SONNET 20
A woman’s face, with Nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou, the Master-Mistress of my passion,
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion,
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth,
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And, by addition, me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love’s use their treasure.
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”hue” -- meanings as of Shakespeare’s day included shape, form, aspect, as well as color or complexion
“pricked thee out" -- primary meaning of this phrase, in the day, was to mark an item in, or to select it from, a list. The naughty pun is reinforced by a secondary meaning: to plant out a young seedling. There may also be an echo of “trick out”…if so, a quadruple-play; impressive.
“love’s use” — physical love
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The poet is smitten with another male but rejects physical love. He immunizes himself against the scandal of same-sex attraction by asserting he is drawn by resemblance to the female. Yet he also delivers a slap at the female gender, twice in two lines calling women “false.” (Casual misogyny of the day, alas. One of the less-charming qualities of period literature.)
The poet says he prefers the young man to women, both in looks and character. But male anatomy disqualifies. “Dicks are for chicks.” Their love must be Platonic.
Was that definitive?
Is this a way of saying, “Thanks, but no thanks"?
Or did the poet -- to filch his own phrase -- protest too much against the nature of his feelings?
Does this describe an attempt to deal with inward conflict, by compartmentalizing?
Does it matter?
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I’m not a real Shakespeare scholar, nor well-read in the field of LGBTQ literature. (Insights from the more knowledgeable highly welcome.)
Yet having posted a few Shakespeare sonnets to the Classic Poetry Group, I felt guilty about ducking this topic. Those diaries generally assumed or presented heterosexual attachment. Was that a right thing to do as a general matter?
In trying to address that qualm, at the same time caution is in order: labeling of people or literature in the 16th-17th Century is risky in that categories of the day were not the same as now.
Historians stress that today’s concepts of “gay" and “lesbian” did not exist. Some people, admittedly, might be more than others inclined towards the same sex, but this was not seen as inherent identity. Almost anyone — it was assumed -- might be tempted to misbehave in this way on occasion. And only behavior counted.
“Trans” was not remotely imagined, let alone “gender-queer.”
Still, I think the question of whether one is engaged in “straightwashing" does matter, and it seems only just to discuss — at least -- the conventional simplification.
There’s a lot to be said, but this diary will stick to the Sonnets ( which might or might not be closely autobiographical).
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Out of the 154 Shakespeare Sonnets first published in 1609, the majority do not specify the gender of the subject. I tried to count. (Some judgement calls are necessary. For example, is a “friend" necessarily male? Were the Sonnets composed with a connected story in mind? Must all Sonnets on the same theme — such as the "black” verses or the “immortality" ones -- necessarily have the same subject? Not assuming so.)
By this rather conservative count, I estimate about 15 of them certainly or almost certainly must have a female subject, as indicated by pronoun or strong implication. Seventeen verses are addressed to a good-looking young man, urging him to marry and produce offspring.
Besides these, there are fourteen others, certainly or almost certainly with a male subject.
In a few more, the poet specifically mentions both a mistress and a male friend, complaining that the two have gotten together and cut him out. Just a handful of Sonnets address abstractions such as time, lust, death and general disillusion. (Other readers’ mileage may vary.)
This leaves very roughly 100 Sonnets, if I counted correctly, that are actually silent on the gender of the poet's subject.
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As early as the second published version of the Sonnets in 1640, editors began transgendering some of the male-subject Sonnets and/or signaling in other ways that the ambiguous subjects ought to be read as female.
Later editors and critics produced an array of explanations as to why the Sonnets addressed to males must not be seen as evidence of “irregular” passion.
After all, back in Shakespeare’s day, actual sex between males had been both a shocking sin and a capital crime (though at that date rarely prosecuted). By the 19th and early 20th Centuries, societal attitudes were not softened.
In 1895, in fact, another literary star, Oscar Wilde, went to prison over “gross indecency” with men.
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The embarrassment, therefore, to some Shakespeare critics and historians, was sharp.
Among their offerings in rejection or explanation:
~ Shakespeare was married at 18 in a shotgun wedding; after their first child, the couple went on to produce twins.
~ Anecdotes of Shakespeare’s life, some of the Sonnets themselves, and other writings suggest a vigorous -- and varied -- love life with women.
~ As mentioned, seventeen verses are urging a young man to marry and father children.
~ ”The poet” of the Sonnets need not always be identified with Shakespeare personally, but perhaps might be a persona, like a character in one of his plays.
~ ”Love” in Shakespeare’s day covered a range from dutiful respect through friendly affection all the way to the extreme of sexual passion. A few of the Sonnets do evidently belong towards the formal end of the scale.
~ Flattery of a rich, vain patron might go to extremes never meant to be taken literally.
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On the other side of the balance:
~ Discretion would have been wise. Sex between males could bring a sentence of death, if proved. In fact a dangerous complaint of this kind was made against Shakespeare’s patron Henry Wriotheseley about his conduct during a military expedition. Lacking direct evidence, the complaint went nowhere, but others accused might not be so lucky.
~ Shakespeare was deeply concerned about his public reputation, as several Sonnets testify along with his lifelong campaign to be recognized as a “gentleman” entitled to a family crest. In contrast, the reputation of fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe (murdered in 1593) carried a persistent stain because Marlowe had had once, allegedly, spoken out in favor of tobacco and “boys.”
~ Shakespeare was also a master of equivocation, close cousin to wit and wordplay. Several of his Sonnets to male subjects seem to keep just clear of unambiguous declaration.
