The Shakespeare Code

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36 Responses

1. on May 25, 2012 at 12:54 am | Reply Lisa-Marie Haugmoen

   I am totally enthralled!!! This really puts it all in place. I never liked Shakespeare until now. You have made him what he really was: a flawed human being, instead of a super human creature.

   
   
   • on January 1, 2015 at 8:48 am | Reply Stewart Trotter

     Thank you, Lisa-Marie. Stewart.

     
     
2. on July 24, 2014 at 2:13 pm | Reply Jómy Nogueira

   THE BARD OF AVON

   During his time,
   With his pen and open mind
   And a glass of wine,
   He later became
   The Bard of Avon,
   Who shake the world
   In every line.

   He wrote without fear,
   He spoke with no fear,
   His work it’s clear,
   Perfection near,
   The giant of theater.

   And today, today I remember
   As the world eternally remember
   Your name,
   Who was once
   William Shakespeare.

   ( Dedicated to William Shakespeare.)

   By – Jómy Nogueira

   In Deo Plaudite pág.43 – Chiado Editora, Portugal

   
   
3. on December 24, 2014 at 4:28 pm | Reply Carol

   Why does he use “ever-living” to describe the poet- a phrase used for a person who is dead. Yes, I believe a nobleman used “Shakes-Speare” as a pen name. It makes sense to use “ever-living” if the writer was dead at the time of publication. As increasingly scholars are seeing that the dating of the plays has been an atrociously played game of making them fit the lifespan of one man, we see the validity, more and more clearly, of those scholars who have noticed that no play seems to have been written after 1604. (as has been shown, there were numerous descriptions of sinking ships before 1600).

   What is your take on the use of “ever-living”? Thanks for this interesting write up 🙂

   
   
4. on December 25, 2014 at 10:48 am | Reply Stewart Trotter

   Dear Carol,

   You have to take the phrase ‘ever-living’ in conjunction with the phrase above it:

   ‘All Happinesse and that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet’.

   ‘All Happinesse’ is a reference to the Dedication by William Shakespeare to Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, of ‘Lucrece’:

   ‘meantime as it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life still strengthened with all happiness’.

   In a number of the Sonnets, Shakespeare promises Wriothesley that his verse will make the young man immortal. But by doing so, it will make Shakespeare immortal (as a poet) as well.

   In Sonnet 18 he concludes: ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’

   In Sonnet 107 – written to celebrate the Earl of Southampton’s release from prison in 1603 – Shakespeare writes:

   My love [Southampton] looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
   Since spite of him I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
   While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes.
   And thou in this [this sonnet] shalt find thy monument
   When tyrant’s crests and tombs of brass are spent.

   Shakespeare is asserting his own immortality – in much the way Ovid, his hero, does in his ‘Metamorphoses’ (See Book 15 ll 871-879).

   That is why Shakespeare is described as ‘ever-living’ – not because he is dead, but because he will live for ever.

   Best wishes,

   Stewart.

   
   
5. on December 26, 2014 at 2:55 am | Reply Carol

   Hi Stewart,

   Thanks for responding! But, actually, the sonnets- over and over- make clear that they will make their subject (Southhampton) immortal BUT that the poet will be long forgotten once he is dead. Which seems to make them prophetic if he was indeed “ever-living” when the sonnets were published.

   Leaving aside the question of “who?”, I assume you know of all the sonnets that state directly that the writer of the sonnets will be forgotten but that the object of them will be remembered forever….

   I could quote them, but it would be waste of time if you know the sonnets of which I am speaking.

   Hey, again, I really love the tone of your blog and thanks for responding 🙂

   Carol

   
   
6. on December 26, 2014 at 9:01 am | Reply Stewart Trotter

   Dear Carol,

   Shakespeare sometimes says in his Sonnets that he will be forgotten: but at other times he asserts his genius will give him immortality – along with Southampton.

   As far as his contemporary, Thomas Heywood was concerned, Shakespeare published the Sonnet himself ‘to do himself right’.

