4 Matchett, p. 193. A marriage has been celebrated, a child born; where is the grief in all this? 98-108. The lover finds in his beloved not only his own essence or nature, but 'the whole worlds soule', or, to recall Shakespeare's own expression, 'great creating Nature'. It must be remembered that the transference of such language to human love was itself traditional. The summons issued from the sole Arabian tree is an announcement of the end and the beginning; an unnamed miracle is proposed and will be accomplished only if the summons is heard and obeyed. 33Nouvelles uvres (1582), p. 128; Phoenix, f. 127vUranologie (1583), f. 207. Of the 1601 contributors, Shakespeare was undoubtedly the feather in the Chester-Salusbury cap. Figurative language refers to words or phrases that are meaningful, but not literally true. Lactantius, op. He will grant, though, that the bird may be but a symbol of Shakespeare's own poetic creation (pp. It describes the love of the Phoenix and the Turtle (turtledove), who together represent ideal love. Reason's reaction is first to analyse the behaviour of the lovers, and then to rationalize it. He is the baseborn haggard who threatens Arthur the royal bird: Mordred, thou deceitfull kinsman, That from the deite That birds did sing to make it heauenly. That the Phoenix was a type of Christ is well known. But who are these enemies of Phoenix? But the phrase can be understood in the light of sonnet cxvr. Essays in Criticism XVI, No. The creative vow insists they are the same. Dana Ramel Barnes. The conflict between Reason and Passion, the subject of so many sonnets of the time, found its resolution in an ideal Love guided (as Pietro Bembo says in The Courtier) by Reason. "14 Shakespeare uses here the later technique of Donne's "Canonization" in applying to concepts of human love the language of theology, but his purpose and vision rise above Donne's fusion of intellect and passion and reach a level of universal truth that remains uniquely his. Alituum stipata choro volat illa per altum, Lover and beloved are completely one in the unity of the divine Ratio, where Reason is made perfect by Love. Where Peace conioyn'd with Plenty still remaines.6. Not only is the traditional turtledovewhich has no role in the phoenix legendsa female,12 but, of the two birds, it would seem the more feminine, smaller, softer, less colorful and less imposing. The negation remains ontologically logical within the Christian concept of grace fundamental in Elizabethan thought. This is logically explained on a psychological basis. So, a goldsmith commissioned to design a cup to commemorate Sir John's knighthood would design as handsome a vessel as he could and, though he might incorporate some heraldic emblem, would certainly not attempt to convey any comment on the occasion. By us, we two being one, are it. Ellrodt comes close to the position I would take with respect to the poem's relation to Shakespeare's other work: The very mood of the poem . "Whereupon," it says, Reason "made this Threne." Gale Cengage The Pelican, the bird of self-sacrifice par excellence, watches the love-death and comments on it as Chorus. The poem remained unpublished for about fourteen years. p. 179) argue that no particular bird need be meant; T. W. Baldwin (On the Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Poems and Sonnets, Urbana 1950, p. 368) and Wilson Knight (op. For further information on The Phoenix and Turtle, see SC, Volume 10. This mood is present in Hamlet's violent revulsion at his mother's "unchastity" and in his general skepticism as to the possibility of goodness in man, that paragon of animals and quintessence of dust. . . 100-8) gives a broad survey of the classical, Platonic, and Petrarchan influences, while J. V. Cunningham tries to show that the central part, or anthem, reflects the medieval scholastic refinementand consequent displacementof Platonic (specifically Plotinian) thought. The difference betwixt false Loue and true Sinceritie. There is subtlety and double meaning still, but nothing to suggest confusion; there is little of the contentious quality of the anthem. To themselues yet either neither, The poets who contributed these poetical essaysthe title had been used two years before by Samuel Daniel for a collection of poemsand who subscribed their names were Shakespeare, Marston, Chapman, and Jonson. Interpretation then implied inventing an 'occasion' for the poem, to fit one's choice of candidate. 157 (1989): 48-71. But Reason's cry is a curious mixture of praise and disparagement, of sorrow and embarrassment. SOURCE: An introduction to The Phoenix and the Turtle, in The Poems, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. Nature fears the fires of this kingdom are too 'dull and base' to renew the Phoenix. This normative line has been identified as "truncated trochaics" and, when it is used in the threne, as "octosyllabic trochaics. With goodly armony. 