Richard Vallance

Vallance Review. October 2003. Wiliam Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, "bare ruin'd choirs" Let's Really Experience it like we never have! That "bare ruin'd" Sonnet all on its own Sonnet 73  First Quarto Edition 1609 [1] Special effects © by Richard Vallance, 2003 Scholia on the 1609 Quarto: [1] This text is from the following WEB Site:  Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Sonnets (1609 Edition) Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library [2] For the alternative meaning of the variant Renaissance spelling "quiers" on "choirs", see NOTE [7] under the Modern English Version (below) Sonnet 73  Modern English Version) That [1] time of year thou mayst [2] in me [3.1] behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang [4] Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs [7], where late the sweet birds sang [4]. In me [3.2] thou seest the twilight of such [8.1] day [5], As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away [5], Death's second self, that seals up [9] all in rest; In me [3.3] thou seest the glowing of such [8.2] fire [6], That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed, whereon it must expire [6], Consumed with that which it was nourished by.     This thou perceiv'st [2,10], which makes thy love more strong,     To love that [11] well, which thou must leave ere long. Scholia: [2] The very opening word of this sonnet, "That" casts us off into the past, into remembrance, or on the other hand, it may evoke the sense of, "(It is) that time of year when you may in me behold..." Even so, there is a clear and poignant note of sadness, of haunting remoteness here - or was it, perhaps, then and there? So, right off the bat, Shakespeare sets the darkly brooding andante tone of this introverted, meditative, yet emotionally charged sonnet. [2] There is much ambiguity in this verb, and (if we "may" pardon the pun) it be interpreted in many ways. It also carries with it a great burden of affect.  Here we see the sonnet's soliloquist longingly and reflectively gazing upon his beautiful belovèd, the youth, his thoughts tinged with regret and loneliness.  "In me", that is, in the mirror of his own mind, he devoutly hopes that the object, more appropriately, the subject of his pining love may also be able or possibly even willing to behold in him (the sonnet's interlocutor) "Bare ruined choirs". Now this latter image is a sure token of melancholy and despondency, or as we would have it today, depression.  And, like Shakespeare himself, so many of us, at the onslaught of Autumn, are struck down by S-A-D (seasonal affective disorder).   For us, just as for our poet-soliloquist, "... sunset fadeth in the west/Which... black night doth take away..."  Ah, November! [3] Shakespeare's stylized and highly structured repetition of the pivotal phrase, "In me": the first three quatrains of this sonnet hang, as it were, on the plainsong invocation of the plaintive "In me", which sounds like the dirge of a cracked bell of a ruined church or monastery to the afflicted ear! Moreover, the half veiled subtleties underlying the insistency of this phrase are reinforced by the poem's regressive slide on the scale of time from one single season or 1/4 of the year, corresponding to the four stanzas of the sonnet itself (namely late Fall or perhaps early Winter) to one lonely sunset, followed by one even bleaker night, during which our sonnet's soliloquist inexorably falls prey to that opiate of all mankind, sleep, the pale brother of Death.  Now in Death itself, all time ceases, comes to a full stop.  That is a blackness even living blind people cannot experience, because they are yet alive.  Imagine then why Shakespeare has so wrenchingly paralleled this duskiness turned to night, this sleep come to the very threshold of Death.  All this is metaphor for the slowly consuming death of his passionate love for the youth!  Now, that must have surely burnt, just as he says, like hot embers into his aging heart (see [B3] for further insight into this metaphorical ellipsis). Some reflective comments on the sonority of rhymes, assonances and onomatopoeia in this sonnet: [4] [5] [6] [8.1] & [8.2] The end-rhymes which Shakespeare deploys in the woof of this sonnet are truly remarkable for their vivid and emotionally rich counterpoint.   Note how in the very first quatrain he subtly alternates between broad vowel sounds, "behold" - "cold" and the stressed, opened vowels, "hang" - "sang".  The fact that these are all monosyllables only serves to add impact to their weight.   Even the open "a" of verses 2 and 4 is mitigated by its nasalization through "ng".   And even the trope "sang", which we usually associate with cheeriness and brightness, is neither here.  It is simple past tense.  It rhymes with the morbid, "hang".  These foils are tantamount to the exclamation, "Behold the cold!"  What could anyone imagine more glum and deeply distressing than this image? Yet again, in the second quatrain, the rhyming scheme serves to fortify the mood the poet so skillfully crafts.  Shakespeare does not merely rhyme "west" with "rest", which would have been effective enough.  After all, we do customarily associate the west with the sunset, with dusk and the coming of night, with rest.  