The Choice

Digression today...but not really. Writing about Shakespeare's love sonnets and his fractious feelings, I thought of one of my own poems; a short poem on choice. What rationale does one follow when one chooses a partner? Is there a right and wrong? What is right? What is accepted? Do you choose what brings physical happiness? What brings you emotional happiness? What is sure to make everyone around you, family and friends, happy? To you I leave the answer.

So close was love

Like breeze of voice

Breathing softly

Softly teasing

So close were we

With chance of choice

Choosing wisely

Wisely cheated

WITH FALSE COMPARE

Today I will lighten the tone by discussing Sonnet 130 in which Shakespeare mocks the Petrarchan tradition of overly sugary romantic love and ideal beauty. Contrary to this Elizabethan ethereal high flown poetry of idyllic beauty, here Shakespeare exaggerates a negative imagery to portray the physical and behavioural flaws of his lover. 

Instead of criticising his lover’s imperfections, he praises them. He accepts that she isn't an idyllic beauty, but a real woman with all her human imperfections. Her eyes are dull, her lips are are dim, her breasts are dark, her hair is wiry black and her complexion is pale. As for her gait, she is heavy on her feet and to add insult to injury, she has bad breath.

However, whatever she looks or acts like, she still remains his true love. In the final couplet of this unique poem, Shakespeare declares that he believes his woman to be as special as any other of those women who are falsely praised by bombastic Petrarchan idolatry. 

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

THE DARK LADY

Today we look at Shakespeare and his Dark Lady, the woman described in his sonnets, from 127 to 154. She was so called because she seems to have had black hair and a dark complexion. I have chosen to start with Sonnet 151, the poem that best portrays the comparison between Shakespeare’s love for the Fair Youth and that for the Dark Lady. The poet illustrates this by comparing the feelings of the soul with the desires of the flesh.

Shakespeare starts by referring to love as being too young. Love here is seen as sexual love; as lust. He equates this love to conscience, since conscience and the soul are the same. He then reiterates by asking rhetorically: "Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?". In other words, it is obvious that "conscience" is triggered off by love. Therefore, he tells the “gentle cheater” not to criticise him for his mistake, because her “sweet self” may be guilty of the same faults. Shakespeare then focuses on the relationship between body and soul, and between himself and the dark lady.  She betrays him and so he betrays his soul for his rebellious body. His soul tells his body that it can triumph in love, and so his physical urge does not wait, but at the sound of her name rises up and points to her as its prize. The sexually charged connotative image of rising up and pointing to her is evidently meant to highlight the physical urge (penile erection), juxtaposed with the soul. Because of her betrayal, he betrays his "nobler part" which is his soul. Basically, the poet is saying that his physical body ("gross body") betrays his soul, every time he lets himself be seduced by her. The poet realises that his flesh is proud of having her and of being ‘at her service’. The image is again a sexually constructed picture of the consummation of the sexual act from start to finish, completing the business and falling down beside her afterwards. He tells her not to take it for granted that his conscience is in any way less because she makes his flesh rise and fall for her love.  

The dichotomy between the brazen physical act, which he links here to this relationship with the woman, is in stark contrast to the ethereal love and superior feelings Shakespeare expresses for the Fair Youth in the sonnet sequence dedicated to him. It is as though the poet is angry that nature had given the youth that little ‘extra’ (a penis) which has now forced the poet to live in this schizophrenic state torn between sex and love;  body and soul. 

Love is too young to know what conscience is,

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:

For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body's treason;

My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,

But rising at thy name doth point out thee,

As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,

He is contented thy poor drudge to be,

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of conscience hold it that I call

Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

NO COMPARISON

Today I shall briefly present perhaps the most well known sonnet written by Shakespeare to the Fair Youth, Sonnet 18. Tomorrow I shall shift my attention to the poet's infatuation for a woman. Remember that the first 126 sonnets are dedicated to a young man, while sonnets 127 to 152 are dedicated to a mysterious dark lady. 