6 See Loves Martyr, pp. In spite of anything they may have been, the Phoenix and the Turtle are now not only birds, but dead birds. That this tradition survives to Shakespeare's time is indicated in Hamlet, I.i. Natura ascends to heaven and pleads with Jove for mankind. The poem first appeared in Robert Chester's book Loves Martyr; or, Rosalins Complaint (1601), in company with poems by several contemporaries, notably Jonson, Chapman, and Marston. Alvarez is therefore unjustified in claiming that the paradox is 'rationally accurate' and 'proves its point' (p. 8). But this was a distortion of the legend as related by Lactantius. That ourselves know not what it is, That among creatures even the uniquely perfect must die?These are simply aspects of one idea. Of course the word "dead" already denies the qualities usually associated with "bird," but the line goes further than that. 19 Some scholars think that this poem is anonymous because it is unsigned; but the title page describes the 'new compositions' as being by authors 'whose names are subscribed to their several workes', which means presumably that a poet's name follows the group of poems he has submitted. Certain birds are chosen for the funeral rite. She rend'red life, Antony Unarm, Eros, the long day's task is, The eroticism here is surely a vindication of the 'mingled' destinies of the two lovers. See also S.M. The anthem stresses the triumph; Reason, without denying triumph of a sort, stresses the tragedy, and this emphasis, though it must inevitably appear derogatory after the anthem, is rather a way of establishing a balanced view of the event. Provides the historical background to Shakespeare's "exquisite but baffling poem.". This is not feminine rhyme, but simple repetition, which would result in monotony rather than freedom if it were not that the identical suffixes receive so little stress. One further point to be noted in the twelfth stanza is its repetition of the numerical reduction we noted in the rhyming words of the seventh. Othello's egotism, which grounds his love, which grounds indeed all human love, is the ineradicable cause of love's death. WebIn order to show how this capturing of one-sidedness and two-sidedness occurs in literature, Ong examines Shakespeares poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle (1601). Vulgar love is unchastity or lust, the concupiscent force of the lover's worst motives. As sierres in the skye, Fired the Phoenix where she laide, Seltzer, Daniel. The irony of Marston's and Jonson's poems is more obvious, and satirical; but Shakespeare's subtlety should not lead us to disregard the underlying irony in his poems. . According to Jean Hubaux and Maxime Leroy the two passages describe the same rites and the self-same tree; Le Mythe du Phnix dans les Littratures Grecque et Latine (Lige, 1939, pp. This agrees with the various tributes to Chester's She-Phoenix: 'Nature long time hath stor'd up vertue, fairenesse, Shaping the rest as foiles unto this Rarenesse' (Loves Martyr, pp. But Nature gives her no choice, and leaves the two alone together. The language of its lines is crisp and gnomic, each line having a certain lapidary separateness, yet behind the lines we sense the creating mind impelling them together into lyricism. Similarly in Chapman's poem, the Turtle sees the whole world contracted in his Phoenix'She was to him th'Analisde World of pleasure'and the poet, in imitation, sees his beloved as the one 'That is my forme, and gives my being, spirit.'. The Anuals [Annals] of great Br inaine, or A Most Excellent Monument, wherein may be seene all the antiquities of this Kingdome, to the satisfaction both of the Vniversities, or any other place stirred with Emulation of long continuance. cit. Byrdes as thycke . Pal. What type of figurative language is used in this sentence? Red evokes emotional instability and subjugation. One faire Helena, to whom men owe dutie: John Wain (1955); G. Wilson Knight, The Mutual Flame. My quotations below are from the edition of A. If this seems at all strange or far-fetched, consider for a moment a contemporary poem which likewise tells of a love-death, or consummation of love, under the image of the Phoenix, Donne's The Canonization: The Phoenix ridle hath more wit To use Coleridge's terms, the poem has more than usual emotionand at the same time more than usual order. While the identification appears to strike him as so obvious as not to require proof, he was soon challenged by Furnivall, who, in rejoinder to Grosart's sentimental observation of 'the great Queen's closing melancholy and bursts of weeping with the name of Essex on her lips', pointed out that she did not stick at ordering the earl's execution.3 Even if we were to accept such death-bed accounts as authoritative, they could not have been anticipated two years earlier. The originality of Shakespeare's handling of the Phoenix theme stands out more clearly from a comparison with other Phoenix poems in his own and previous ages.35 The compositions of Lactantius and Claudianus were narrative and pictorial. We have had some preparation for this straining of metaphor in the poet's insistent division of the birds on the basis of a mixture of traditional and newlycreated symbolism. The confusion of Reason is perhaps reinforced by the imperfect rhyme, "together . Cf. We are all one, thy sorrow shall be mine, On the other hand, there is the underlying sensitive