But note again here: Shakespeare rhymes the phrases, "in the west" and "all in rest".   The musicality of this rhyming is utterly breathtaking, the transposition of "the" and "all" all the more evocative of all-inclusive slumber, which takes up all, all humanity, and indeed all the Earth, as fall recedes into even colder Winter, into its arms.  Such a beautifully rendered image is this! But the intricate rhyme paradigm gets even more complex!  There seems to be no end to Shakespeare's brilliant flip-flopping of rhymes with phrases falling over one another.  While "the twilight of such day" [8.1] ostensibly rhymes with "black night doth take away", the contrapuntal strung tension between these phrases sets them clearly at odds.  Twilight suggests rest and peaceful sleep.  Black night elicits broodings over something far more sinister, Death.  And yet, and yet.... at the same time, "the twilight of such day", while it rhymes not with "the glowing of such fire" [8.2] is in fact the physical and Earthly manifestation of the glowing embers gradually dying "away" in the lover's heart!  This is exquisite!  And here again, "fire" rhymes with "expire", leading us full circle back to twilight and sunset, in which the day itself expires.  And the parallelisms just run on and on and on, like the shadows of our lost loved one haunting us in our dreams. [7] "Bare ruined choirs".  I have a few observations to make on this metaphor full of pathos.  First of all, the original Quarto version of 1609 gives the alternate Renaissance orthography of "quiers".  The significance of this Renaissance word cannot go unnoticed.  It refers to none other than parchment, amongst other things not related specifically to "choirs" per se.  In other words, Shakespeare is bemoaning the fact that his verses, written on paper, will, like the yellow leaves, simply fade away and eventually perish with time.  This reading of the phrase cannot be ignored. On the other hand, Shakespeare was quite the sport for puns; so we may rest assured that he is referring also here to the ghostly remnants of choirs (most probably boys' choirs, given the Anglican and/or homoerotic undertones of the sonnet) that used to sing in a church here, now utterly abandoned and in ruins.  How came this to be? Shakespeare was only too painfully aware of the devastation wrought by Queen Elizabeth's flagrant destruction of the Catholic monasteries earlier in her reign.   You can be sure that there were plenty of "bare ruined choir" chancels scattered all over England's heaths and forests.  And what a bleak scene they must have presented to his eyes, or to anyone who happened upon them at "That time of year" (late Fall)!  Finally, through the device of metonymy, these same choirs evoke the now absent birds themselves, who have wisely all flown the coop and gone South to winter over, leaving the branches bare, cold and quite forbidding. Ah, but there is more.  Not only is this dramatic image bleak and dour, it is even quasi-cinematic!  We can easily imagine Shakespeare panning the horizon around him, as he stands in the midst of forlorn monastery or ecclesiastical ruins, first noticing perhaps some trees with most of their leaves still on, though russet; others with only a few yellowish leaves left on their branches, and yet others with none at all!  What's more, if some of the trees have some leaves, some few and some none, then surely a gusty wind implicitly comes into play, even though Shakespeare never explicitly names that wind, most likely a Nor'Wester.  Hence, a third dimensional layer is added, that of the haunting sounds of the leaves rustling and shivering in the winds, on boughs "which shake against the cold". [8] See intercalated comments above in my discourse on rhymes. [9] SLEEP is of course "Death's second self, that seals up [9] all in rest;"  Shakespeare was far, far from being alone to use this device in sonnets.  This is one of the commonest conceits in Renaissance sonnet literature, which crops up with almost frightening, clock-work regularity in the sonnets of the likes of Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton and certainly Samuel Daniel. But somehow, in this sonnet, Shakespeare has invested it with such power that the metaphor almost overwhelms us!  He has directly and explicitly associated sleep with Death itself.  Sleep is our temporary nightly death.  It recurs over and over in our lives, "Which by and by black night", eventually wears our physical body out, burning its fire out into embers until it is at least extinguished, consummated, no longer in the fiery passions of youth, but in Death.  One is left speechless by an image of such daunting prowess. [10] "Thou perceiv'st"....  Shakespeare has come full circle in the very first verse of the final rhyming couplet, rendering its emotional impact all the more wrenching by weaving this verbal phrase with that which opened the sonnet, "thou mayst in me behold."  Apparently his belovèd, who is younger and "greener" than the sonnet's interlocutor, has finally "got it".  He has, it is consummately to be desired, actually come to perceive, however vaguely at first, what Shakespeare had so fervently hoped he might grasp at the outset.  