“A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.”
¯ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Can you spell Shakespeare?”
Chances are, if you’re a literature student, you’ve had this question thrown at you.
Also, if you like English and use words well, people might say that you think you’re Shakespeare. Like Latha Anantharaman’s column, Great Shakes shows us, William Shakespeare is wonderful. And important. And not just to literature students.
I do feel the weight on my shoulders and fingers. It is of English literature classes and my father’s old and worn out Complete Works of William Shakespeare . My father’s text has meticulous notes in his immaculate, orderly handwriting.
Mine is loopy, going everywhere and punctuated with stars and flowers. But studying Shakespeare was a way by which I affirmed that I was a LITERATURE STUDENT.
William Shakespeare is the iconic figure of the English Renaissance.
His plays are superlative and his sonnets, prodigious. I especially remember Sonnet 116.
You know the one. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.
Love is not love/ Which alters when it alteration finds/Or bends with the remover to remove:/O no; it is an ever-fixed mark/ That looks on tempests, and is never shaken…”
Even today, this simple poem is the way to go when you need to remind yourself of the true nature of love in an often untrue world.
But he isn’t the only one who defines the Renaissance. Other poets like John Dryden, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson sparkled with their writing. In Iambicum Trimetrum , Edmund Spenser wrote, “Unhappy verse, the witness of my unhappy state/ Make thy self flutt'ring wings of thy fast flying/ Thought, and fly forth unto my love, wheresoever she be:”
Like William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe was a dramatist and a poet.
Who can forget his fervent The Passionate Shepherd to his Love ? “Come live with me and be my love/And we will all the pleasures prove/That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields/Woods, or steepy mountain yields.” The poet offers his love so many things – melodious birds singing madrigals, beds of roses, a gown of the finest wool, a belt of straw, with buds of ivy, coral clasps and amber studs.
Ben Jonson is familiar to my friends and me because of his play, The Alchemist . I like his poetry way better. If you’ve ever lost yourself in someone’s gaze, then thank him.
In Song: to Celia , he says, “Drink to me only with thine eyes/And I will pledge with mine/ Or leave a kiss but in the cup/And I’ll not look for wine.” Ah to be the object of such affection!
There seems to be a whole lot of passionate declarations in this column. Sure, it was a simpler time back then. There was enough time to write poems of love and longing in the most eloquent of terms. But the true test of anything good is longevity. Look at these writers and their lasting appeal. The emotions are universal. Their treatment, unparalleled.
As long as there are students of literature and teachers to guide them, classics should continue to be read, enjoyed, debated and decided upon. To judge a book of the past through the looking glass of the present isn’t wise. Those were vastly different times and sensibilities. That said, the classics of not just English writers, but of any country, still have a hold over our imagination. Because they are a significant link between what was and what is. And so, they matter.
(It is believed that William Shakespeare was baptised on April 26th and died, 52 years later, on April 23rd.)
