Amal-Kiran - Poet and Critic

An Introductory Note

Apropos of a Sneer at the Subject by Auden

Amal Kiran as historical scholar and literary analyst is unmistakably evident in his attempt to solve the enigmas of Shakespeare's sonnets, as presented in his "Two Loves" and "A Worthier Pen" published in 1984 by Amold-Heinemann. Not only does he dismiss W.H. Auden's pronouncement that such an undertaking is a foolish waste of time, but very methodically cuts the obscure ground to get at a possible clue to the problem. The following prefatory note by him is quite illustrative of this sharp researcher's painstaking work which perhaps needs a proper recognition in the respective specialists' field. - Editors

To BE "certain o'er incertainty" is a state for which the Sonnets of Shakespeare, where this phrase for cock- sureness occurs,¹ are often considered to have provided the largest occasion and the smallest ground. W.H. Auden,² in his preamble to an acute literary estimate, sums up rather acidly the situation: "It so happens that we know almost nothing for certain about the historical circumstances in which Shakespeare wrote the Sonnets... This has not prevented many very learned gentlemen from displaying their ingenuity in conjecture."

Auden³ goes on to say: "Anyone who wastes his time trying either to identify the characters, the friend, the rival poet, the dark lady, or to fix the dates seems to me to be a fool."

Perhaps if I had read this piece of downright damning before setting out on the present book the impact of its pronouncement ex cathedra might have deterred me. But I was already in full career and could not help continuing. Now the varied experience of the terrain I have covered and not just the complacence of "what's writ is writ" prompts this Introductory Note in general defence of Auden's foolish time-waster.

Not that I approve of everything done by his "many very

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learned gentlemen". I am most sceptical in particular of what goes by the name of "historical method". Although it could be a good servant it is - as my very first chapter glancing at the "mortal moon" line of Sonnet 107 tries to show — a ridiculously bad master. And veiled preconception can be rampant elsewhere too. Allusions to private no less than public affairs may get a biased colour mimicking common sense. An instance is the phrase "You had a father" in Sonnet 13, on which I touch in my second chapter. But Auden's indiscriminate condemnation is still, in my view, unjustified.

It is on two grounds that he indulges in it. The primary one is what he⁴ calls the "illusion" - of those who display "ingenuity in conjecture" - that "if they were successful, if it could be proved beyond a shadow of doubt who the friend, or the dark lady, or the rival poet were, the discovery would in any way illumine our understanding of the Sonnets".

Here Auden is right if he means that "the discovery" cannot tell us anything about the stylistic quality of a Sonnet or even about the significant pattern made by the interrelation of its parts. But surely there are knotty points ? H.H. Rollins⁵ has remarked:

"much disagreement exists about the meaning of various words and phrases, and... a number (like 107, 124, 135, 136) cannot be explained or paraphrased so as to satisfy everyone." May not "the discovery" beam some clarity on those shady places ? Auden⁶ himself admits: "Now and again the meanings are obscure, as a personal diary can be obscure, in which the writer does not bother to explain what he himself knows but somebody else cannot tell." A sheer outsider as "somebody else" could lend no clue, but the two people with whom the diarist Shakespeare was intimately connected and to whom the Sonnets were addressed were bound to be in the know. If we could see them in a "close- up", as it were, with Shakespeare, we should persumably be the wiser. So Auden's admission implies that "the discovery" might supply the illumining gloss.

Thus his primary ground is itself shaky. In any case, not all researchers into Shakespeare's life make the claim to illumine the understanding of his Sonnets; neither is such a claim necessary

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for the raison d'être of their labour. Even Auden⁷ says: "One is willing to concede that his biography may be interesting in itself." And his downright damning does not depend altogether on biographical cobblers going beyond their lasts. For, there is a secondary ground for his indulgence in it. And here it is that he is moved by a "misprision" (to use a term from Sonnet 87.11) which is directly relevant to the present book - an error or oversight which is also the immediate precursor of his absolute anathema.

We may introduce it with a side-remark. So far as names are concerned, our choice of Auden as commentator is one which Shakespeare would have found rather piquant. As must have been noticed, the initials preceding "Auden" are "W.H." — just those that figure in the cryptic dedication by the publisher Thorpe to the first edition of the Sonnets: "To the only begetter ... Mr. W.H." And apropos of the commentator's brief - surprisingly "certain o'er incertainty" in the midst of so much controversy - that "begetter" means one who procured the manuscript for the publisher, not one who inspired the poems or engendered them by his influence - apropos of this belief Auden⁸ frames the statement: "Outside the text that is all we know and all we are ever likely to know...."

