed and cheerfully celebrated the New Year in the house of his friend Bizet. Returning home, he sat down at the table to work on poetry. On the morning of January 1, 1560, he was found dead.
And three years after the death of the poet, a new war began between the Catholics and the Huguenots and ... the Renaissance ended.
Here are some of Du Bellay's sonnets, translated by Wilhelm Levick, among those that made his name immortal.
There is no use for the ignorant in the arts of Apollo,
A miser does not value such a treasure,
Ambition is not inclined to embellish them;
He is laughed at by the one who curls around the throne,
A soldier from rhymes and stanzas of a shield will not make,
And du Bellay knows: you won’t be fed up with them,
Poets are not in the price of power and law.
The nobleman does not see the profit from poetry,
For the best poems you can not buy a shish, -
The poet is usually poor even in his own country.
But I won't give up a song line
One Poetry saves from melancholy,
And I owe her six years of my life.
Do you want to know, Panjas, how your friend lives here?
Waking up, dressed according to all the laws of fashion,
He ponders for an hour how to cut costs.
And how to pay off debts, and take payment in advance.
Then he rushes about, he searches, catches, waits,
Keeps an amiable appearance, though quick-tempered by nature.
It will go through all the outputs and inputs a hundred times.
Having conceived twenty deeds, he will not carry out two.
Now bow to dad, then letters, then reports,
That noble guest came and - you are glad, not glad -
He tells lies from three boxes of all sorts of nonsense.
They ask, they cry, they demand advice,
And this is every day, and, you believe, there is no light ...
So explain, Panjas, how I write poetry.
Blessed is he who resists the low lie to please
High truth did not go against,
I did not force the pen to scribble shameful nonsense,
Serving those who make the weather.
And I conceal my anger, I force nature,
So that unbearable bonds do not aggravate the shame,
I do not dare to break my soul into space
And find peace or give freedom to the feeling.
My every step is constrained - meekly silent.
They poison my life, and yet I do not cry.
Oh, the flour to endure everything, only clenching his fists!
There is no pain worse than hidden in the bone!
There is no thought more fiery than the one that is locked up!
And there is no suffering stronger than mute sorrow!
3. Pierre Ronsard
Now about Ronsard. Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585) was born into a family of a poor nobleman, whose ancestors were from Hungary. The poet's father, a participant in almost all Italian campaigns of the early 16th century. was a not bad amateur poet and instilled in his son a love of antiquity. In his youth, the future poet visited England, Scotland, Flanders, Germany, studied languages and ancient literature under the guidance of Jean Doré.
After the appearance of his first books, Ronsard immediately becomes the head of a new direction and the "prince of poets." His worldview is integral, cheerful, humanistic. During this period, Ronsard is a true man of the Renaissance.
His best creations of this period, that is, the end of the 40s. - "Odes", in which, using the technique of Pindar, Ronsard achieved excellent poetry, philosophical and aesthetic depth.
In addition to "Ode", the extensive cycle of Petrarch's sonnets "Love for Cassandra" is significant.
By the mid 50s. Ronsard moved on to the "poetry of reality." Two brilliant cycles of poems to Mary in the manner of Catullus, Ovid and Tibullus marked a new stage in his work.
Here nature and man unite, the tone of the verses becomes calmer, the Alexandrian twelve-syllable replaces the impetuous ten-syllable verse of the cycle to Cassandra. In the future, Alexandrian verse will become the main measure of classicist dramaturgy and high poetry in France.
Maria, his new love, is a simple girl, and his verse accordingly loses its excessive solemnity, but acquires simplicity and naturalness. The image of the girl is given in motion, in variability and is not at all like the slightly stilted style of appeals to Cassandra.
In two books of "Hymns" (mid-50s) Ronsard poses philosophical and scientific problems, opposes the harmony of the cosmos to unsettled earthly life. The dissonance of ideals and being breaks into poetry, the poet sees a way out in a solitary rural life.
The third period of Ronsard's work coincides with the beginning of the religious wars. Here he is the initiator of the tradition of political poetry, imbued with the spirit of patriotism, to a certain extent anticipates "Aubigne. Awareness of oneself as part of the nation, as a person responsible for the fate of the country is the main feature of the book" Reasoning ". And here Ronsard is the founder of the genre of messages.
After 1563, for ten years, in addition to lyrics, the poet worked on the poem "Franciade", as if following the example of Virgil's "Aeneid", commissioned by Charles IX. But unlike Virgil, Ronsard did not like and could not work on commission, and by and large the epic to him, a pure lyricist, failed. Although, it should be noted that in the poem there are a number of places marked by the genius of Ronsard, which influenced the further classic epic up to Voltaire's Henriade.
In the same period, Ronsard created brilliant eclogues and established this genre in his native poetry. The main achievement of the master in the 70s. - a magnificent poetic cycle "Sonnets to Elena", about the last hopeless and yet beautiful love for a young lady, as well as several amazing poems in anticipation of the end of life, created in the last year.
Ronsard's biography is a huge and brilliant novel of the living life of the king of poetry, crowned with a laurel wreath, a series of hobbies and passions, a struggle with an ailment - deafness, secret singing of the Muse, heard only by him, political hopes and disappointments and creativity, creativity, creativity from a young age to the grave . And dying, Ronsard dictated poetry to his secretary and friend Amadis Jamin.
Recognized as the king of poets during his lifetime, Ronsard has remained so for centuries. One word - classic.
Poems by Pierre Ronsard translated by Wilhelm Levick
As soon as Kamena opened her source to me
And inspired with sweet zeal for a feat,
Proud joy warmed my blood
And noble love kindled in me.