I am sure you have all come across the line "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" It has become a classic. This is a simple but very powerful love poem. Apart from its mellifluous simplicity, its strength lies in the eternalising not only of love, but of the physical lover.

In this sonnet Shakespeare simply states that he could compare his friend to a beautiful summer’s day, but actually knows that his Fair Youth is much more perfect. In summer we often get bad days with rough winds that ruin the blossoms. Summer is also short and ends quickly. It is not always mild and lovely, like his friend, who is always so. It also gets too hot or too stormy in summer and everything beautiful ends, either by chance or simply due to the course of nature. But the beauty and brightness of his friend will never fade. More importantly, he shall live forever, because he has been immortalised here in these lines. As long as people live and have eyes to see, this poem will keep him alive.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

SELF SACRIFICE

Self-sacrifice by Stanislav Bogdanov

Sonnet 36 is one of my personal favourites because it portrays the power of love through self-sacrifice. This sonnet is perhaps the most revealing of Shakespeare’s intense love for his mysterious Fair Youth.

Shakespeare is here advocating a separation; a breakup for the lover's sake. He wants to protect his young friend from the gossipy claws of the Elizabethan society, a society that would frown upon their relationship. The poet does not want to tarnish the youth’s good name if his feelings for him become public. There must have been a triggering specific incident that put the two men in the limelight, risking a damaging scandal. Shakespeare does not seem worried about his own reputation. His only concern is to protect the reputation of his beloved friend, who is still young and untarnished. Although the two evidently love each other, Shakespeare decides that the best thing to do is to separate and not see each other any more.  Separation, he feels is the only way to protect his friend’s honour:

I may not ever-more acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame… 

Shakespeare seems to blame himself for the unfortunate situation and reluctantly decides that the two must not be seen together in public.

He starts the poem with a very powerful line that focuses on two essential core aspects, the breakup and the oneness of their love. It is a paradox, in that separation (“twain”) is juxtaposed with the inseparable (“undivided” and “one”).

Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one:

Shakespeare continues this narrative by accepting to bear the brunt of their disgrace in order to save his friend from being stained by scandal (“blot”). He says that despite the wicked forces that compel them to separate, their love will always endure. Sadly, their separation will deprive them of sharing those magical moments together.

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help, by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which though it alter not love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

In the final sestet of this sonnet Shakespeare takes the blame and reiterates that he cannot publicly greet his lover, as he doesn’t want to undermine the youth’s reputation by bringing shame on him. He halfheartedly asks the young man to ignore him, should they meet in public. The poet cannot let his friend risk losing his good name. However, Shakespeare ends the sonnet with a powerful final couplet emphasising that his love is so deep that he is one with his lover, as is the young man’s own good name is one with his. 

The desperate measure that Shakespeare has taken to defend the good name and reputation of his lover is the epitome of self-sacrifice in the name of true love. It is overwhelming.

Listen to Sir John Gielgud  read this sonnet here. 

Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one:

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help, by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which though it alter not love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honour me,

Unless thou take that honour from thy name:

But do not so, I love thee in such sort,

As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

THY SENSUAL FAULT

I shall continue to touch on some of Shakespeare's Fair Youth sonnet sequence, with sonnet 35. Here Shakespeare is addressing his young friend and refers to a sin he committed against him; a sin the poet struggles to forgive.

He tells the youth not to upset himself because of this bad deed. He reminds him that bad things are everywhere… Roses have thorns; clear fountains have mud; both the sun and moon are shadowed by clouds and eclipses; and horrible disease is found in the sweetest flowers.

No more be grieved 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.

The poet tries to console the youth by telling him that all men do bad things. He actually admits to having done them himself. The poet talks of sinning. He says he is guilty of sin because he authorised his friend's trespass. The religious connotation here with the use of words like sin and trespass (reminiscent of the Lord’s Prayer) mix the sacred with the profane. Shakespeare admits he knows that he is corrupting the Fair Youth as well, and forgives his “sins” out of love. As a prosecutor, he strives for reason.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authórizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing these sins more than these sins are.

