Hi John. I've been enjoying your brief essays. I think you're right about Adonis' youth. However, I do read the "tender" and "youth" references as being deliberate exaggerations on Shakespeare's part. He created a very earthy goddess, who pants when running through the undergrowth, whose face goes red with passion, and who veers between lust, maternalism, and advising Adonis to have children - though not with her. Equally, just as Venus is depicted as more a matrix of female attributes than single character, so Adonis is multi-faceted. However, I agree with you that youthfulness is a consistent trait.
I offer a psychological reading of this. Shakespeare wrote his play to appeal to Southampton. The Earl was 19 in 1593 when the poem was published. He was then the ward of Lord Burghley (until he turned 21 in 1595). In 1590, when Southampton turned sixteenth, Burghley proposed Southampton marry his (Burghley's) granddaughter, Elizabeth de Vere. Southampton turned him down. His rationale? That he was too young to marry!
We don't have this in his words, but in correspondence by Southampton's mother and grandfather, written to Burghley, who was pressuring them to change the "boy's" mind. The "boy held out, even when Burghley fined him 5,000 pounds when he turned 21.
I read the characters of Venus and Adonis, and their relationship, as reflecting the political/personal situation playing out between Burghley and Southampton. The goddess' pushiness, and Adonis' intransigence, reflect what was playing out in real life. Shakespeare had to be careful how he did this. His childhood friend, and publisher, Richard Field, also had business dealings with Burghley. And Shakespeare knew Burghley would read a poem dedicated to his ward. So Shakespeare had to not make what he was doing too obvious.
In a couple of places Adonis actually encourages Adonis to have children - which, to Elizabethans meant marrying (in theory, although many, like Shakespeare himself and eventually Southampton, did it the other way round). Venus' verses on reproduction are 156-174 and 721 ff. This last is followed by Adonis' extended repudiation of all Venus' arguments. It lasts five stanzas - one of the only three times he speaks in the poem, and almost all of what he says. I read this repudiation as being not just Adonis' refusal to succumb to Venus' lust, but also reflecting Southampton's refusal to subject himself to Burghley's will. I consider this is why Southampton was so happy with the poem: Shakespeare put into Adonis' mouth words that Southampton wanted to say to Burghley, but couldn't.
I agree with you that Venus and Adonis is a very sophisticated poem. As a consequence, it's also open to multiple readings. Yet it remains under-estimated, ignored, or even written off, by many Shakespearean scholars. Thanks for your thoughts.
Your thesis on the actual age of Adonis, and therefore, the ruthless immorality of Aphrodite, appears well corroborated by the text. It beggers one to ask how some scholar's cannot or will not accept the text before them, and insist on - what appears to be -facicious filtering? Why the cognitive dissonance at play when some analyse such works? In other words, what skin do some have in the game? And how do these analyses, if at all, impact societal norms, both physical and moral?
Hi John. I've been enjoying your brief essays. I think you're right about Adonis' youth. However, I do read the "tender" and "youth" references as being deliberate exaggerations on Shakespeare's part. He created a very earthy goddess, who pants when running through the undergrowth, whose face goes red with passion, and who veers between lust, maternalism, and advising Adonis to have children - though not with her. Equally, just as Venus is depicted as more a matrix of female attributes than single character, so Adonis is multi-faceted. However, I agree with you that youthfulness is a consistent trait.
I offer a psychological reading of this. Shakespeare wrote his play to appeal to Southampton. The Earl was 19 in 1593 when the poem was published. He was then the ward of Lord Burghley (until he turned 21 in 1595). In 1590, when Southampton turned sixteenth, Burghley proposed Southampton marry his (Burghley's) granddaughter, Elizabeth de Vere. Southampton turned him down. His rationale? That he was too young to marry!
We don't have this in his words, but in correspondence by Southampton's mother and grandfather, written to Burghley, who was pressuring them to change the "boy's" mind. The "boy held out, even when Burghley fined him 5,000 pounds when he turned 21.
I read the characters of Venus and Adonis, and their relationship, as reflecting the political/personal situation playing out between Burghley and Southampton. The goddess' pushiness, and Adonis' intransigence, reflect what was playing out in real life. Shakespeare had to be careful how he did this. His childhood friend, and publisher, Richard Field, also had business dealings with Burghley. And Shakespeare knew Burghley would read a poem dedicated to his ward. So Shakespeare had to not make what he was doing too obvious.
In a couple of places Adonis actually encourages Adonis to have children - which, to Elizabethans meant marrying (in theory, although many, like Shakespeare himself and eventually Southampton, did it the other way round). Venus' verses on reproduction are 156-174 and 721 ff. This last is followed by Adonis' extended repudiation of all Venus' arguments. It lasts five stanzas - one of the only three times he speaks in the poem, and almost all of what he says. I read this repudiation as being not just Adonis' refusal to succumb to Venus' lust, but also reflecting Southampton's refusal to subject himself to Burghley's will. I consider this is why Southampton was so happy with the poem: Shakespeare put into Adonis' mouth words that Southampton wanted to say to Burghley, but couldn't.
I agree with you that Venus and Adonis is a very sophisticated poem. As a consequence, it's also open to multiple readings. Yet it remains under-estimated, ignored, or even written off, by many Shakespearean scholars. Thanks for your thoughts.
Your thesis on the actual age of Adonis, and therefore, the ruthless immorality of Aphrodite, appears well corroborated by the text. It beggers one to ask how some scholar's cannot or will not accept the text before them, and insist on - what appears to be -facicious filtering? Why the cognitive dissonance at play when some analyse such works? In other words, what skin do some have in the game? And how do these analyses, if at all, impact societal norms, both physical and moral?