Captivated at twenty by a carefree beauty,
I conceived in verse to pour out my warmth of the heart,
But, agreeing with the feelings of the French language,
I saw how rude, obscure, ugly he was.
Then for France, for the native language,
I began to work boldly and sternly.
I multiplied, resurrected, invented words -
And the created was glorified by rumor.
I, having studied the ancients, opened my way,
He gave order to phrases, diversity to syllables,
I found the structure of poetry - and, by the will of the muses,
Like the Roman and the Greek, the Frenchman became great.
To me, my friends, today I am feasting!
Pour us, Corydon, a boiling stream.
I will honor my beauty
Cassandra il Marie - does it matter which one?
But nine times, friends, let's raise the circle, -
By the letters of the name I drink nine cups.
And you, Bello, glorify your whimsical,
For the young Madeleine we will shed a stream of life.
Bring to the table the flowers that you picked in the garden,
Violets, lilies, peonies, mignonette, -
Let each one tie a fragrant wreath for himself.
Friends, let's cheat death and drink for love!
Perhaps we won't be able to meet again tomorrow.
Today we live, and tomorrow - who will predict?
Oh, that damn doctor! It's coming here again!
He wants to see him shirtless for the hundredth time
My beloved, feel everything: and thighs,
And that, and that chest, and back, and stomach.
Is that how he treats her? Quite the opposite:
He is a rogue, he fools her head, poor thing,
All their brethren have the same habits.
Fell in love, maybe it's better not to lie.
Her parents, please, dear ones, -
The illness of my Mary has completely upset you! -
Chase the medic, the pig in love.
Do you really not understand his whole idea?
May the Lord send to punish the villain,
Healing for her, my illness for him.
Nature has given everyone a weapon:
Orlu - humpbacked beak and powerful wings,
The bull - his horns, the horse - his hooves,
The hare has a fast run, the viper is poisonous,
Her tooth is poisoned. Fish have fins
And finally, the lion has claws and fangs.
She knew how to instill a wise mind in a man,
Nature had no wisdom for women
And, having exhausted its power on us,
She gave them beauty - not a sword and not a spear.
Before female beauty, we all became powerless,
She is stronger than gods, people, fire and steel.
Belri Creek
Tired of midday heat,
How I love, oh my stream,
Fall to your cold wave
Breathe your cool
As long as August is frugal
In a hurry to collect the gifts of the earth,
And the fields groan under the sickles,
And someone's song floats away.
Inexhaustibly fresh and young
You will always be a god
To the one who drinks your cheerful cold,
Who tends the flocks near you.
And at midnight to your glades,
Confused with fun their peace,
All the same nymphs and sylvans
They run in a rushing crowd.
But let, stream, and in a brief slumber
I don’t remember your stream,
When, exhausted by fever,
I recognize the breath of death.
When I want to taste love at least once again,
The beauty screams at me: “But you are a hundred years old!
Come to your senses, friend, you have become ugly, weak and gray,
And you pose as a handsome young man.
You can only laugh, what do you love?
You are pale as a dead man, your age has already been measured.
Though my charms excite your blood,
But you are not a stallion, you are a mangy gelding.
I would look in the mirror: well, really, what a sight!
Why hide the years, your age betrayed you:
There are no teeth and a trace, and the eye is half closed,
And you are black in face, like a sooty idol."
I answer like this: do I care,
Is my eye watering, am I fit for the tribe
And my black hair has turned gray for a long time, -
It's not the time for me to look in the mirror.
But since soon I will have to rot in the ground
And perhaps go to the woeful Tartarus
As long as I want to live, and therefore - to love,
Moreover, the period was very short.
What is death? Is it such an evil
How does it all seem to us? Perhaps dying
In the last, bitter hour, which has come to the end,
As in the first hour of the journey - not hard at all?
But you understand - not to be! Lose light, heat,
When the thread breaks and the pallor of the grave
It will run through the members, cutting off all feelings, -
When the desires are gone, how everything is gone.
And no drinks, no food! Well, yes, so what?
Only the body asks for food, food is its basis,
He needs her to maintain strength,
And the spirit does not eat, does not drink. But laughter, love and caresses?
Venus sweet call? Do not waste words and colors, -
What is love to the one who has died and cooled down?
I tend to old age, you have grown old too.
And if we merge two old age into one
And turn the winter - as we can - into that spring,
Which will save you from cold and shivering?
After all, the old man is many years younger,
When he does not want to be a prisoner of old age.
It gives newness to all feelings,
He is cheerful, he is like a snake in shiny new skin.
Why do you need this makeup - it only spoils you.
You will not deceive the running days of the law.
No longer round your legs dry like sticks,
Do not make a strong breast and sweet as a fruit.
But time - give time! - will tear off the mask from you,
And a white swan will take off from a black jackdaw.
I'm dry to the bone. To the threshold of darkness and cold
I approach deaf, gnawed, black, weak,
And death won't let me out of its clutches.
I am terrible to myself, like a native of hell.
Poetry lied! The soul would be glad to believe
But neither Phoebus nor Aesculapius will save me.
Farewell, light of the day! Painful flesh slave
I'm going into a terrible world of general decay.
When a friend comes in, he looks through tears,
How destroyed I am, what I have become.
He whispers something to me, kissing my face,
Trying to quietly wipe a tear from my cheek.
Friends, loved ones, farewell, old people!
I will be the first there, and I will take your place.
4. Agrippa d\" Obigne
For a worthy description of the life-novel of this man, the pen of Alexandre Dumas would be required, for if the life of Ronsard is a lyrical novel, then the life of Aubigne is the most adventurous.
Let's try to depict it only in the most general terms.