Shakespeare highlights the sensual by referring to the sins of his young friend as being physical urges. He says that he looks at these sensual sins and tries to defend him, to protect him, and in so doing he is obviously working against himself. The poet feels that he is torn between love and hate, but he cannot resist helping that “sweet thief” who bitterly robbed him of his peace of mind.  

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 áccessory needs must be

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

This sonnet reiterates Shakespeare’s fraught feelings towards love. He paradoxically acts as a hypothetical lawyer to defend the one he loves and who has betrayed his trust. The poet uses an array legal imagery by choosing connotative words in this regard, like “adverse party”, “advocate”, “lawful” plea” and “accessary”.  Shakespeare defends his friend even though he himself is the injured party. This extended metaphorical picture also helps to shed light on the poet’s tormented understanding of love, with all its irrationality and enigmatic forces. “Such civil war is in my love and hate”, reveals the intricacy of the painful emotions he has felt, and his painful struggle in dealing with them.

• 

No more be grieved 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.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authórizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing these sins more than these 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 áccessory needs must be

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

IMPRISONED PRIDE

As I mentioned in my last post, I believe that Shakespeare’s sexuality rose beyond human convention and intimately adapted itself to his emotional genius. Another Sonnet that highlights this ‘metasexuality’ is Sonnet 52, in which he attempts to find solace when his “Fair Youth” is away from him. Although the two men are apart, Shakespeare considers (or creates) a positive aspect to the separation by telling himself that the youth’s absence means that the poet will enjoy the pleasure of anticipation for his return.  

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasureThe which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

The fourth line here has an evident sexual significance. He is basically saying that waiting in anticipation for his young friend will fill him with more sexual desire and therefore will not to blunt “the fine point of pleasure”. Here  the poet is ostensibly portraying a phallic image.
He then lists positive examples of anticipation and arrival, like holidays which we look forward to during the year because they are not frequent as rich gems spread sparingly, or the expensive jewels set in a necklace.

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming in the long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

In the final sestet the erotic punning is also intense. It doesn’t take much to interpret “the wardrobe which the robe doth hide” or the “unfolding” of “his imprisoned pride”. The Elizabethans, when being vulgar, used the word 'pride' to refer to an erect penis. 

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.

Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.

 The final couplet ends this sexually charged sonnet with a romantic, almost nostalgic note, by saying that the Fair Youth is truly blessed, because when someone is with him, that person would feel he has triumphed, and when someone is away from him, he would then live in hope, in anticipation of being with the youth again. 

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,

Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming in the long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.

Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.

Fair Youth

Today I would like to return to Shakespeare. We’ve already discussed one of his best love sonnets, but today I want to dig into his sexuality and sexual orientation. The most obvious choice would be to start from Sonnet 20, in which he explores the thin red line between male and female sexuality. The poet is addressing a young man who seems to have overwhelmed his emotions. He is the mysterious “fair youth” who is the main focus of Shakespeare’s attentions from Sonnet 1 to Sonnet 126. This beautiful young man has a lovely mother and has hair like the auburn buds of marjoram. 

Henry Wriothesley (The "Fair Youth"?)

In Sonnet 20 Shakespeare seems to be besotted by the beauty of this youth, but he transcends gender saying that... Your face isn’t dolled up artificially like a woman’s, and yet it is naturally beautiful and so excites my passion both as master and as mistress.

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

The poet then draws a dichotomy between male and female sensitivity by saying that the young man’s heart is as gentle as a woman's, but it is also steadfast and honest… You have a gentle heart like that of a woman, but unlike a woman’s, it is not fickle and false. 

A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s fashion;

Shakespeare reiterates this difference between the sexes by saying that the youth’s glance is brightly angelic like those of women, but his eyes are true and not flirtatious…Your eyes are also brighter than those of women, shining on what you look at, not like theirs that cheat by incessantly searching elsewhere. 