and sympathetic intuitive mode of the Anthem, which expresses itself in the Threnos by countermining Reason's pretentious dogmatism. An other Bird her wings for to display, Her deare, the Dolphin his owne Dolphinet.". I come sweet Turtle, and with my bright wings, But, unlike Shakespeare, he did not really call in question the principle of identity for the conceit only applied to the bird reborn from its ashes, a wonder in natural history but no contradiction in the realm of logic and ontology. The swan is to serve as priest, its whiteness suggesting both the proper garment and the required purity. WebFigurative language is found in all sorts of writing, from poetry to prose to speeches to song lyrics, and is also a common part of spoken speech. WebPhoenix and the turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. 10). they follow rejoicing in their holy task. Pared down to essentials, the poem seems hardly more than an exercise in declamation; what makes it all the more formidable is its ability to find a tone equal to Donne's in expansiveness without enjoying similar terms of recovery and return. Chester begins in a manner reminiscent of Blenerhasset's Revelation with a parliament of the gods, entitled: Rosalins Complaint, metaphorically applied to Dame Nature at a Parliament held (in the high Starchamber) by the Gods, for the preseruation and increase of Earths beauteous Phoenix, (p.9). 38. Viability of this policy depended on her subjects' trust. Without discorde, William H. Matchett, The Phoenix and the Turtle (The Hague, 1965), sees Chester as a 'poetic pack rat'; his interpretation of Chester's intentions rests upon the view that Essex is the Turtle. But despite these objections the theory continues to command a small following, the most appealing recent proponent being William H. Matchett, who concludes that Grosart was right even if the dates were wrong. Focuses on formal and thematic affinities between The Phoenix and Turtle and Shakespeare's dramatic works. One countrey with a milke-white Dove I graced: For instance, the syntax of chaste love is absolutely and explicitly positive and full of promise, drawing the lovers towards each other in mutual expectancy ('So . While they themselves are 'Poore sacrifices of our enmity', the statues at least, placed beside each other, Juliet's given by Montague and Romeo's by Capulet, will provide a 'patterne of love' for the time to come. In the Summons, the two incompatible responses to death dramatize a conflict similar to the Neoplatonic idea of a noble and a vulgar love. Yet in 1601 there was no agreement about who that successor should be; without unanimity Elizabeth's demise would produce no second Phoenix. "Love," in the ninth stanza, would be visual, perhaps, as a radiant light, but not personified, if it were not that the word carries along the weak personification established in the sixth stanza and prepares us for its stronger personification as the rival of Reason. It is his considered opinion that "A history of poetry from Dry den's time to our own might bear as its subtitle 'The Half-Hearted Phoenix. 16 It is perhaps significant that his name often has added 'heir of Lleweni' in manuscript references, as if this was his chief concern. He uses the full resources of his language. On Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' and 'The Phoenix and the Turtle' (1955); F. T. Prince, Introduction to the new Arden edition of The Poems (1960). Nerudas figurative language and wide-ranging imagination let us see the fish vividly as it was in life, making the acknowledgment of the fishs death all the more affecting. According to the legend coming through Lactantius's Carmen de ave phoenice, the new phoenix sings 'a wondrous melody' and 'outsings all other birds': see T. W. Baldwin, On the Literary Genetics of Shakspere 's Poems & Sonnets (Urbana, 1950), p. 367, n. 13, and p. 368. That the divine cannot become permanently incarnate? For these reasons, anyone predisposed toward a particular reading of the poem is usually able to discover what he wishes (though only at the expense of overlooking important details). Here, however, the change from "slaine" to "remaine" shifts the emphasis from means to result, suggesting now not the violence of the reduction but its permanence, as is consistent with the movement of the poem from the praise of an anthem to the lamentation of a threne. With her hymn to heavenly love the chariot arrives in Paphos Isle. This Paphian Dove, rekindling the Arabian fires, will assure perpetuity for Phoenix and her triumph over enemies in Arabia-Brytania. I feare will blame my hoarse-throat ravens song. The pelican sings a funeral lament and Chester's generous contribution finally closes with some 'Cantoes' of prayers and vows made for the Phoenix by her 'Paphian Dove'. Insofar as they participate in the rite they win the sacramental grace it can bestow; to the extent that they comprehend the transcendence of truth and beauty they begin to have truth and beauty themselvesPhoenix and Turtle are in some measure reborn in them. Word went round among the circle of poets to whom Sir John was known, and they decided to celebrate