{"id":518,"date":"2016-11-08T16:44:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T16:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/lifelongexchange\/?p=518"},"modified":"2016-11-08T21:17:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T21:17:59","slug":"shakespeares-psychomachia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/lifelongexchange\/2016\/11\/08\/shakespeares-psychomachia\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare’s Psychomachia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Benito<\/a>

By Benito Rakower, Ph.D.<\/p><\/div>\n

Had Shakespeare never written a single play, his sonnets would have established him as the greatest of English poets.\u00a0 They have fascinated, thrilled and perplexed readers for centuries.\u00a0 Wherein lies their astonishing power to enchant?<\/p>\n

Aside from the imagery, it is through poetic pitch that the sonnets rise to the level of music.\u00a0 It was John Ruskin who noted that all art aspires constantly to the condition of music.\u00a0 In his sonnets, Shakespeare achieved that rare feat.\u00a0 Among prose writers, one would have to accord that tribute to Marcel Proust.<\/p>\n

But even the beauty of Shakespeare\u2019s sonnets alone would not suffice to explain their power.\u00a0 Perhaps unique in poetry, the sonnets are addressed to a particular and unidentified man who is handsome, unmarried and childless.\u00a0 Shakespeare remarks this as though it were a calamity and fault against nature.<\/p>\n

The strongest impulse in the sonnets is to defy oblivion.\u00a0 One of the most piercing lines appears in Sonnet 12, \u201cThat thou among the wastes of time must go.\u201d\u00a0 There are ways to defeat time and death.\u00a0 One way is to write prophetic sonnets.\u00a0 Another is to have children.\u00a0 Or as Shakespeare notes, in Sonnet 2, \u201cAnd see thy blood warm, when thou feel\u2019st it cold.\u201d Immortality through progeny or poetry was what Shakespeare seems to extol in the sonnets.<\/p>\n

However, none of this fully explains the tremendous force one feels in the sonnets.\u00a0 It is rather what one critic termed their \u201cintense psychomachia.\u201d\u00a0 Reading them, one can feel the struggle of an individual to conquer the soul of another human being.\u00a0 For all their formal discipline, the note that Shakespeare expresses repeatedly is desperation.\u00a0 This desperation weaves and eddies through almost the entire sequence.\u00a0 And it is not limited to the theme of childlessness alone.\u00a0 It becomes an abstract theme \u2013 aspiring to the condition of music.<\/p>\n

Desperation may have been something Shakespeare did not actually feel in himself.\u00a0 It is consistent with what we know that he was singularly immune from psychological aberration or malady.\u00a0 Perhaps his greatest gift was to understand the essence of desperation without experiencing it!\u00a0 Shakespeare was the supreme artist who could understand everything without feeling anything.\u00a0 He was never \u201cpassion\u2019s slave.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Had Shakespeare never written a single play, his sonnets would have established him as the greatest of English poets.\u00a0 They have fascinated, thrilled and perplexed readers for centuries.\u00a0 Wherein lies their astonishing power to enchant? Aside from the imagery, it…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

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