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

The sexual attraction is clearly more and more evident as the sonnet develops. The youth’s appeal seems to transcend gender and attracts both men and women. Shakespeare says… You are beyond beautiful and attract both men and women.

A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.

The obvious homoerotic inference, I believe, really points towards Shakespeare's own bisexual orientation. Up to this point in the sonnet (the first octave), the poet prefers the young man to any other woman. The ensuing sestet sees nature creating the beautiful youth as a woman, but, being so smitten by the beauty of her creation, she decides to add a penis, to make him a man. However, in so doing, nature has complicated Shakespeare’s life, since his physical desire for the young man is now be untenable. He tells the youth that… When you were being created by nature, you were meant to be a woman, but then nature fell in love with her creation and so added something extra to you, which therefore made me lose you; that one thing she gave you made you unreachable. 

And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

In the final couplet Shakespeare becomes more brazen and quite direct with his connotative language using the word “pricked”, an obvious reference to the male genital organ, a prick. He seems to be saying… But since she gave you a prick to satisfy the pleasures of women, I’ll have your love and they can have your body.

But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

Ultimately, I believe that Shakespeare was such a unique prodigy in all aspects that even his sexuality rose well above all basic human conventions.

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

THE HELL

I was going to end the War Poetry cycle yesterday, but have received so many messages asking why I didn't mention Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). So I have decided today to give you one of his most poignant little poems, without any comment. Suicide In The Trenches speaks for itself.

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again. 

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

BALANCE OF LIFE AND DEATH

To end this brief cycle on the War Poet’s, I’d like to share with you one of my favourite poems written by William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939), An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.

I love this little poem because of its straightforward political consciousness and balanced simplicity. It is believed that the poem was written in honour of Major Robert Gregory, an acquaintance of the poet who was killed in World War I. 

The Irish airman claims that he is aware of his imminent death, but feels that he is not going to die for any glorious cause. His only cause could be the actual “delight” he feels in his job, being an airman and flying into and above “this tumult in the clouds.” He makes it very clear from the start that he does not hate those that he fights, nor does he love those that he guards. He is the typical impartial victim of a senseless war. His only passion is his “impulse of delight”. He feels that his past life has been a waste, as would be his future life. Therefore this discrepancy can only be balanced by his death. 

The perfect structure of the poem echoes this life/death balance. It is written in regular iambic tetrameter, with an abab rhyme scheme. The balance is also clear in the weighing scales of ideas, words and phrases. We have the British and the Irish; those he fights and those he guards; no love and no hate; the past waste of breath and the future waste of breath. 

It is a constant balance that leads to final death; a death that has been foreseen. Enough of my words. Enjoy this little gem.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behin
In balance with this life, this death.

POETRY IS THE PITY

Looking at the War Poetry of the early 20th century we have seen the glorification of war through patriotism and the personal philosophical perspective through imagery and symbolism. Today we shall see how the poetry of Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918 ) dealt with the reality of that senseless war. He was neither perfunctorily patriotic nor poetically philosophical. He was brutally realistic. More than any other, Wilfred Owen was the true poet/spokesman for the horrors the soldiers were facing on the battlefields. He wrote:

My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.

His poetry did not euphemistically romanticise death and suffering, but it focused on the documentary reality of terror, dread and anguish. In direct opposition to the ideals of Rupert Brooke, Owen shattered the false belief that war was glorious and that dying for one’s country was patriotic and romantic. His poetry portrayed the reality of war as though it was a photographic reportage. 

The poem I shall briefly look at, is a typical case in point. The title is sarcastically echoing Brooke’s patriotic belief that it is glorious to die for one’s country. The title is, Dulce Et Decorum Est , which is a quote from The Odes by the Latin poet Horace, the English translation being, It Is Sweet And Fitting… the lines are actually followed by "pro patria mori", which means "to die for one's country".
 “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” is in sharp contrast to the gruesome picture Owen paints in the poem. 