1560. The eight-year-old boy Agrippa d "Aubigne, together with his father, a zealous Huguenot warrior and scribe, rides on horseback through the town square, from which the heads of the executed Protestant conspirators have not yet been removed. The old man bursts into curses against their executioners. Barely getting out of the crowd surrounding his detachment , he made his son swear to his last breath to fight for their cause.
So the boy was knighted in Protestantism. He remained faithful to this oath always and everywhere: on the battlefields, in politics, in literature.
Already at the age of six, Agrippa read Greek, Latin and Hebrew, a year later he translated Plato. A year later, orphaned, he ended up in Geneva, where he took up commentaries on scripture, philosophy, mathematics, and without the knowledge of his relatives moved to Lyon, where he became interested in the occult sciences. However, his temperament carried him into battle.
And once a sixteen-year-old boy, locked in the house of a guardian, in one shirt climbed down the sheet from the bedroom window, stuck to a detachment of Protestants and in the morning in a fight got himself a weapon, clothes, a horse. This was the first feat of arms of a warrior, then for almost half a century in a row he did not let go of his sword.
A hero, a daredevil, a partisan - all this is him, young d \" Obigne ... But now he falls ill with a fever, and getting out of bed, bitterly repents of the robberies and cruelties committed. From now on, he is an ideological fighter for the motherland and faith, full of consciousness of holiness its mission.
In the interval between battles, "Aubigne falls cruelly in love. Hiding from his pursuers in one of the castles, he is captivated by the owner's daughter, the proud beauty Diana Salviati, the niece of the very lady who was sung by Ronsard under the name of Cassandra.
But why does a Catholic aristocrat need a Huguenot from the seedy nobles?
Passion does not receive reciprocity, but it gives birth to a poet. The first book d "Aubigne is a magnificent cycle of poems" Spring ". Here he is somewhat similar to Ronsard, but his melody is bitter, and his Spring is the spring of a soldier who came from the war.
In 1573, Aubignet was in Paris. He is in great friendship with the future Henri IV, the very Huguenot prince who will soon say: "Paris is worth the Mass", convert to Catholicism and sit on the throne. But for now, both are being hunted , and together they flee from the Louvre, where Heinrich is sort of under secret arrest.This episode is told by Dumas in the novel "Queen Margot".
And again d \ "Aubigne is a partisan, again a warrior, again a soldier. But now he is no longer a boy, but a sophisticated theorist and philosopher, a good friend of Montaigne and a dozen other famous French humanists.
A knight-preacher without fear and reproach, d\" Obigne renounces Henry when he renounces Protestantism in the name of the throne. Throwing everything he thinks about traitors and apostates in the face of the king, d\" Obigne hides from the world for a decade and a half a remote castle, where he works on poetry and prose, looking with disgust at the deeds of former friends.
After the murder of Henry, the old Huguenot perked up and tried to put together a new Protestant opposition, but his time had already passed. France entered the era of absolutism, and the hour was not far off when spurs and combat helmets would be replaced by powdered wigs of ballroom festivities of the "sun king".
Having locked the gates of his castle, Agrippa sat down for the "General History" (1616-1626) - a chronicle of the outgoing time of religious unrest. He died in 1630, having outlived his age and himself, surrounded by strangers and enemies. They say that on his deathbed he sang a psalm with which he once led regiments into battle.
Life's work d\" Obigne the poet - "Tragic Poems". He worked on their creation for thirty-nine years (1577-1616). Here's what you can say about them briefly.
The first part - "The Troubles" paints a sad picture of a kingdom devastated by religious wars.
The second part - "Monarchs" gives a satirical gallery of images of the rulers of France. This thing in French literature is unprecedented in the specific orientation of satire, in the determination to call a spade a spade, in the fearlessness of denouncing the powerful of this world.
The third part - "The Golden Chamber" - is a story about unrighteous, cruel Catholic judges.
The fourth part - "Lights" - is a historical chronicle of persecution for the faith from Jan Hus to himself.
The fifth part - "Swords" - depicts France as the kingdom of Satan, sent by God as a punishment for the deeds of Catholics.
The sixth part - "Retribution" - and the seventh part - "Judgment" - are permeated with the pathos of faith in a just retribution for apostates on earth and in eternity.
The whole cycle is imbued with biblical antiquity, ancient mythology and high tragedy. This is an authentic Renaissance sunset masterpiece.
In addition to the above, Peru d "Aubigne owns the picaresque novel" The Adventures of Baron Fenest ", written under the influence of Don Quixote and which is primarily a satire on court mores. This novel, dating back to the novelistics of the beginning of the century and to the work of Rabelais, is considered a significant phenomenon French prose.
Another prosaic thing - "The Biography of Agrippa d "Aubigne, written by himself for his children", probably prevented Dumas from using Agrippa's biography for the novel. After all, no one could write about him better than Aubigne, even the king of the bestseller Dumas- father. (By the way, in exactly the same situation, Dumas used Cellini's autobiography when creating the novel "Ascanio" - and ... lost to the Italian in a creative duel ... Maybe that's why he refrained from a similar duel with the Frenchman. However, Dumas composed a myriad many novels, and it is quite possible that I simply do not know his book about d\ "Aubigne.)
The work of Agrippa d \ "Aubigne as a whole is one of the apex phenomena that prepares the Baroque in the Renaissance. His tragic muse gave French (and not only!) Literature a high pathos of civil lyrics and the power of a visionary flight of thought. The presence of the muse d \" Obigne is felt and in the cosmic visions of John Milton, and in the furious "Iambas" of Auguste Barbier, and in the work of Victor Hugo. And Baudelaire simply put as an epigraph to the first edition of "Flowers of Evil" lines from the poem of the old Huguenot.
In conclusion, I cite a few sonnets and a small fragment from Agrippa's "Swords" by Aubignet.