Certainly, this remains Shakespeare's fondest wish, though we are left with the nagging doubt that his lover "may" indeed not yet have fully grasped the true emotional impact of their dying love.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Therein lies the root of the poet's and the (imputed) lover's extreme emotional affliction. At any rate, the entire sonnet is couched in that evasive mirror, "In me thou seest..."  That merely begs the question.  Is all this torment and anxiety only in the speaker's own mind?  How can he really be certain?  How can he tell (in both senses of that word, meaning also "get it across to the one he loves")?  How can we know he does get his message through to the younger lover, when the latter is in absentia?  It is this very ambiguity which lends the sonnet its exquisite emotional richness.  Not only has his belovèd no choice but to "leave ere long" that which he most loves, because the speaker will likely die earlier, being the elder of the two, but even the loved youth must himself also "leave ere long", that is, die. [11] "To love that well"...   The demonstrative, which is yet again couched in the remote, yet all too clinging "that", references several notions at once: the evanescence of the speaker's physical beauty, which has already faded; the ever so subtle dissipation of the youth's beauty, which is bound to fade; the love the speaker has for the youth; life itself; the consuming fire of his (or their!) passionate love, and so on.  One could have a field day with this evasive little metaphor! For all these observations and commentaries, astute as they may be, the sonnet still eludes us.  This is mere criticism: analysis and synthesis, to be sure, but nothing more.  But have we truly experienced the sonnet, drunk its emotional dregs to the last?  I doubt it.  Why don't we take a stab at it then? But How are we to Really Experience Sonnet 73 for its Sheer Poignancy? OK, I'm game!  Let's venture an "answer", or at least take a stab at it. There have been countless critiques of this justly famous of William Shakespeare's sonnets.  Sonnet 73 is perhaps one of the most belovèd of the lot, all 154, bar few. Its poignancy and immediacy to the ironically emotional knell of our all too brief human existence is at once so striking and so personal that it is quite literally impossible for anyone with the slightest sensitivity to its tragic dimensions or the slightest poetic sensibility not to be profoundly moved. The only trouble is - and as a dedicated poet and devout sonneteer myself, I am sure I must share this sentiment, not only with William Shakespeare, but with countless other sonneteers throughout history, the likes of Edmund Spenser, John Milton, John Keats, Rupert Brooke and Edna Saint-Vincent Millay from a vast field of deeply moving poets - there have been literary criticisms galore on this exquisite gem of a sonnet, most of them either surgically analytical or merely impressionistic, and some of them, sadly enough, mere glosses. However, that is not the tack I intend to take in this most innovative of reviews.  Far, far from it.  I am going to present you with a critique of this gripping masterpiece of sonnet literature, a review like none other you have ever encountered. The remainder of this review is not based on analysis, synthesis or even discursive observation.  It will take us smack into the realm of direct personal experience, not only proffering us a glimpse at least of Shakespeare's own emotional turmoil as he composed this lovingly crafted masterpiece, but also inviting us all personally, rather indeed, urging us, even compelling us to drink to the dregs the emotional-psychological intensity of this highly dramatic sonnet-soliloquy - for soliloquy it almost surely is, as we shall soon enough see. Just how do I propose we achieve such a level - or if you will, depth - of shared poetic intimacy? Perhaps my own ideas on sensorial representation of all the arts, including literature and poetry, may be best summarized by this excerpt from my latest book, Canadian Spirit Voices: Chapter 12: The Historical Evolution of the Sonnet. Section 6: Music of the Spheres: Renewal... at the Outset of the Third Millennium: The concept of marrying lyrical poetic forms, including the sonnet, with musical scores is, as we have seen, hardly a new one. However, until just before the New Millennium, poetry and music had been traditionally viewed as separate arts. With the possible exception of Petrarch and a few other early Italian sonneteers, poets would have surely composed their sonnets first, and these would then, if at all, be set to musical scores, invariably by someone else, a troubadour, musician or composer. With the advent of supercomputer graphics and powerful sound-mixing technologies, the search for novel ways for melding the composition of lyrical poetry and music, and indeed visual art, into one medium, is becoming very enticing, to say the least. Still, the day has yet to come when sonneteers write their sonnets and simultaneously compose them to music, and on a large scale. But come it will, of that I am sure. We are indeed at a threshold. It seems highly probable that, in this Century, many of the Arts, as we know them separately now, will anneal into one supra-Art form, which merges literary (including poetic and lyric), graphic, motion picture and musical elements. The resulting artistic productions should prove exciting. [B6] Based on these observations, it would surely appear the reasonable next step would be... Why Not Through the Senses? 