None of these points, of course, settle the question of whether Shakespeare’s natural inclinations were (in our terms) straight, gay or bisexual.
Nor do they necessarily reveal what varieties of relationships he may have actually had.
(For that matter, Oscar Wilde was married with two sons.)
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Connecting the Sonnets to biography -- assuming they are be at least partly biographical -- has proved tricky.
Personal opinion: Most were “occasional” poems, with specific but veiled reference to the poet’s life and circle, and the arrangement into a loosely-connected story came later, whoever was responsible for it. This is not scholarship, just gut feeling.
(BTW, I’m not willing to assign any of Shakespeare’s work to Nathaniel Bacon, Edward de Vere, etc.....Different discussion!)
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For the subject of Sonnet 20, historically a prime candidate has been Henry Wriotheseley, the charming young 3rd Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated both of his published narrative poems, “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece.” This identification was first suggested in 1812.
The Earl according to testimony of the time did fit the description of one “who steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.”
Young Southampton was regularly at Court by age 17 (about the date of the header painting). For a time Queen Elizabeth insisted that he play cards with her every evening.
Later the Earl would join in a 1601 rebellion led by the Earl of Essex against the Queen, and was barely spared from execution for treason. Shakespeare’s acting company, tangentially involved with the same plot, talked their way out of prosecution. King James I on his accession in 1603 released the Earl, who survived until 1624.
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Concerning Sonnet 20 in particular, I’m not entirely convinced by the Southampton hypothesis.
For one thing it leaves unexplained what looks like some kind of play on “hue” in Line 7. A pun on the name “Hugh” or “Hughes” (as we would spell it) has been one suggestion.
(Referring to the edition of 1609
A man in hew all Hews in his controwling,
is no help. In any case spelling and punctuation then were far from standardized; even the italics and capitals do not appear systematic.)
Since ”hue” can also mean color, it’s possible there’s reference to someone whose profession might be something like portraiture, or the craft of dyeing.
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Or: The first meaning of “hue” given in the OED (however spelled) is “form, shape, figure; appearance, aspect,” which is attested from about 900 C.E. to at least 1653.
This suggests, to me, that the subject of the Sonnet might possibly have been an actor, capable of impersonating many different characters -- “all hues in his controlling.”
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Female stage roles in Shakespeare’s day, of course (Juliet! Ophelia! Rosalind!) were always filled by male actors -- a situation that might lead to some confusion of feelings ordinarily reserved for the opposite gender.
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So having almost, one might think, explained-away the tension in Sonnet 20…
...rather than trying to parse and weigh further the scant biographical information…
...back to poetry.
Here is one of some eight Sonnets by Shakespeare on one identical theme -- and to me, the most undeniably forthright about the kind of relationship it immortalizes, whoever the subject and whatever the circumstances may have been:
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SONNET 63
Against my love shall be as I am now,
With time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn,
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
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Hath traveled on to Age’s steepy night
And all those beauties whereof now he’s King
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his Spring —
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For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding Age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
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His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live, and he in them still green.
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Against: in preparation for the time when
steepy: per OED, steep, full of steep slopes, precipitous. I think the implication is a sharp drop-off into oblivion.
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Hope this Will settle any debt of prior omission.
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Some references:
Shakespeares Sonnets, Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of the First Edition, 1609, from the Copy in the Malone Collection in the Bodleian Library, with Introduction and Bibliography by Sidney Lee. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915. (Inferior reprint by Forgotten Books, via Amazon.) Lee emphasizes (IMO overdoes) multiple arguments against taking as autobiographical “the suggestion of irregular emotion” and apparent “personal confession of morbid infatuation with a youth.” [Modernized spelling and punctuation of the Sonnets above are mine.]
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Anthony Holden, “That's no lady, that's....,”The Guardian, Apr. 21, 2002. Highly readable piece discusses identification of the portrait used as header in this diary and reprises controversy over Shakespeare’s sex life. [I would disagree with Holden that the portrait subject is necessarily “dressed as a woman” or wearing makeup, though moderns get that impression. The falling collar was a style worn by males, and a woman’s long hair usually would have been pinned up for a formal portrait. BTW, lest anyone suspect plagiarism, the part of this diary that asks whether this whole topic “matters” was composed before discovering the Holden article with its parallel ruminations.]
Also, the incomparable Oxford English Dictionary. Miscellaneous memories fact-checked in Wikipedia.
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Prior CPG diaries featuring Shakespeare's Sonnets:
“O let me true in love but truly write”: Sonnet 21
“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”: Sonnet 73
“Oh never say that I was false of heart”: Sonnet 109:
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”: Sonnet 116:
“If my dear love were but the child of state”: Sonnet 124
“I do believe her, though I know she lies”: Sonnet 138
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ALSO LAST FRIDAY Angmar had a Shakespeare autumn miscellany at R&BL, including Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, which some people may have missed because autopost did not correctly add it to the general diary list.
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Some prior CPG poetry diaries on Shakespeare's contemporaries:
John Donne: “A Nocturnall Upon St. Lucie’s Day Being the Shortest Day”
Emilia Lanier: “To All Virtuous Ladies In General”
Christopher Marlowe: “The Passionate Shepherd To His Love”
“Women (and men!) who behave rarely make history.”
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More on DKos:
Classic Poetry Group
FreeWriters
Readers and Book Lovers (with full schedule of literary diaries)
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