Much more than Keat's famous dictum at the end of his Ode ("...that is all/We know on earth and all we need to know") this statement is a non-sequitur in its anticipation, repeating briefly an earlier deliverance" on the Sonnets: "We do not know for certain whom he wrote them to, or exactly when he wrote them, and unless new evidence should turn up, which is unlikely, we never shall." The pessimistic prophecy is unwarranted and hardly excuses this fool's-capping of all historical researchers.

The present book submits that a very momentous fact has somehow been missed both by historical researchers and by literary analysts - a fact discoverable through literary analysis in the interests of historical research. When the language of some of the Sonnets is sharply probed, we see that the poems date themselves by a system of internal chronology - and the key for reading the details of the time-scheme contained is simply, on the

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one hand, the year and month of Shakespeare's birth, April 1564, and, on the other, the three familiar dates which Auden¹⁰ lists: 1598 (Meres's general reference to the Sonnets). 1599 (Jaggard's piratical publication of two Sonnets), 1609 (Thorpe's unauthorised edition). To be more specific, the Sonnets can be found to tell us:

1. Shakespeare's idea of the number of years making up the full span of life.

2. The year at which, according to him, old age begins.

3. The year at which, according to him, old age is markedly established.

4. The several stages of advanced age at which he was composing the Sonnets.

5. To what years in his life these stages may be taken to correspond.

6. The total number of years during which he wrote the Sonnets.

7. The year and month of his life in which he started writing them and the ones in which he stopped doing so.

The conclusion we have arrived at is that he wrote the Sonnets over a period broadly of 9 years: he commenced, in the main, shortly before his 34th year and ended, for the most part, a little before his 43rd. As will be explained in the course of the book, this means, in terms of dates, almost certainly from April 9, 1598 to April 9, 1607, with perhaps a few Sonnets preceding the former mark and very probably a few succeeding the latter and one solitary piece with a psychological turning-point some months after them.

Obviously, if we have a clear time-bracket in our hands we can decide who "the friend, the rival poet, the dark lady" are likely to be. Our decision has, of course, to be validated by comparative historical research as well as by a comparative scrutiny of literary texts, Shakespearean and other. But all these aids acquire final value and strength from the "good start" in the Sonnets' self- dating.

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The results of our attempt at identification are:

1. "The Friend" - popularly designated "the Fair Youth" by Shakespeareans but actually calledby the poet "fair friend" (104.1) — is, as many scholars have opined for reasons outside internal chronology and therefore inconclusively, Lord William Herbert who was born in 1580, became Third Earl of Pembroke in 1601 and is known to have been associated with both Shakespeare and his plays.

2. "The dark lady" is none of the candidates so far discussed but a woman most probably of Italian extraction with perhaps two Christian names, the chief and definite one being "Anastasia". She was a citizen of London who once figured characteristically though namelessly in association with Shakespeare in John Manningham's Diary.

3. There were three rival poets and not only one. But two were minor competitors: Francis Davison and Samuel Daniel. The major competitor - contrary to the beliefs of almost all scholars but in consonance with several literary traditions of a general order - was Ben Jonson.

In connection with the third result we may touch once more on the theme of Auden's preamble, the end¹¹ of which runs: "Let... us forget all about Shakespeare as a man and consider the Sonnets themselves."

Well, let us consider Sonnet 86, which is the central one on the chief "rival poet". Is it not rather a riddle with its tutor "spirits" and aiding "compeers by night" and "affable familiar ghost" who "gulls him with intelligence"? Usually, ironic praise has been read here; but Martin Seymour-Smith¹² insists on sincerity. Even about the "ghost"-line he¹³ says that its mention of gulling "is not a criticism, but a poetic tribute of great depth" because all poetic knowledge, "intelligence", tricks the poet into appearing a dupe in the eyes of the world, so that its inspiration is a curse to him in his ordinary life. Again, in a literal sense, supernatural nocturnal

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sources of the rival's influence have commonly been misunderstood. J.W. Lever¹⁴ however, speaks of "all the muses as the Rival's aids" and even brings in "the Rival's own clique of versifiers" and "a boon companion". Evidently, much will hang on who the chief 'rival poet" actually was, face to face with "Shakespeare as a man". And, if he was Ben Jonson of all people, the meaning must receive quite an unexpected illumination. The present book endeavours to disclose no less than four layers of Jonsonian significance, each covering the whole main block of the Sonnet.