1. Sight: So let's say, even if you happen to be deaf and can't attentively listen to largo sonorities of this oh so lyrical sonnet?  Not to worry, here are some really cool visuals to come to your rescue! First, let's take a good look at how Sonnet 73 might appear visually, if it were couched as Art or photography.  Here you see a visual diorama I have concocted for your delectation, which I sincerely hopes will help bring this darkling sonnet to life for you. Richard Vallance's Artistic Transvaluation of Sonnet 73, "Bare ruin'd choirs" But that's not all!  There's even more.  Have you ever heard of the concept of transvaluation of poetry, such as the sonnet?  Well, if you haven't, this colourful little rendition of Shakespeare's "bare ruin'd choirs" is bound to appeal to you visually and, I suspect, emotionally.  Here goes nothing!  A Transvaluation of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 (Click for each successive stanza). For yet another beautifully rendered artistic version of Sonnet 73, please click on this link: lovermaid.com - Song to the Siren. 2. Sound! Ah, indeed, as Shakespeare once proclaimed himself, "All is sound and fury!"  I recently ran across an intriguing quote on a Shakespeare sonnet recital Web site, which I'd like to share with you verbatim.  Allow me to entice you first with this little gem of wisdom from Fr. Barth, from his WEB Site featuring a CD of recitations of Shakespeare's sonnets: At this, Fr. Barth swung into the opening lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold/When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/Upon those boughs which shake against the cold... "Hear it," he said, "and you hear the music of it." [W3] From this perspective, even for those of us who may be blind, this sonnet is still as accessible as ever.  Indeed, its essentially dramatic backdrop suits it eminently to recitation, as we will hear.  I offer us all 3 lyric readings of the sonnet, of which two are in male voices and one in a female voice.   Since these three readings are each recorded at a different volume, you may find you'll need to adjust your computer's speakers' volume accordingly: the woman reciter's voice is the lowest of the three. Here is the first of these readings, by Mark Mann [Real Player] 1. To listen to Mark's reading of the sonnet:  The English Page: Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)  Sonnets to Read and Listen to.  Scroll about 1/3 down the page to Sonnet 73 and click on Mark Mann's name. 2. To listen to this feminine reading of the sonnet:  Voces novae: Meditations on Life and Death.  Select Sonnet 73 (4th. in the list) to listen to the female voice interpretation of the sonnet.  The volume is very low [mp3 Media Player]. 3. To listen to James Parmiter's reading of the sonnet, with musical score accompaniment [mp3 Media Player]:  The English Page: Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) - Sonnets to Read and Listen to. Scroll about 1/3 down the page to Sonnet 73 and click on his name. Of the three readings here, my personal perference leans decidedly towards Parmiter's, but then I've often been accused of having a flair for the dramatic!  Your own personal tastes may lean elsewhere. Apart from these three recitations, you might be interested to learn that this selfsame sonnet has inspired modern lyrical adapations.  A few more recordings and modern scores are referenced in the Webography at the end of this review [W3- W7].  Of these, one of the more notable is Charles Wolff's folk music rendition of the sonnet, an excerpt of which you may sample here: 4. Charles Wolff: The Rhythm of the Sonnets [Real Player]. Scroll for Sonnet 73: "In me you see", Lyrics based on Shakespeare Sonnet 73.  Although his voice leaves something to be desired, his lyrics are certainly appealing.  Enjoy! If that weren't enough, the sonnet has even inspired some rather far-fetched, even humorous spin-offs, such as playing karaoke to it, and... well, you'll see: 5.1 Is this for real?  Check it out!  Silly Settings! Karaoke for Kritiks: Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 set to "Danny Boy".  This surely competes with Ripley's Believe it or Not! 5.2 Or how about this for a clincher!  promise not to laugh!  The Cat Hotel is Here! Love that well which thou must leave ere long.  You'll have to perform a page search to find Sonnet 73, which is almost swallowed up by the cat that ate the canary, but it's there, believe me!  Yes, I know, the music's tacky, but the page is so much fun!  Who'd ever have thought Sonnet 73 could possibly be a source for amusement?  There's just no accounting for taste.... and speaking of taste or rather, touch... 3. Touch Now, I ask you, come, let your aging hands touch these barren yellow leaves that tremble through this sonnet! Now, wasn't that touching? 