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Inside Shakespeare's mind:
Venus and Adonis
 Sonnets and poems played a major role in mending Shakespeare's
shattered mind if we are to look closely at the impact they have had on
him. Being the introvert he was, the sonnets and poems gave him the
freedom to express his desires and passion he had for the 'Dark Lady'
and the young man (whose identity we know) whose name he never revealed.
His disillusion with Anne Hathaway about which he laments on other
women and whose frailties he highlights in his work. I am convinced the
purpose of his writing sonnets and poems were to unburden his mind. They
were the forerunners to Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece etc.
These two works are fine examples where his disapproval of women no
matter how he has put it across, are apparent.
The narrative poem, Venus and Adonis remain relatively unpopular.
Especially, its genre is difficult for the modern reader to come in
terms with. He will be disappointed by its power and sincerity of
feeling.
This story occurs in Ovid's Metamorphose where it occupies about 75
lines as against Shakespeare's version of 1,200 lines. Venus and Adonis
are wondrous mythical figures where Venus is the goddess of love and
Adonis a beautiful youth out hunting whom she falls in love with. He
declines her advances and resumes his chase.
He is killed by a wild boar and is transformed into a beautiful
flower.
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Venus – 'Yet should I be in love by
touching thee?' (Line 430) Venus and Adonis |
One way to approach Venus and Adonis is to think of it as an exercise
in verbal and imaginative ingenuity. Such a poem more than the most, is
less a matter of being true to an experience or emotion. It is as much
that the poet is coaxing his characters with techniques of elaboration.
He invites the reader all the time to take notice of what he is doing.
At this point I have the strange feeling that Shakespeare is writing
about my experience.
'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible
Enough neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see
Yet should I be in love by touching thee' (430)
Shakespeare changes the story so that Adonis becomes the unwilling
object of Venus's love, beside making the story long. The normal roles
are reversed where the woman woos and Adonis the hunter becomes hunted.
He meets his end through another such reversal when the boar he is
hunting, turns on him and kills him. Shakespeare makes such parallels
thrive and inversions. Venus is angry with herself and says she would
have killed Adonis like the boar, had she the change to do so.
'By this the boy, that by her side lay kille'd
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd
A purple flower sprung up, chequered with white
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.
She bows her head, the new sprung flower to smell
Comparing it to her Adonis' breath ..... (1160)
This concept forms a part of the imagery; elsewhere, Venus is
associated with birds of prey which is the eagle, the vulture and
falcon. Adonis figures as the tame victim, as that of a deer. In a
sense, this represents natural imagery but is used in a way that
contributes to the poem's artifice in which the sexual comedy surfaces.
To cite, Venus offers herself to Adonis as a park for him to play in.
Such witty eroticism contributed greatly for the poem's popularity in
its day.
Venus and Adonis is an unusual high comedy and the subject is
mythical which allows the Bard to twist and turn his characters the way
he desires and not the way the play demands. In 1592 Shakespeare was
forced to abandon writing of poems but the two narrative poems of Venus
and Adonis and The rape of lucrece were tolerated though not being to
everyone's taste. Lord Byron dismissed them as putrid 18th century
favoured clarity over complexity in poetry but found them too obscure.
Yet more recently, they have proved to be popular and accepted with high
praise.
Can be mounted as a dialogued-excerpt because of its beautiful story
value. Or for that matter, danced in a ballet. Venus and Adonis
represents a woman's desire to yield her body to a youth with passion
but also turns venomous when rebuffed.
'These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits
Open'd their mouths to swallow Venus' liking
Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?
Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?
Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn
To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scron'.... (250)
In 1609, Thomas Thorp published Shakespeare's sonnets in an edition
which was probably not authorised. Later Thorp published a collection of
155 poems, the last being a Lover's complaint.
The other 154 poems are sonnets. A sonnet is usually a 14-line
rhyming poem of the day but poets who wished not to be shakled down with
a burden preceded by Shakespeare, opted to use free lines without
rhyming and people accepted this form. In my book of 14-lined sonnets,
The spirits of Romeo and
Juliet I had a terrific response when the first edition of 2,000
copies were sold no sooner it hit the shelves. That was a shock from
which I have not yet recovered and only goes to prove how people around
the world look at English literature.
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