   Best wishes and Happy Christmas to you.

   Stewart.

   
   
7. on December 31, 2014 at 5:38 pm | Reply Richard Kennedy

   “Ever-living” might mean that Vere (or E. Ver) is still living.

   
   
   • on December 31, 2014 at 6:08 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

     Dear Richard,
     To be honest, I think it’s a touch unlikely!
     Happy New Year to you.
     Stewart

     
     
     • on December 31, 2014 at 7:57 pm Richard Kennedy

       You mean you have doubts that Oxford lived past 1604? Or do you mean that you doubt such a word-trick might be part of the puzzle?

       
       
8. on December 31, 2014 at 11:18 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

   Dear Richard,

   I think I should make it clear that in The Shakespeare Code’s view the Earl of Oxford did not write the plays and poems attributed to William Shakespeare. ‘Ever-living’ as I explain above is a reference to Shakespeare’s claim that he would achieve immortality in his writing.

   Happy New Year,

   Stewart.

   
   
   • on December 31, 2014 at 11:29 pm | Reply Richard Kennedy

     My mistake. I read quickly and thought you were for Oxford. Happy New Year.
     Richard

     
     
   • on January 1, 2015 at 3:26 pm | Reply Carol

     What I don’t think has been addressed is this:

     The writer of the sonnets is very clear of two things:

     #1. The person who he is writing about will live forever via these Sonnets.
     #2. The name of the person writing them will be forgotten once dead.

     That is such an interesting coupling of assumptions and the sonnets express it over and over. I love that. I’d like to see how that is made sense of. Thanks!

     
     
9. on January 1, 2015 at 3:38 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

   The answer is in Shakespeare’s very human vacillation as to his own worth. Sometimes he thinks he’s a genius – sometimes he thinks he is rubbish. Sometimes he thinks he will live forever in his work. Sometimes he thinks he will be totally forgotten after his death. Very, very human. He is also ambivalent about his lover Southampton. At one level he thinks he has made Southampton immortal: but, after Southampton’s rejection of him, he believes Southampton will end up rotting in a grave, like ‘rendered’ meat. See Sonnet 126.

   
   
   • on January 1, 2015 at 4:45 pm | Reply Carol

     Hi Stewart,

     I see 126 as Shakespeare unflinchingly looking at his subject’s inevitable death. This in now way points to a vacillation in his constant claims that his verse will be his subject’s immortality. Are you suggesting that 126 implies that Shakespeare has suddenly reversed that opinion?

     Also, I know you know this: 126 is the sonnet- the only one- that mysteriously has left off the final couplet: the one in which he usually reserves his statement of immortality. I love that this happens even though I have no clue why it does 🙂

     In response to your more general claim, I absolutely agree with you that one aspect of the sonnets that is wonderful is watching the vacillations of Shakespeare’s feelings. However, I see no evidence that his opinion ever vacillates with regard to his name being lost at death despite his subject being immortalized by the verses.

     Every time Shakespeare comments on this dynamic is consistent with his most explicit claims, like in Sonnet 81:

     “From hence your memory death cannot take/although in me each part will be forgotten/ Your name from hence immortal life will have/ though I, once gone, to all the world must die…”

     At the very least, we should be fascinated what allows Shakespeare to feel so certain of the “virtue” and power of his pen AND YET also feel certain that his name will be erased from history. Thanks!

     
     
10. on January 1, 2015 at 6:03 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

    Dear Carol,

    To read my interpretation of Sonnet 126, please look at:
    https://theshakespearecode.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/shakespeare-love-and-religion-part-three/
    ‘Shakespeare, Love and Religion’ Part Three.