the knighthood, which had completed his restoration of his family's fortunes, by reusing Chester's theme. Grace in all simplicitie, At the same time the poet's dominant concern is with 'the truth of love'. Shakespeares poem, now known as The Phoenix and the Turtle, was appended to a collection of poetry called Loves Martyr printed in 1601.This volume mostly consists of Robert Chesters long and obscure narrative poem about the love between the phoenix and a dove (that is, the mythological bird and the turtle-dove). The fact that Eliot has borrowed the phrase "defunctive music" in his poem "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar" does not modify the point that Shakespeare was here pioneering on the frontiers of language. With the authority of a long dramatic tradition behind him, Shakespeare celebrates this ideal, in spite of death and disaster, as chorus to a tragic scene. Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing. 17 See W. Knight's Mutual Flame, pp. This vision altered common distinctions of number, property, individuality and enabled a subject to see himself and his 'right' as part of the 'body' of his Queen: Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Truth may seem, but cannot be. Such a bird is a 'tyrant' because he means to usurp the rightful place of the Phoenix. . she greets the new-born day with Simple were so well compounded. . This forcing of the word is perhaps demanded by the beginning of the next stanza: "Propertie was thus appalled, / That the selfe was not the same." At this hour reigning there. In a mutuali flame from hence. Consider, too, the new phoenix's paradoxical identity in lines 77-78 and 165-70 of the Carmen. You should be able to explain the purpose for the figurative language and analyze how it contributes to the theme of the poem. It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and has led to many conflicting interpretations. Bould and to bould.13. Elias Schwartz characterized the poem as a funeral elegy and emphasized the thematic implications of the phoenix's failure to be reborn from its own ashes. Now, with Neruda as inspiration, try to write your own ode to an inanimate object, using figurative language to bring it to life. See A. Alvarez, 'Shakespeare, The Phoenix and the Turtle', in Interpretations, ed. WebThe Phoenix And The TurtleWilliam Shakespeare. This interpretation, however, would be flatly contradicted by their actual death and the sense of loss conveyed by the poem. To pass from ideas and idiom to the tone of the poem is not to enter an area of unanimous response, but rather to hear echoes of symbolic, metaphysical, or rhetorical reading. Baldwin, On the Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Poems and Sonnets (Urbana, 1950), pp. Rejoysyng my spirites inwardly, Like Shakespeare and unlike Chester, Roydon therefore departs from the myth of rebirth to enhance the hero's praise. The death-foreboding owl is debarred from the ceremony, and so are tyrannical birds of prey; but the eagle, who is royal, the swan, who understands the music for a Requiem and who knows when he himself must sing and die, and the crow, whose life is of immense span, who can perpetuate himself not by physical contact but by the mingling of breath, spiritually as it werethese are the birds who are summoned. 44-55. So too in Alain's Anticlaudianus the ascent of Prudentia in the chariot, whose horses are the senses, is followed by receiving in a state of ecstasy the idea of human perfection, and by bringing a copy of it down to the world. But since the occasion was a marriage the Phoenix could not be praised alone: it must (whatever the consequent disruption of myth) be provided with a mate; and what better than that recognized symbol of marital constancy, the Turtle-Dove? (Begot of Treasons heyre) thus to rebell . 38. In this sense the term presents no paradox, only a literal statement of fact. To Christian interpreters of the myth the time would be three days as for the resurrection of Christ. Of heven emperyall, 77: 'Constant inde sibi seu nidum, sive sepulchrum'. . 3 Whether the line were trochaic or iambic would depend upon which end we thought had been cropped. On the other hand, probably independent of this tradition, there is an episode in the early tenth-century Navigatio Sancii Brendani, 1 which multiplied into dozens of later versions and translations. Who are these people? 3 Cf. Why is this? I shall briefly outline what seem to me the more important aspects of the original poem. Ovid's bird is in fact a parrot, but Baldwin observes that in Metam. According to Platonism, a beautiful appearance signifies an inner spiritual goodness (fairness indicates truth); but according to the poem, only ideally is this so. In the poem Shakespeare has followed Petrarch in identifying the Phoenix with only one sex, as the Turtle's queen. See, too, John Arthos, Shakespeare's Use of Dream and Vision (London, 1977), pp. Why should we think that Shakespeare's conceit of Reason transcending herself in Love has any metaphysical import, and is more than merely a striking metaphor for love's irrationality?
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