When a chunk of life is poetised, the poetry, no doubt, is the first concern for us; but we cannot always afford to neglect the temporal reality from which the subject of the poetry is carved out. Some helpful sidelight is frequently thrown by it. On its own, too, this continuum of facts may be worth exploring. And Auden has not only conceded that Shakespeare's biography may be interesting in itself; he¹⁵ has also said: "What is astonishing about the matter of the sonnets is the impression they make of naked autobiographical confession, which for their time makes them unique." If what astonishes us in them is something more than their poetry as such, if in addition it is their poetising of the writer's life in a rare nakedness, we should be inconsistent to contemplate with an air of indifference the possible originals of the human images crossing this intense confession in verse.

Neither can we assert that Shakespeare never wanted us to know who they were. The witty "Will-Sonnets (135. 136. 143) seem to disclose the names of both the poet and his Friend to be "William". In Sonnet 81 the poet tells the Friend:

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,¹⁶

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

The earth can yield me but a common grave,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,¹⁷

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,¹⁸

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When all the breathers of this world are dead;

You still shall live - such virtue hath my pen -¹⁹

Where breath most breathes, — even in the mouths

of men.²⁰

(5-14)

Mark the expression: "your name." And does not the image of a monument imply not only a commemoration but also the recording of a name? Sonnet 151, addressing the Dark Lady, uses the words: "thy name" (9). It is an integral part of Shakespeare's "autobiographical confession" that the two main characters concerned should be namable by us. Shakespeare wished at least the Friend's full identity to be revealed, for else he would be false to the promise he gave again and again, as in Sonnet 18 —

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest;

So long as men can breathe or, eyes can see,

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

(11-14)

Or in Sonnet 55 —

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme,

But you shall shine more bright in these contents²¹

Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time....

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom. ²²

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,²³

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

(1-4, 9-14)

How would the Friend be eternised, go on living perpetually, be

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rendered more clear in men's memory than by monuments, continue in spite of all forces working to blot him out, exist until at the world's end he is resurrected in the very form he had before - unless "lovers' eyes" are able to recognise him through Shakespeare's poetry ? The words - "yourself arise" - indicate the Friend's personal entity, his distinct particular identity, which the "powerful rhyme" of Shakespeare cannot possibly show to the world without the poetry not only getting published at some time but assuming too that its readers would know who exactly was the wonderful object of the writer's admiration and devotion.

Indeed, to be true to Shakespeare's mind and heart we must set about exploring the continuum of temporal reality to which the Sonnets are attached. If facts have mostly been elusive in regard to them, it is a misfortune. That is no reason why a book should not strive after them in order to fix dates and solve the enigmas of identities. Shakespeare expects one that does so. All we can justifiably demand is that it be fresh and alert, taking care lest a question from Sonnet 76 prove adaptable to its procedure:

Why, with the time, do I not glance aside

To new-found methods... ?  (3-4)

Notes and References

1. 115.11.

2. "Shakespeare's Sonnets", The Listener (London), July 2, 1964, p. 7, col. 1.

3. Ibid., pp. 7-8, cols. 2, 1.

4. Ibid., p. 7, col. 1.

5. Shakespeare's Sonnets (New York, 1951), Introduction, p. x.

6. The Listener, July 9, 1964, p. 46, col. 2.

7. Ibid., July 2, p. 7, col. 2;

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., col. 1.

10. Ibid., col. 2.

11. Ibid., p. 8, col. 1.

12. Shakespeare's Sonnets, edited with an Introduction and Commentary (Heinemann, London, 1963), p. 155.

13. Ibid.

14. The Elizabethan Love Sonnet (Methuen & Co., London, 1956), pp. 233-4.

15. The Listener, July 9, 1964, p. 46, col. 2.

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16. from hence - henceforth, from these poems

17. gentle - polished, noble

18. rehearse - tell of

19. virtue — power

20. breath - life

21. contents - poems about you

22. wear this world out - last as long as this world

23. judgment that - Judgment Day when

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