4. Emotional and Spiritual Empathy Sonnet 73's dramatic tone reveals how closely knit it is with similar notions of life and death, cold, autumn and winter and the eclipse of love as expressed, not only in other sonnets of similar ilk (of which there are plenty, such did Shakespeare obsess on the trials and tribulations of our mortality), but also with so many of his plays, mainly the tragedies. I cite just a few passages, which leap to mind (Poetry in blue, Plays in navy): A. On Age: XII. Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame. Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee; O, my love, my love is young! Shakespeare, Miscellaneous Poetry B. On Autumn and Winter: 1. Cymbeline: Act III, Scene iii (Belarius) Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,    A storm or robbery, call it what you will,    Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,    And left me bare to weather. 2. As You Like It. Act II, Scene VII (Orlando) Under the shade of melancholy boughs,    Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time    If ever you have look'd on better days,    If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,... 3. Sonnet XCVII How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness every where! ... passim ... And, thou away, the very birds are mute;    Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near. C. On Cold: Cf. Sonnet CIV (104) Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen,... D. On Sleep and Death: 1. HAMLET Hamlet - to himself To die: to sleep;    No more; and by a sleep to say we end    The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks    That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation    Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; Act III, Scene i, lines 55-59 2. Macbeth: Ross (to old man) And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp: Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame, That darkness does the face of earth entomb, ... Act II, Scene iv, lines 9-11 E. On Love: "For where thou art, there is the world itself, and where though art not, desolation" Henry VI, Act iii, Scene 2 The highly charged emotional pathos and psychological intensity of the aforementioned lines all correlate strongly with the bleak mood and brooding anxiety that dominates Sonnet 73. And there you have it all, in a squirrel's nutshell.  What more could you ask for? © by Richard Vallance, 2003  September 23rd. - 27th., 2003 WEBOGRAPHY: [W1] An Index of References to Shakespeare's Plays. [W2] McDaniel Lectures on British Literature: Shakespeare's Love Sonnets and the Paradox of Sonnet 73. SOUND Recordings: [W3] And Speaking of Poetry.  Fr. Barth is vocal in his appreciation for the art of the spoken word: by Mark Sullivan Staff Writer, The Boston College Chronicle [W4] A Comparison Between Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 and.... [W5] Contemporary Music: Selected Works of Juhani Komulainen (Finnish) - 3 sonnets of Shakespeare, composed 1993 [Jubilate Choir, cond. Astrid Riska, Helsinki, November 8, 1994]. [W6] Repertoire 9106: Title: For precious friends in death's dateless night - composer, Martin Mailman [CD music]. Synopsis: "For precious friends hid in death's dateless night", Op. 80 is a three-movement work for symphonic winds inspired by the sonnets of Shakespeare; the piece's title comes from Sonnet 30. .... passim ...   The third movement, "Which by and by black night doth take away," takes its title from Sonnet 73.  It moves from the ethereal sounds of muted trumpets, celeste, harp, English horn, piccolo, and soprano voice through an extended crescendo to a stunning climax utilizing the solo soprano soaring above the full texture of the band.  Along the way, statements from previous movements are heard as remembrances of things past. [W7] Unit III: The Renaissance (Course Syllabus by Bruce A. McMenomy, Regina Coeli Academy).  This commentary at the site is worth quoting in its entirety: It is worth bearing in mind that many of these poems were principally meant to be accompanied by music.  If you have or can get hold of any English lute-songs from this period, listen to them.  As such they are interesting to compare with the sonnets we have read -- in terms of sophistication and lyric subtlety (Italics mine). BIBLIOGRAPHY: [B1] Empson, William.  Seven Types of Ambiguity.  London: Chatto & Windus, © 1963.  xv, 258 pp. [B2] Evans, G. Blakemore, ed. The Sonnets.  Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, © 1998.  xvii, 297 pp.  ISBN 0-521-29403-7 (pbk.)  [Highly Recommended] [B3] Pequigney, James.  "Sonnets 71-74: Texts and Contexts", in [B5], pp. 285-304.  [Highly Recommended] [B4] Rollins, Hyder E., ed. A New Variorium Shakespeare.  2 Vols.  Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, © 1944. [B5] Schiffer, James, ed. Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., © 2000.  xvi, 474 pp.  ISBN 0-8153-2365-4 [B6] Vallance, Richard. Canadian Spirit Voices: Chapter 12: The Historical Evolution of the Sonnet. Section 6: Music of the Spheres: Renewal... at the Outset of the Third Millennium.  Las Vegas, NV.: Kedco Studios, © 2003. CD-ROM multimedia book, approximately 500 pp. long.  ISBN 1-878431-44-7 [B7] Vendler, Helen.  The Art of Shakepeare's Sonnets.  Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, © 1997.  xviii, 672 pp.  ISBN 0-674-63711-9   [Highly Recommended]

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