*** (Translated by Al. Revich)
Ronsard! You were generous, you gave so much to others,
You gave the whole world such kindness,
Fun, tenderness, and torment, and longing,
And we honor your love, your Cassandra.
Her niece, obsessed with love,
I want to sing. But can I compete with you?
Only beauty can compare one with another,
Compare fire with fire and my ashes with yours.
Of course, I am a layman, alas, devoid of knowledge
And arguments. They are useful for writing
But for tender feelings, they are sometimes not for the future.
I serve the sunrise, and you serve the evening dawns,
When the enamored Phoebus hastens to embrace the sea
And he does not want to turn his face to the east.
(Translated by V. Dmitriev)
Dear another death unexpected in battle,
From a bullet, from a sword, dagger or buckshot,
Glorious death in the midst of a bloody battle,
Where the same fate threatens those who remain in the ranks.
Dear another, death in bed, I don’t melt,
And the fuss of doctors, then - over the coffin of speech,
And the cries of mourners, and torches, and candles,
And a crypt in a cemetery, and a corner in paradise...
But the death of a soldier will not seduce me in the least:
After all, in our time, his pay is negligible.
In bed, death is boring, it is the lot of hypocrites.
I want to die in Diana's arms
So that in her heart, from grief, lifeless,
Memories erected a mausoleum.
(Translated by Yu. Denisov)
Your dog is in disgrace, sir. Underneath the cold floor
And once he slept the sweetest dream in bed.
He showed his devotion to you in deed,
He found traitors among the courtiers.
In your service, he was hardy, like an ox,
And before him, the enemies were numb with horror.
Now he is beaten, he is not fed for a week.
Ingratitude, sir, is the bitterest of evils.
For dexterity, youth, you loved him so much.
Now he is despicable. Already others are in force.
Treachery, malice, he is now barely tolerable.
He's abandoned. Before him, all the doors are suddenly closed.
You poison him, but know the favorites:
For fidelity, the payment to everyone, everyone will be the same.
Fragment from the poem "Swords"
(Translated by Al. Revich)
Nero in the old days often entertained Rome
Circus arena, square theater,
Just like in the Tuileries or, say, in Bar-le-Duc,
In Bayonne or in Blois, where things are done
Such as ballet, tournament or masquerade,
Ristanha, carousel, wrestling or parade.
Nero, burning Rome, sated his wild temper,
How he enjoyed hearing screams everywhere
Desperate crowds, trembling before the fire,
The misfortune of others only gave rise to laughter in him,
All the time he fanned the flame for warning,
To rule on the ashes of the victims without fear.
When the fire is completely satiated with misfortune,
The ruler appeased his unfortunate people,
Finding the culprits: he stored them in advance.
And now Christians are taken out of prisons,
They must become victims of foreign gods,
To be the redeemers of not one's own guilt.
In the evening hours at a magnificent carnival
Onlookers were exposed to the unfortunate
And before the eyes of the crowd, to please the deities,
They threw them into the fire and into the jaws of hungry lions.
So in France, the fire of hundreds of huts
The tyrant was exalted, and the poor people were humiliated.
Despair reigns in the burning huts,
But the despot is delighted: "How well it burns!"
The people do not see evil, trusting scammers,
Feeds them, and heresy blames them for their misfortunes.
And you, Christian, answer for famine and pestilence,
You turned the earth into iron, the sky into copper.
Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 - Theme, Idea, Characteristics
Sonnet 116 Shakespeare analysis
Topic- definitions of love
Idea - love does not fade over time
This is a sonnet-oath, the lyrical hero swears allegiance to love, realizing all life's trials that can overshadow feelings.
Methods: metaphors (love is a beacon, a star)
The main theme of the sonnet is the definition of true love. The leading motives of this poem are the immutability of true love over time and the fact that it is love that is a spiritual guide in space.
The artistic world of the sonnet is extremely wide, it expands to the borders of the Universe, reaching the height of a star along which the wandering boat of love floats ("the star to every wand'rirg bark"), and at the same time it concentrates on the face of one person - on pink lips and cheeks ("rosy lips and cheeks").
The essence of love is revealed metaphorically in the original sonnet. The first quatrain proclaims the depth and inviolability of this feeling. Yes, love is the star ("the star") that navigators are guided by, it can be the North Star, which can always be found in a cloudless sky, and, following it, the navigator will never make a mistake. Love is an "ever-fixed mark" - the sea coordinates along which the navigator navigates his ship. The sea element is the dominant feature in this quatrain. Therefore, love is like a stormy sea, and you need to be patient in order to skillfully navigate your ship. In the second quatrain, both the vertical of this feeling - the height of the star, and the horizontal - patience, faith and Christian hope are set.
In the third quatrain, love is compared to eternity. Love is opposed to time, it is not considered hours or weeks. Referring again to the image of the compass ("Within his bending sickle's compass compass"), the author affirms the idea of caution in sailing on the boat of love amid the stormy waters of time.
Shakespeare Sonnet 116 in English
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no, it's an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be an error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Man has no power over Chance and Time. But he is in control of himself. If for Tarquinius there are no moral concepts and he does not care about conscience or honor, then for Lucretius the concept of human dignity is embodied precisely in honor.
In the name of honor, Lucretia decides to die. Here it is not difficult to see the undoubted influence of the morality of Stoicism, which will later be very clearly revealed in Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar. It is impossible not to notice that Lucretia's reasoning about suicide comes into decisive conflict with Christian doctrine, which forbids it. This contradiction is emphasized by Shakespeare:
"Kill yourself," she worries.
Doesn't it mean to destroy both the soul and the body?
The death of Lucretia causes grief for all loved ones, gives rise to indignation in the hearts of the Romans, who rise up to expel Tarquinius.