    
    
11. on January 1, 2015 at 6:22 pm | Reply Carol

    Thanks, Stewart. I read it and it’s really good. But I’m wondering if you could respond to my overall question above regarding Shakespeare’s consistent claim that his verse will immortalize Henry (because he knows the what “virtue hath {his} pen…” and yet his name must be forgotten at his death. Thanks so much 🙂

    
    
12. on January 1, 2015 at 6:30 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

    (1) Shakespeare, like many writers, had doubts about his own talent. Sometimes he thought he was the bee’s knees and would be read for ever – at other times he thought he would drop out of favour after his death and his writings dismissed as old fashioned.
    (2) Southampton – as an aristocrat – would have an elaborate tomb constructed at his death, but Shakespeare would have only a common-place grave.

    The irony is, of course, that Shakespeare has a monument at Stratford while Southampton had to make do with his likeness as a 21 year old praying at the side of his father’s and grandparents’ tomb at Titchfield.

    
    
    • on January 1, 2015 at 7:14 pm | Reply Carol

      Stewart, I will look at the link right away.

      I’m so sorry to annoy you, but I’m not a very good writer so I haven’t communicated my question well. I absolutely understand that you are saying he vacillated (as all humans do). I agree that Shakespeare was very much moving all over the map emotionally 🙂

      However, I’m pointing to the fact that in the sonnets he never shifts in this one regard: he always maintains that HE (his name) will be forgotten but that his verse will be remembered (expect in the first 16 when he is trying to manipulate a marriage!)

      So, for instance, while I understand your general point that he was a human who changed his feelings about things, he never seems to waver that nobody will know who he is in the future but all will know of his verses. It would be one thing if we saw him shift from sonnet to sonnet in this regard. But I’m asking if you see any sonnet in which he shifts from his stance that he will be forgotten and, instead, argues that he, along with his verses, will be known. Once he drops the progeny stuff, he is emphatic that through his writing Henry will have an eternal “monument” outlasts any literal monument that will decay with time.

      
      
13. on January 1, 2015 at 6:32 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

    Carol, please see: ‘I have gazed upon the face of Shakespeare’s Lover’
    https://theshakespearecode.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/i-have-gazed-upon-the-face-of-shakespeares-lover/

    
    
14. on January 1, 2015 at 8:07 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

    You write very well, Carol!

    Shakespeare, by claiming immortality for his verse, cannot but claim, obliquely, immortality for himself. He shifts this direct honour of immortality to his patron to flatter him: but it’s really only a trick to appear modest! Even when in Sonnet 81 he says: ‘Though I once gone to all the world must die’ he’s really just saying that he will seem to die because he will be in ‘a common grave’ and not in a showy tomb like Southampton.

    The classic poets, like Ovid, claimed immortality for themselves: but given the rigid class structure of Shakespeare’s time, that would be too great a claim for commoner Shakespeare to make when writing about an aristocrat, his social superior.

    When Southampton dropped him, though, his writing became very different – both in Sonnet 126 and in ‘King Lear’. His deference completely disappears.

    Hope this is helpful.

    
    
15. on June 9, 2015 at 12:33 pm | Reply Saul

    Dear Mr. Trotter, I really like Trixie the cat’s opinion and to some degree I agree with you both (Trixie and you) but to better express my partially disagreement on what you wrote in this article I would like to suggest you some readings (actually two not very long PDF documents) on Shakespeare’s sonnets publication. Can I write to you their titles and where to find them?
    I would like to have your opinion on them. Saul Gerevini.

    
    
16. on June 9, 2015 at 1:33 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

    Dear Saul, Of course Trixie and I would be interested in these articles. Best wishes. Stewart

    
    
17. on June 9, 2015 at 2:21 pm | Reply bobleblah

    What about the numerical structure of that sonnets that Hank Whittemore writes about? There are 26 Fair Youth Sonnets, followed by 100 Sonnets, followed by 26 Dark Lady Sonnets, plus 2 Little Love God Sonnets (Hank divides the 100 middle sonnets into 10 groups of 10). Such an exact structure argues against the sonnets as being a mere collection of bawdy love poetry, but instead strongly suggests that The Sonnets of William Shake-speare are meant to be understood as a complete piece.
    http://www.shakespearesmonument.com/

    
    
    • on June 9, 2015 at 2:39 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

      Dear Bobbleblah, I think you’ll find that this ‘neatness’ is imposed on the Sonnets. They come from wildly different times and in wildly different moods. There is absolutely NO cohesive philosophical – or even artistic structure to them. That’s why they are so great: they are completely like life itself. Best wishes, Stewart.