He describes broken men marching like “old beggars under sacks/Knocked kneed, coughing like hags…” They are “drunk with fatigue” and seem to be more like an army of zombies than soldiers. 

The poet then describes a gas attack. The limping, blood-shod men panic under the billowing lime gas and clumsily strive to cover their faces with masks, but not everyone manages. One poor soul breathes the gas and drowns in the green poison. 

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

Rupert Brooke would have envisioned a romantic burial for this brave, unfortunate soldier. A burial in a “corner of a foreign field / That is forever England.” However, in reality the dying soldier is “flung” behind a wagon where his head hangs “like a devil’s sick of sin” and the blood comes: 

…gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues 

The picture is a stark realistic image of physical suffering and a graphic depiction of bloody wounds and horrific injuries. The end of the poem explains the title by calling it an old lie.
Read the full poem here.

POETRY OF POPPIES

Back to the war poets with the second poet of my choice, Isaac Rosenberg. From patriotism to pure poetry.

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) did not sing the praises of war; he reflected on its philosophical and poetical impact through symbolism and imagery. 

Break of Day in the Trenches is a short poem that not only deals with the deadly devastation of the trench warfare, but also with the poetic and philosophical view of human emotions.

The opening line of the poem poetically and metaphorically describes the break of day by saying, "The darkness crumbles away". It is not the birth of light, but the crumbling of darkness. Everything is withering, everything dies, even darkness. The poet then introduces the central figure of the poem, an ungainly rat. This lowly creature is a symbol around which the poem revolves, and is the starting point for the poet’s reflections on the atrocity and stupidity of the war. The rat is described as being cosmopolitan. It is, in fact, a rat and therefore has no nationality, no patriotic sentiments. It crosses both sides of the trenches and scurries over German soldiers and British soldiers. It takes no sides, and in this wretched scene of death and destruction it seems to be superior to the dying soldiers. This insignificant creature is sardonic and grins at the paradox of being more likely to live than the unfortunate soldiers, who are indeed “haughty athletes” with “strong eyes” and “fine limbs”. Although they are strong and athletic, they are in fact, shooting at each other...

Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.

The poem ends with another touching symbol, the poppy. It is a sad reflection of a life prematurely ended by war.

Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;

The poppy is today the symbol of the fallen soldiers in that cruel First World War in which the average age of the dead soldiers was only 19. Among the hundreds of thousands killed in the trenches were 250,000 boys and young men. Isaac Rosenberg was killed there in 1918, he was only 28.

The darkness crumbles away
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppyTo stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies,
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a GermanSoon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flameHurled through still heavens?
What quaver -what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in men's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe,Just a little white with the dust.

Women’s Day

A pause from war to allow a Shakespearean song for women on this 8th of March. This is from Much Ado About Nothing

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM

In the next three posts, I shall deal with War Poetry. I just want to show how such a straightforward topic, like war, can be treated in such different ways. I shall look at three poets, who sadly all died during the treacherous trench warfare in Northern France, during the First World War. I shall analyse three poems, one for each poet. They are Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg. They all wrote about the same war, but their perspectives were very different. 

I shall start with Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) and his poem The Soldier. This poem perfectly reflects Brooke’s positive view of war. He believes in the importance and romance of Patriotism. Dying for one’s country is an honour, almost a goal to wish for: 

If I should die, think only this of me;
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.

So, dying at war in a foreign land is a great thing, because your corpse would then be buried in that land and upraise it. The English body will turn to dust and that dust would make the earth richer:

… There shall be
in that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

One can hardly believe that death can be aggrandised and romanticised to this point; especially the brutal death in the windswept cold trenches of places like the Somme. 

La Somme

The short poem (actually a traditional Petrarchan sonnet) then meanders off to praise the glory of England and all that is English. The very image of England that transpires is that of a generous mother who bestows all her riches, both material and spiritual, onto her children. Brooke totally ignores the ugliness of war and the horrors of death. He uses mellifluous words with romantic connotation like, Eternal, heart, dreams, happy, peace or heaven. No wonder the poem has been defined as a “frank and unashamed piece of patriotism.” 