The overthrow of the tyrant completes the story of Lucretia, symbolizing the triumph of justice. The end of the poem is optimistic. However, the victory of good is achieved through the sacrificial suicide of Lucretia. The poem is thus a tragedy.
The concept of the tragic characteristic of Shakespeare's early work. In all the tragic works of the young Shakespeare, the power of evil is depicted, trampling on virtue and justice. The extremes to which the bearers of evil go excite universal indignation against them. Retribution does not come from heaven, but from the human world.
In Lucretia, Shakespeare confines himself to depicting only one case of tyrannical arbitrariness. The fact that he is not a single one, we learn not from the picture of real life that immediately arises before us, but only from the lyrical complaints of the heroine. The poem does not contain a visual and realistically concrete depiction of all the manifestations of evil that created such a situation in which the death of Lucretia was the last straw that overflowed the Romans' patience.
Shakespeare rejects the moralizing principle medieval art, according to which the morally evil had to look ugly in the artistic image, and the good - outwardly beautiful. Accordingly, in the poem, the bad nature of Tarquinius is not noticeable in his outward appearance. This principle was applied by Shakespeare not only in Lucretia, but also in all his other works.
The poems reveal the enormous wealth of Shakespeare's thought. He creates images of great poetic beauty, and although we do not find a direct depiction of reality here, everything in the poems is imbued with a sense of life, an understanding of its complexity and the desire to comprehend the laws that govern the world.
And yet it is believed that Shakespeare did not succeed in the great poetic form. He probably felt it himself, because he no longer returned to this form, but found a genre more organic for his lyrical talent - the sonnet.
Sonnets
sonnet form was invented a long time ago. It was probably created by Provencal poets, but the sonnet received its classical development in Renaissance Italy.
The form of the sonnet was invented when it was believed that the art of the poet requires mastery of the most complex and difficult techniques of versification. As we know -
"Severe Dante did not despise the sonnet,
Petrarch poured out the heat of love in him ... ".
And it was Petrarch who raised the art of writing sonnets to the greatest heights.
A sonnet always has 14 lines. The classical Italian sonnet form is built as follows: two quatrains and two tertiary lines with a specific rhyme system: abba awav ccd ede or awav awav ccd eed. The sonnet does not allow the repetition of words (except for conjunctions and prepositional words or articles). The first quatrain should contain an exposition, that is, a statement of the topic, and the very first line should immediately introduce the reader to the topic of the poem. In the second quatrain, a further development of the theme is given, sometimes according to the principle of opposition. In three lines, the solution of the topic, the result, the conclusion from the author's thoughts is given.
The difficulty of the form rigor of compositional principles fascinated the poets of the Renaissance. In England, the sonnet was introduced by Wyeth. However, it remained a form of secondary importance for a long time, until the example of Philip Sidney captivated other poets, and then, at the end of the 16th century, the sonnet briefly took the first place in the lyrics.
At first, English poets followed the Italian scheme for constructing a sonnet, then developed their own system of its composition. The English form of a sonnet consists of three quatrains and a final couplet (couplet). Accepted rhyme order: awav cdcd efef gg. This system is simpler than the Italian Petrarch scheme. Since it was used by Shakespeare, it was called Shakespeare's.
Like the classic Italian sonnet, each poem focuses on a single theme. As a rule, Shakespeare follows the usual pattern: the first quatrain contains a statement of the theme, the second - its development, the third - leads to a denouement, and the final couplet in aphoristic laconic form expresses the result. Sometimes this is a conclusion from what was said above, sometimes, on the contrary, an unexpected opposition to everything that was said before, and, finally, in some cases it is simply a conclusion, inferior in expressiveness to the previous quatrains - the thought seems to calm down, calm down.
In a number of cases Shakespeare violates this principle of composition. Some sonnets are a consistent development from beginning to end of one theme through many images and comparisons that illustrate the main idea.
In considering Shakespeare's Sonnets, it is necessary first of all to accurately imagine the requirements of the composition to which the poet had to subordinate his imagination. And in order to appreciate this art, one must learn to see how he was able to subordinate this rigid scheme to his plan, idea. Reading the Sonnets, one can see how Shakespeare mastered this complex form more and more. In some, especially the initial sonnets, the poet's stiffness is still felt - the form, as it were, pulls him along. Gradually, Shakespeare achieves that freedom of possession of the form, when neither he nor we feel its restrictive framework, and then it turns out that in 14 lines you can fit the whole world, a huge dramatic content, an abyss of feelings, thoughts and passions.
So far, the outer side of the sonnet has been considered. Let us now turn to what constitutes its inner form.
As already mentioned, only one theme develops in each sonnet. The originality of the poet is not at all in inventing it. By the time of Shakespeare, sonnet poetry, and indeed lyric poetry in general, was so rich that all possible themes were expressed in the verses of poets. Already Petrarch, the founder of the poetry of the Renaissance and the father of all new European lyrics, in his sonnets exhausted the entire supply of topics devoted to the spiritual life of a person, especially the feeling of love.
Every poet of that era who wrote lyrical poems, and in particular sonnets, knew that he could not impress with the novelty of the plot. There was only one way out: to find new expressive means, new images and comparisons, so that the well-known sounded in a new way. This is what the poets of the Renaissance, including Shakespeare, aspired to.
Even Petrarch determined the basis of the internal form of the sonnet, its figurative system. At the core her lay comparison. For each theme, the poet found his own image or a whole chain of images. The more unexpected the likeness, the more it was valued. The comparison was often carried to the extreme degree of hyperbolism. But the poets were not afraid of exaggeration.
