By Benito Rakower, Ph.D.
Had Shakespeare never written a single play, his sonnets would have established him as the greatest of English poets. They have fascinated, thrilled and perplexed readers for centuries. Wherein lies their astonishing power to enchant?
Aside from the imagery, it is through poetic pitch that the sonnets rise to the level of music. It was John Ruskin who noted that all art aspires constantly to the condition of music. In his sonnets, Shakespeare achieved that rare feat. Among prose writers, one would have to accord that tribute to Marcel Proust.
But even the beauty of Shakespeare’s sonnets alone would not suffice to explain their power. Perhaps unique in poetry, the sonnets are addressed to a particular and unidentified man who is handsome, unmarried and childless. Shakespeare remarks this as though it were a calamity and fault against nature.
The strongest impulse in the sonnets is to defy oblivion. One of the most piercing lines appears in Sonnet 12, “That thou among the wastes of time must go.” There are ways to defeat time and death. One way is to write prophetic sonnets. Another is to have children. Or as Shakespeare notes, in Sonnet 2, “And see thy blood warm, when thou feel’st it cold.” Immortality through progeny or poetry was what Shakespeare seems to extol in the sonnets.
However, none of this fully explains the tremendous force one feels in the sonnets. It is rather what one critic termed their “intense psychomachia.” Reading them, one can feel the struggle of an individual to conquer the soul of another human being. For all their formal discipline, the note that Shakespeare expresses repeatedly is desperation. This desperation weaves and eddies through almost the entire sequence. And it is not limited to the theme of childlessness alone. It becomes an abstract theme – aspiring to the condition of music.
Desperation may have been something Shakespeare did not actually feel in himself. It is consistent with what we know that he was singularly immune from psychological aberration or malady. Perhaps his greatest gift was to understand the essence of desperation without experiencing it! Shakespeare was the supreme artist who could understand everything without feeling anything. He was never “passion’s slave.”
Dr. Rakower currently teaches an eight-week course, “A Culture War Conducted Through Film,” on Fridays from 1:30 – 4 p.m. The remaining class dates are November 18; December 2, 9 and 16. Dr. Rakower will be teaching an eight-week course for the winter semester. “The World, Wide and Close – in Eight Films,” will be taught on Fridays from 1:30 – 4 p.m. The dates are January 13, 20, 27; February 3, 10, 17, 24; March 3.
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