      
      
      • on July 29, 2015 at 9:59 pm bobleblah

        Dear Stewart
        It is your opinion that this easy to follow mathematical order of 26 / 100 / 26 followed by 2 is imposed. Also it is your opinion that they must come from wildly different times. Scholars agree that Sonnet 125 refers to the death of Queen Elizabeth; Whittemore takes it further and deduces an entire calendar based on real events, and in doing so he provides the explanation as to why William Shakespeare was not called to account for his role in the Essex Revolt.

        As you find the Sonnets to be so much like “life itself”, perhaps you can find something universal in what appear to be intensely personal verses. 125 should be a good place to start:

        Were’t ought to me I bore the canopy,
        With my extern the outward honouring,
        Or laid great bases for eternity,
        Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
        Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
        Lose all and more by paying too much rent,
        For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
        Pitiful tghrivers, in their gazing spent?
        No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
        And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
        Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
        But mutual render, only me for thee.
        Hence, thou suborned informer! A true soul
        When most impeached stands least in thy control.

        Good luck!

        
        
      • on July 29, 2015 at 10:49 pm Carol

        I disagree. There was a tradition of using 108 in sonnets and Shakespeare marks a massive shift after 17, which gives us 18 to 126 (108) in a unique grouping (these sonnets are within the group that expresses the poet’s wish and capacity to make the youth immortal through verse).

        Shakespeare was an artist. Then we get another shift, at 26. All scholars mark this as a very playful and expressive “dedication” sonnet. Shakespeare was a great artist, so we aren’t surprised that 27 marks a new kind of shift, a narrative shift in which we begin to track specific events (mainly their emotional repercussions in the Poet) through the next 100 sonnets.

        And because Shakespeare was a great artist we shouldn’t be surprised that, oh, wow, after 126, we get another even 26 that are in a unique vein themselves. Most addressed to the “dark” lady and taking an inverse stance on “love”. He was such an artist that we also get to enjoy the way he cross links this last section with the Fair Youth section via a group about the tricky relationship between the mistress, youth and Poet.

        In the same way that we recognize such organic structuring in his plays and narrative poems, it shouldn’t be too odd to notice the clean distinctions that he makes in his sonnet cycle. Just because he leaves so much to the imagination is no reason to reduce this to a mere collection, methinks.

        
        
      • on July 31, 2015 at 6:57 am Stewart Trotter

        Thanks Saul from Trixie and myself. I’ll follow this when I have some time.

        
        
18. on July 29, 2015 at 9:21 pm | Reply Saul

    Dear Stewart, I do really like your articles, and I love Trixie, I really do. That is why, as you and Trixie requested, I am sending you the link to have access to the two sonnets articles you would be interested in. The site is http://www.shakespeareandflorio.net, then go to the download section and go to Giulia Harding’s section. Here you can find the two PDF articles I mentioned. They are named Sonnets, part one and part two. They have both been written by Giulia Harding that, as far as I think, she is a very well informed independent scholler on Shakespeare’s authorship. I would like to have your opinion on them. Best regards and again: compliment for your site, it is very interesting. Saul.

    
    
19. on July 31, 2015 at 8:37 pm | Reply Saul

    Thanks Stewart, I appreciate :). Saul.

    
    
20. on September 26, 2016 at 6:57 am | Reply peternockolds

    I agree with you about the ‘Man of Hews’ being Henry Wriothesley but suggest it also a play on Elizabeth becoming queen on St Hugh’s day.