The multitude of images that appear in every Shakespearean sonnet are soldered together by an inner unity. How is it achieved? Confluence of idea and image. The Italians called it the word "concetti", the British "conceit", and the literal Russian correspondence to this term is "concept". This concept is artistic. Its essence is that thought, feeling, mood, all elusive and difficult to express spiritual movements are expressed through the concrete and visual, and then it turns out that there is an infinite number of analogies between the spiritual and material world. Thus, the poet expresses the idea of the need to prolong his life in posterity in sonnet 1, saying:
"We are waiting for the harvest from the best vines,
So that beauty lives without fading.
Let the petals of ripe roses wither,
The young rose keeps their memory.
The content of a sonnet is a feeling or mood caused by some fact. The fact itself is only dully mentioned, given as a hint, and sometimes the sonnet does not have a direct reason at all - the poem serves as an expression of the mood that owns the poet. The main thing is in expressing emotions, in finding words and images that will not only convey the state of mind of the lyrical hero, but also infect the reader with this mood.
In sonnets, as in poems, special cases give rise to broad generalizations relating to all life. Sometimes it seems that we are talking about some purely personal, fleeting mood, but the poet certainly connects it with something greater that is outside of him. In the dramas of Shakespeare, and especially in his tragedies, we encounter the same combination of the particular and the general.
The poets of the Renaissance, and especially Shakespeare, were keenly aware of the contradictions of life. They saw them both in the outer world and in the human soul. "Sonnets" reveal to us the dialectic of emotional experiences associated with the feeling of love, which turns out to be not only a source of the highest joys, but also the cause of the most severe torments.
When were the Sonnets created? Most scholars believe that the Sonnets were written by Shakespeare between 1592 and 1598. These years are the period of the highest flowering of sonnet poetry in English literature of the Renaissance. The impetus for this was the publication in 1591 of Philip Sidney's cycle of sonnets "Astrophil and Stella" (they were written earlier, around 1580). Since that time, the sonnet has become the most fashionable form of lyrics. Poets competed with each other in the processing of this difficult poetic form and created a large number of sonnet cycles. In 1592, Samuel Denyel published the Delia sonnet cycle; in 1593 appeared: "Tears of Imagination" by Thomas Watson, "Parthenophilus and Parthenon" by Barnaby Barnes, "Phyllida" by Thomas Lodge, "Flyce" by Giles Fletcher; in 1594 - "Diana" by Henry Constable, "Sonnets to Celia" by William Percy, "Mirror of the Idea" by Michael Dryten and the anonymous cycle "Zephyria"; in 1595 - the famous "Amoretti" by the greatest poet of the English Renaissance Edmund Spenser, "Cynthia" by Richard Barnfield, "One Hundred Spiritual Sonnets" by Barnaby Barnes, "Alcilia" by an unknown author; in 1596, Fidessa by Bartholomew Griffin and Chloride by William Smith; in 1597 - "Hundred Christian passions" by Henry Poka, "Laura" by Robert Toft, "Tree of love tricks" by Nicholas Breton; in 1598 "Alba" by Robert Toft. After 1598, the stream of sonnet poetry immediately breaks off, and in the next few years not a single book of sonnets is published, until in 1609 the publisher T. Thorpe published Shakespeare's Sonnets.
Shakespeare was always sensitive to the demands and interests of his time. His dramaturgy testifies to this with sufficient clarity. When sonnet writing became the fashion, Shakespeare also turned to this poetic form.
The fact that the "Sonnets" were created between 1592-1598 is also evidenced by their stylistic proximity to other works written by Shakespeare during these years. A number of themes and motifs of the "Sonnets" echo some of the stanzas of his poems "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "Lucretia" (1594). A similarity between the poetic expressions, images and comparisons found in the "Sonnets" and in the dramatic works written by Shakespeare in these years is found. Particularly clear are the parallels between the "Sonnets" and certain places in such plays as "Two Veronians", "Love's Labour's Lost", "Romeo and Juliet", which were created by Shakespeare in 1594-1595.
But although the bulk of the sonnets were written between 1592 and 1598, it is possible that some of the poems included in the collection were created earlier, while others were created later than these years.
It was the custom of the Renaissance poets to write sonnets in such a way that they formed into cycles, internally related to a particular theme and lyrical plot. Shakespeare's Sonnets are close to this.
Basically, "Sonnets" add up to a lyrical story about the poet's passionate friendship with a beautiful young man and no less passionate love for an ugly, but captivating woman.
"For joy and sorrow, by the will of Rock,
Two friends, two loves own me:
Light-haired man, light-eyed
And a woman in whose eyes the darkness of the night.
The unity of the Sonnet cycle is not so much plot-based as ideological and emotional. It is determined by the personality of their lyrical hero - the one on whose behalf all these poems are written.
In the drama unfolding before us in the Sonnets, there are three characters: the Friend, the Swarthy Lady, and the Poet. The first two we see through the poet's eyes. His attitude towards them undergoes changes, and from the descriptions of the poet's feelings in relation to these two persons, a large and complex image chief lyrical hero"Sonets".
One cannot directly identify the lyrical hero of the "Sonnets" with Shakespeare himself. Of course, a lot of the personal has entered the image of the lyrical hero. But this is not a self-portrait, but an artistic image of a person, as vitally truthful and real as the images of the heroes of Shakespeare's dramas.
Since the order in which the Sonnets have come down to us is somewhat confused, their content is most clearly revealed if the poems are grouped according to thematic features. In general, they fall into two large groups: the first 126 sonnets are dedicated to a friend, sonnets 127-154 - to a beloved.
There are much more sonnets dedicated to a friend than poems about a beloved. This alone distinguishes the Shakespeare cycle from all other sonnet cycles, not only in English, but in all European poetry of the Renaissance.
