| Preface |
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| This old spelling edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets
was first published by Heinemann in 1963. It was revised by
Martin Seymour-Smith and myself in 1998. As Seymour-Smith convincingly
demonstrates, the return to the text as originally spelt reveals
layers of meaning which are lost in a modernised version. In
such a concentrated, ambiguous, ironical and inward-looking
sequence as the Sonnets is, this matters in a way that does
necessarily apply to Shakespeare's plays. |
| In his introduction and notes Martin Seymour-Smith
traces Shakespeare's mental odyssey as he passes through an
acute psychological crisis, facing up to unexpected - and unwelcome
- truths about his sexual desires. His commentary on the progress
of the relationship between Shakespeare and the Friend demonstrates
the passage from an idealised Renaissance love between men,
through a relationship with a homosexual dimension which undoubtedly
deeply disturbs the poet, to a disillusion which, however, Shakespeare
never allows to descend to disgust, nor even uses to dismiss
the Friend out of hand. A record of painful honesty, the Sonnets
provide virtually the only direct glimpse we have into one aspect
of Shakespeare's personal life. |
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- Peter Davies, 2000.
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| Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets |
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| SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS have had much learned ink
wasted upon them, and in this Introduction I can offer little
more than a summary of the facts and theories that have been
regarded as important. |
| One of the reasons for the enduring fame of the
Sonnets is that, appearing to be on an intensely personal and
even 'forbidden' theme, they therefore seem to cast light on
the personality, largely hidden from history, of their author.
A better reason is that they represent a unique combination
of inspired linguistic wit and depth of passionate feeling.
It is no wonder that nearly everyone who reads them with attention
finds himself unable to resist the temptation of projecting
himself, and therefore his own theories and predilections, into
them. The critic or scholar can only claim to have tried to
be objective in his treatment: they are too profound, too wide
in their emotional and psychological range, to obtain dispassionate
treatment. At best, an editor can hope for no more than to cast
some light by discussion of certain of the more important facets
of their meaning, and of their vocabulary. The best, and there
arc many, possess such poetic robustness, such tough authenticity,
that their subtlety, both linguistic and psychological, is unbounded.
They are as near to life as poetry can get, and as remote. Close
examination of such 'hackneyed' lines as |
| |
What potions have I drunke of Syren teares
Distil'd from Lymbecks foule as hell within,
Applying feares to hopes, and hopes to feares,
Still loosing when I saw my selfe to win? |
| which are absolute in their purely emotional appeal,
proves their intellectual precision to be as intense in its
hardness as their passion is intense in its heat. Any attempted
assessment of such passages - and they abound - consists, in
essence, of a series of re-quotations with different emphases. |
| In no other poems are we brought so close to ourselves;
we should be content with this, and not imagine that our opinions
of our experiences reflect Shakespeare's personality. Although
the 'story' behind the Sonnets, the events that occasioned them,
is clear and simple to see, at least in most of its details,
personality qua personality is remarkably absent from the account
they give. Shakespeare never points to himself and says: 'Look,
this is what I was like in this situation! Look at me and admire
me! See how I suffered!' He transcends this. His poems say,
instead: 'Look at you!' |
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