Two sonnets in tribute to ladies the respective poets have taken a fancy two are the subject of Robert Pinsky's current poetry discussion site. As usual, the discussion that follows Pinsky's remarks and recitations of the works (read in fine manner by Pinsky) is subtle, lively, cordial. I
rather like the wit and spare and adroit verbal sharpness that mark both of
these poems; graceful, preening, softly boasting and flattering the women to
whom they are addressed in terms that bestow qualities exceptional , unique,
miraculous to behold, these are the testimonies of horn dogs working their way
into a woman’s favor. And, perhaps, the respective beds they sleep in.
Rather
classically, both these quick witted sonnets display less the feeling of
spontaneity , of genuine play, than they do the feeling of a well constructed
presentation, an argument mulled over, finessed and converted into a poeticized
template intended for the means of endearing oneself to women by appealing to
their perceived vanity. This makes you consider the old cartoon line when Olive
Oyl says to Popeye and Bluto , as they try to woo her , “I bet you say that to
all the girls.” The speakers, the wooers, the orators that profess the
unqualified beauty , brilliance, charm, grace and sublimity of their objects of
affection , deliver their testimonies with it in mind to present themselves in
an exceptional light; the sonnets are, in essence, sales pitches, imbuing the
speakers with qualities compatible with the ones they’ve ascribed to their
ladies dearest without so much as one self-glorified personal pronoun being
used in either of these artfully cantilevered proclamations. It’s a subtle
argument to be made that requires the most skillful of tongues, that the
qualities, the talents that are being attached to the would be betrothed have
not been noticed by the rabble, the masses, those who live a penuric existence,
and that only the men who have broached and spoke to the subject of the ladies
beauty are intelligent, sensitive, caring, dynamic enough to speak these
truths. It is artful indeed, requiring a fine a balance, of knowing when to let
one’s voice trail off, to end on a soft syllable, awaiting a response. This is
bragging through the flattering of another.
HOW MANY PALTRY, FOOLISH, PAINTED THINGS
(Michael Drayton, 1563-1631)
How many paltry foolish painted things, That now in coaches trouble every street, Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings, Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet! Where I to thee eternity shall give, When nothing else remaineth of these days, And queens hereafter shall be glad to live Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise. Virgins and matrons, reading these my rhymes, Shall be so much delighted with thy story That they shall grieve they lived not in these times, To have seen thee, their sex’s only glory: So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song.
Michael Drayton’s ode speaks to posterity, speaking to what he believes is the likelihood that this fair woman will be remembered, gloried and virtually worshipped as womanly perfection in ages yet to come by virtue of his poem. The ladies who now clutter the streets “shall be forgotten” by poets and this miss will be the envy of women of future elegant pretense because Drayton’s directly addressed ideal is “their sex’s only glory”. A harsh judgement, but it plays to vanity and a person’s feeling of being unjustly ignored. There is resentment here to be exploited and Drayton’s technique, effective or not, is a masterful piece of exploitation. It takes a man, after all, to make the world aware of the genius of the woman who has taken his arm in companionship, in romance, in matrimony. The woman is anonymous, a cipher without the right man to make the powers that are innate in her bosom radiate fiercely, proudly, for the world to praise and to cater to. “So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng,/Still to survive in my immortal song.” This is to cleverly say that the woman will be remembered forever because of the man’s immortal song, which is also to say that only a man, this man, could have written. Without the man’s words, his voice, the woman being seduced is unknown, without the power he extols in the lyric, which is to say that she is without her own voice, bereft of even a language to command.
The
intended audience, I’m sure, is for an audience that considers itself literate
and therefore possessed of an elevated sensibility regarding what I think both
these verses are about, really, seduction. But we do have the experience, as
readers, of getting a vicarious thrill and find ourselves imagining being the
speaker in either poem, no less than small boys imagine themselves to be a
super hero with great powers in the fight against immediate evil. The works
seduction both ways, upon the women who are listening and to the readers who
are literate and, we might assume, a tad shy and less quicksilver in their
effusions of love, honor, and grace. It is a way of being that readers, male
overall, can fancy themselves as possessing their object of desire (“object”
being the operative term) taking ownership of a would-be lover’s (sexual or
courtly) self esteem because the virtues outlined in these cleanly articulated
metaphors and allusions would not have come to mind and, further, would not
have existed had not been for the innately superior senses of the male. Even
the women in the poems, the ones who stand apart from others of their own
gender, are chattel nonetheless. While I think the function of the sonnets are
morally insidious–this is a world where women are lesser beings and have no
selfhood, no definition in the absence of men who control them–it is a kick to
realize that it is the male of the readership who is also being played with the
sweetness of these words, in the words of internet, “owned”.
By chattel,
I mean to say that the women of this historical period, even the ones singled
out for plain-though-generous praise in verse, are considered property. From
Merriam Webster’s On Line dictionary” something (such as a slave, piece of
furniture, tool, etc.) that a person owns other than land or buildings.” While
I do believe that the real world sensibilities were a saner as regards the
treatment of women, but there is the tendency in cultures dominated by the
will, wishes, wiles and whining of men to treat women as if they were accessories,
an extension of a man’s personality and little else. In the grander rhetoric of
love poems and protestations of virtues bordering on sheer virtuosity, we
realize that that the man who seeks to woo may as well be talking to a car
salesman as he describes the vehicle he’d like to drive off the lot and bring
home where he keeps his other stuff. On occasion I am of the mind that love
poems of the period were, in essence, projections of fragile egos confronting a
Hobbesian universe where life was nasty, brutish and short. Again, this is a
seduction that works in two different directions, to an audience that wishes to
think well of itself and the ability of their cultivated readings and wit to
make disruptive realities remain at bay, or at least out of mind, and, of
course, for the women addressed directly, bluntly and yet with a spare poetry
that resembles a truth the subject has denied.
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