Sonnets to a friend and sonnets to a beloved are, as it were, two separate cycles, between which there is a connection. But on the whole, the "Sonnets" do not look like a cycle of lyrical poems planned in advance and systematically implemented.
That is why there is an opinion about sequence violation sonnets still in the first edition of 1609? Even a superficial acquaintance leads to the conclusion that the logic of the lyrical plot is not consistent everywhere. So, for example, that a friend cheated on a poet with his lover, we learn from sonnets 40, 41, 42, and long before we learn that the poet had a lover, sonnets tell us about her, starting from 127 th.
This is not the only case of a violation of the sequence in the arrangement of sonnets. It is possible that Shakespeare himself wrote some of the sonnets outside the cycle, not caring about their place in the book of his Sonnets.
In this regard, attempts arose to correct the inaccuracies of the early printed text by determining a more logically sequential order of the sonnets. Several arrangement systems have been proposed. Some of them deserve attention. Sometimes when rearranging the places of sonnets, a previously unnoticed logic of connection between individual poems is revealed. Sometimes the convergence of different sonnets turns out to be arbitrary, imposing more on the author than he intended.
"Sonnets" by Shakespeare belong to the outstanding examples of lyric poetry. In lyrics, as a rule, people are used to seeing the expression of the poet's personal feelings and experiences. In the first half of the 19th century, at the time of the dominance of romanticism, when poetic creativity was seen mainly as a means of self-expression of the author, the view on the "Sonnets" as Shakespeare's lyrical confession was established. The romantic poet Wordsworth, resurrecting the sonnet form that had disappeared in eighteenth-century poetry, wrote: "With this key Shakespeare opened his heart."
This view has become widespread. Many scholars of Shakespeare have decided that the "Sonnets" in the most accurate sense autobiographical. They began to be seen as a poetic document in which Shakespeare told the facts of his personal life and personal experiences. They began to search, who are those persons who are described in the sonnets - Shakespeare's friend and lover? As for the friend, according to many researchers, his name is encrypted with the initials in the dedication with which the first edition of the Sonnets opens. The dedication reads: "To the one to whom the following sonnets owe their appearance, Mr. W.N., all happiness and eternal life promised to him by our immortal poet, is wished by a well-wisher who dared to publish them. T.T."
The second person mentioned in the Sonnets is the poet's beloved. She is not named by name. In those days, the authors of sonnets gave the ladies whom they sang, sublime poetic names. Sydney has Stella, Denel has Delia, Drayton has an Idea, etc. Shakespeare did not even bother to give his beloved a conditional poetic name. From the "Sonnets" we learn only that she is swarthy, dark-haired and not distinguished by fidelity in love. Behind her, the name "Swarty Lady of the Sonnets" (the Dark Lady of the Sonnets) was established.
It is not difficult to imagine how much work was spent by curious researchers to establish the identity of the Swarthy Lady. In the end it was Elizabeth Vernoy and especially Mary Fitton who gained the most support, as well as the brisk innkeeper Mrs Davenant of Oxford.
The artist always enriches nature, introducing much that is not in it. The artist puts his life experience, his feelings, views, moods into what he depicts, which do not necessarily and do not directly relate specifically to this particular model. Therefore, one can be sure that both the friend and the beloved, sung by Shakespeare, were different from what they appear in the Sonnets. We see them through Shakespeare's eyes, but the poet sees, feels differently, more, deeper, more subtle than ordinary people. In the lyrics, the view of the poet himself, his vision and feeling is especially important. Therefore, most of all, the Sonnets tell us not so much about those faces that aroused the emotions of the author, but about himself, and, therefore, it is a mistake to understand literally everything said by the poet, linking it directly with his biography. Creativity raises the poet above himself, as he is in everyday life.
Separate sonnets that are not related to either the theme of friendship or the theme of love. These are simply lyrical reflections of the poet on various life issues. These sonnets seem to be deeper and more mature than those devoted to the chanting of a young friend. There are thoughts in them that echo the tragedies written by Shakespeare in the early years of the 17th century. Particularly interesting in this respect is sonnet 66, which is close in thought to Hamlet's famous monologue "To be or not to be...".
There is an inner duality in Shakespeare's sonnets. Ideal and real coexist in Shakespeare's sonnets in a complex combination, as well as in his dramaturgy. Shakespeare appears here either as a poet who pays his debt to the sublime and illusory romance of aristocratic poetry, or as a realist poet who puts deeply vital content into the traditional form of the sonnet, which sometimes requires images that are far from gallantry. Although there is a lot of reality in Shakespeare's Sonnets, it cannot be said that here he appears exclusively as a realist poet. The struggle between the real and the ideal was not crowned with a complete triumph of the real.
Italian humanists, developing a new philosophy, took the ancient Greek philosopher Plato as their teacher. From his teachings, they extracted the concept of love as the highest feeling available to man. Admiration for the beauty and greatness of a person is the most important feature of the humanistic worldview of the Renaissance, in contrast to medieval philosophy, which taught that a person is a vessel of all sorts of abominations, from which he is freed only when his soul leaves the mortal bodily shell.
Humanists saw in love not so much a form of relationships between people of different sexes as a truly human form of people's relationships to each other in general. Friendship between men they considered as a high manifestation of humanity. Such a manifestation of love was considered higher, for purity of feelings is manifested in friendship. Friendship is based on a purely spiritual feeling.
"Sonnets" by Shakespeare - inspirational hymn to friendship. If we talk about how humanism manifested itself in these poems, then it consists precisely in an infinitely high understanding of friendship. However, the beauty of a friend always excites the poet, who invents himself in search of images to describe it.