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Although Brooke died during a commission in the Royal Navy, it is interesting to note that the poet never experienced battle first hand. He developed blood poisoning from a mosquito bite and died shortly afterwards.   

Sexual Awakening

I’d like to end this short cycle on love with a work about the “love that dare not speak its name”; the love between two men. Maurice was written by E. M. Forster back in the Edwardian England of respectability and bigotry. Not that any other period in the last few centuries were any more progressive or open minded. As Forster put it, “England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.”

Maurice , written in 1913/14, was published posthumously in 1971, due to its too stark revelation of “human nature”. It is a Bildungsroman; a coming of age novel that follows the moral and psychological growth of the protagonist, Maurice. He does indeed grow and he develops from the naïve boy who believed himself to be sick because of his love for another man, to the enlightened adult who understood and accepted the reality of his beautiful human nature. 

The story starts when Maurice Hall, studying at Cambridge, falls in love with his friend and fellow student Clive Durham. Their relationship is a romantic one, but they are both not daring enough to make it a sexual one. Maurice is eager to nurture his love for Clive, but the latter is too socially embroiled and dreads admitting to homosexuality. He eventually breaks Maurice’s heart by deciding to make the socially acceptable choice, marry a woman.

Maurice is not only hurt, but he now believes that he is a broken man who needs fixing. He wants to be “cured” of his abnormality. He goes to London to consult a hypnotist. He lets Clive believe that he is actually going to do the right thing, find a wife and marry. His meeting with the hypnotist is a sad attempt to “cure” his homosexuality. However it is a revealing moment for Maurice:

"And what’s to happen to me?” said Maurice, with a sudden drop in his voice. He spoke in despair, but Mr Lasker Jones had an answer to every question. “I’m afraid I can only advise you to live in some country that has adopted the Code Napoleon,” he said.

“I don’t understand.” 

“France or Italy, for instance. There homosexuality is no longer criminal.” 

“You mean that a Frenchman could share with a friend and yet not go to prison?” 

“Share? Do you mean unite? If both are of age and avoid public indecency, certainly.”

“Will the law ever be that in England?”

“I doubt it. England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.”

Maurice understood. He was an Englishman himself, and only his troubles had kept him awake. He smiled sadly. “It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.”

“That is so, Mr Hall; or, as psychiatry prefers to put it, there has been, is, and always will be every conceivable type of person. And you must remember that your type was once put to death in England.”

Maurice learns to accept his true nature and when he meets Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper at the Durham estate, he becomes both romantically and sexually involved with him. With Alec he feels the entirety of love, in its powerful emotional and physical completeness. He eventually decides to start a new life with his lover. 

“Madness is not for everyone, but Maurice's proved the thunderbolt that dispels the clouds."

Maurice does not forget Clive and wishes he could make him see the limits of his socially geared choice. How can one choose to spend an entire life without an emotional and sexual bond. He reminds Clive of their own emotions:

I was yours once till death if you’d cared to keep me, but I’m someone else’s now–I can’t hang about whining for ever–and he’s mine in a way that shocks you, but why don’t you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness?

Maurice leaves Clive to his stagnant life of aridity and goes off towards a new dawn with Alec. This is a very happy ending that not only condones homosexuality, but legitimatises it, in a period of total hostility. Foster wrote:

A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn’t have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense Maurice and Alec still roam in the greenwood.

The happy conclusion of the relationship between Maurice and Alec contrasts bitterly with the dark clouds looming over Clive's emotional end. He seems to be tucking back into a shell of conformity and aridity.

He did not realise that this was the end, without twilight or compromise, that he should never cross Maurice's track again, nor speak to those who had seen him. He waited for a little in the alley, then returned to the house, to correct his proofs and to devise some method of concealing the truth from Anne.