    
    
    • on September 26, 2016 at 2:57 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

      Interesting idea, Peter. Thank you. Stewa

      
      
21. on May 25, 2017 at 7:15 am | Reply Why did Shakespeare write ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’? Part Two. | The Shakespeare Code

    […] See: The Dedication to Shakespeare’s Sonnets Decoded […]

    
    
22. on September 5, 2017 at 4:14 am | Reply Cathy

    Hi Stewart,
    I was impressed with the Guardian article naming William Holme, bookseller, publisher and Thorpe’s associate as the “begetter” of the sonnets. He had published Ben Jonson and other playwrights’ work. and had access to noble and even royal persons. He died and Thorpe suddenly published a lot of works which may have been in Holme’s possession. Possibly. he was Will’s own choice as publisher.
    It’s the hard slogging researchers wading through law cases and death records who give us things we couldn’t possibly deduce. It’s like the finder of John Quiney’s philandering ways, which suddenly made Will’s will make sense. He wanted to see that Judith and any children she had got something, but Susanah would get the house, and John Q. wouldn’t get to parade around in his father-in-law’s court clothes. Suddenly all the learned arguments, like Joyce’s second best bed,were meaningless.
    Thanks for the idea that the key to the sonnets is in “LOve”s Labour’s Lost.”
    I think the Earl of Oxford, not Walter Raleigh, inspired Armado. Adoring his young page and the homosexual reference to Navarre are pretty strong clues. and Oxford was certainly poverty stricken nobility, dining out on stories, at this point. That Thomas Nash played that page, and the nobility played the nobility. ring true, but Shakespeare himself was unlikely to have played their equal, given his role as poor relation and all purpose servant. Maybe Berowne was played by a Brown cousin, even possibly the future Lord Montague. Was this the one for whose wedding Romeo and Juliet might have been written? Was this play the reason Shakespeare was given that commission? This family certainly had access to the latest literature from Italy. and we know they had the translator if needed.
    Thanks to you I’ve read The Unfortunate Traveller and Willobie his Avisa. and I’ve been reading the later plays. with their little autobiographical bits.
    Not done yet, but getting to know this remarkable guy who somehow stayed out of jail but got sick of it all and went home.

    
    
    • on September 5, 2017 at 1:45 pm | Reply Stewart Trotter

      Dear Cathy, Thank you for your interest in ‘The Shakespeare Code’ and your comments. The character of Don Armado that we have is, I believe, a re-write of the original 1592 character who, I believe, was more clearly identified as Walter Raleigh – down to a Devonshire accent. Raleigh was the enemy of Essex and Southampton – and out of favour with the Queen – especially when he impregnated his secret wife – satirised in ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ itself. When the play was next performed in Court Raleigh was back in favour with the Queen – so Shakespeare switched to an attack on the gay Spaniard, Don Perez, who had been part of the Essex circle but had fallen from grace. I believe Shakespeare did play Berowne as it was one of his ways of making himself more an ‘equal’ with the aristos. In my lifetime performers like Noel Coward and Fred Astaire did the same sort of thing – hobnobbing with the Earls in their Stately Homes. Also, if you read the Sonnets you will see that Shakespeare and Southampton were incredibly close as friends and lovers – to the point where Shakespeare felt he could sometimes hurl sarcasm and abuse at the Earl. In ‘Willobie’ you’ll notice that Southampton is referred to as HW and the initial were simply reversed in the Dedication to Mr. W. H.. By referring to Southampton as ‘Mr’ Shakespeare is cruelly reminding Harry of the time when he was stripped of his title after his rebellion with Essex against the Queen. Shakespeare, I believe, printed the Sonnets as an act of revenge against Southampton when Southampton dropped him after the birth of his (Southampton’s) baby boy in 1605. All the best. Stewart.

      
      
23. on January 1, 2019 at 3:55 pm | Reply Shakespeare’s Sonnets Re-Ordered. Part 47. Reconciliation. | The Shakespeare Code

    […] To read ‘The Dedication to the Sonnets Decoded’ click: HERE […]

    
    

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