Shakespeare was by no means alone in this understanding of friendship. A letter has been preserved from the great Renaissance humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam, who described the appearance and character of Thomas More to Ulrich von Hutten. What a dry man Erasmus was, but he wrote about Thomas More with sincere admiration. Not only the moral qualities of the author of "Utopia", but also his appearance aroused the admiration of Erasmus. The French humanist Michel Montaigne had an admiring friendship for Étienne de la Boesie and wrote about him with the enthusiasm of a lover.
The glorification of a friend thus represents Shakespeare's transposition into poetry of motifs already encountered in humanist literature.
Poems dedicated to a friend have several themes. The first 19 sonnets in every way talk about the same thing: a friend must marry in order for his beauty to come to life in descendants. Through the entire group of sonnets, the opposition of the frailty of Beauty and the inexorability of Time runs. Time embodies that law of nature, according to which everything that is born blossoms, and then is doomed to wither and die. Here we have an optimistic view of the life process. Time may destroy one being, but life will go on. The poet calls on his friend to conquer Time, leaving behind a son who will inherit his beauty.
There is another means of dealing with Time. Art gives it. It also provides a person with immortality. The poet sees his task in leaving in poetry to posterity the appearance of that human perfection, which his wonderful friend showed.
The Platonic nature of friendship emerges especially in the group of sonnets that are dedicated to separation (24, 44-47, 50, 51). In this group of sonnets, feeling manifests itself with such force that even in the absence of a friend, he constantly remains a living reality for the poet.
"With the diligent gaze of the heart and mind
In the darkness I'm looking for you, devoid of sight.
And the darkness seems glorious
When you enter it as a light shadow" (27).
If at first a friend was portrayed as the embodiment of all perfections, then, starting from the 33rd to the 96th sonnet, his bright appearance is clouded. The ardor of friendship is replaced by the bitterness of disappointment, there is a temporary cooling. But the feeling of love in the end still wins. The poet forgives his friend even for taking his beloved from him. It is harder for him to lose his friendship than her love:
"You, my friend, I do not blame,
That you own what I own.
No, I will only blame you for one thing,
That you neglected my love" (40).
This motif brings to mind the episode of the final of "Two Verontsev", where Valentine showed his readiness to give in to Proteus his beloved. In the play, this seems strange and unjustified, but by reading the "Sonnets", which depict a similar situation, one can understand this mysterious episode of "Two Veronians".
The final group of sonnets, from 127 to 152, is dedicated to "a woman in whose eyes is the darkness of the night." If a friend is depicted as an ideal being, then the poet's girlfriend is shown as quite earthly:
"Her eyes don't look like stars,
You can’t call the mouth corals,
Not snow-white shoulders open skin,
And a strand twists like a black wire..." (130).
This sonnet is full of attacks against the idealization of women in the poetry of the Renaissance. Shakespeare opposes the real female image to stamped signs of beauty.
From other sonnets, we learn that the beloved is "full of whims" (131), that she torments him and her friend with a "whim of betrayal" (133). The poet asks himself:
"As my heart is a driveway
Could it seem like a happy estate?" (137).
The feeling of the poet becomes extremely complex. Even convinced of infidelity, he retains affection for the Lady. Lies reign in their relationship:
"I lie to you, you lie unwittingly to me,
And, it seems, we are quite satisfied!" (138).
The contrast between feelings for a friend and for a lover is obvious. In feelings for a friend, even pain and bitterness are light, feelings for a beloved become unbearable and love turns into sheer torment:
"Love is a disease. My soul is sick
An agonizing, unquenchable thirst.
She demands the same poison
Who poisoned her once" (147).
Love clouds the mind and deprives the ability to see people and the world in their true light:
"Love is blind and deprives us of eyes.
I don't see what I see clearly.
I saw beauty but every time
I could not understand - what is bad, what is beautiful" (137).
Let us note that, unlike other works, the Sonatahlirical hero does not seek a way out for himself in death. The lyrical hero of the Sonnets, although calling for death, still finds something that reconciles him with life: this is his friend and the joy that love for him gives. He does not want to leave his friend in a harsh world:
"I call death. I can't bear to see
Dignity that begs for alms
Over simplicity mocking lie,
Nothingness in luxurious attire,
And perfection is a false sentence,
And virginity, rudely desecrated,
And inappropriate honor shame
And power is a prisoner of toothless weakness,
And directness, which is reputed to be stupid,
And stupidity in the mask of a sage, a prophet,
And inspiration clamped mouth
And righteousness in the service of vice.
Everything is disgusting that I see around.
But how to leave you, dear friend!
If one could be sure that the arrangement of the sonnets corresponds to the chronology of events, then the outcome of this entire lyrical story would be tragic, because the whole cycle ends with the curses of that love that belittles a person, forces one to put up with a lie and to be deceitful. A refuge from past suffering is the renewal of friendship, which trials have made even stronger. Platonic idea of love as a feeling of spiritual wins in Shakespeare's Advice complete victory.
"Sonnets" by Shakespeare - a true masterpiece of English lyrics of the Renaissance. Genuine human feelings, great passions and humane thoughts made their way through the conventionality and artificial framework of form.
Literature
1. Anikst A.A. Poems, sonnets and poems by Shakespeare - M .: Book, 1974
2. Anikst A.A. Shakespeare: The Dramatist's Craft. - M.: Soviet writer, 1974
3. Stein A.L. William Shakespeare: Life and Works. - M.: Institute of Foreign Languages. (Gaudeamus), 1996
4. Garin I.I. Shakespeare William, about him. Fiction. Kharkov: Garinizdat, 1998
5. Shestakov V. My Shakespeare. Humanistic themes in Shakespeare's works. - M.: Slavyan.dialogue, 1998
