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| What evidence does Venus and Adonis provide agains
What evidence does Venus and Adonis provide agains
Michaelmas term 1998
Verena Kischer
Sixteenth Century Literature
Lecturer: Dr. Gareth Roberts
Seminar tutor: Paul Bernhardt
What evidence does
Venus and Adonis
provide against the idea
that
sexual identities were
stable
in the early modern
period?
Cover picture: Campbell, see: Venus and Adonis, 929.In
Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It Jaques, the second Son of Sir
Rowland the Boys, realises that every human being has to pass through various
stages in life, each of which has an archetypal function. This means that in
each phase of life we are expected to behave in a certain, almost inescapable
manner. This, Jaques brings home to the reader in a vivid description of
‘the seven stages in a man’s life.’
One man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the
infant,
And all the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely
players;
They have their exits and their
entrances,
And Mewling and puking in the nurse’s
arms;
Then, the whining schoolboy, with his
satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like
snail
Unwillingly to school; and then the
lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful
ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow; then a
soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the
pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in
quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth; and then, the
justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon
lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal
cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part; the sixth age
shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on
side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too
wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly
voice,
Turning again toward childish treble,
pipes
And whistles in his sound; last Scene of
all,
That ends this strange eventful
history,
Is second childishness, and mere
oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans
everything.
(2.7. 140-167).
Jaques sees life as a stage-play with seven acts, each
act representing an important phase in life. Stage one, he describes as infancy,
followed by stage two defined as childhood. In stage three we find the sighing
lover and in stage four the swearing soldier. Stage five deals with man
following a profession, stage six with man at an advanced age and, finally,
stage seven, with man in the last stages of life. This system is clearly laid
out and represents a kind of order in our lives. Every one of us has to undergo
these changes, one after the other. However, by ridiculing man’s
preposterous behaviour, Jaques also realises that in real life it is a sheer
impossibility to conform to this expected pattern. Real life is not like a
romance with a happy ending, but people are puzzling, inscrutable human beings,
who always have to be prepared for new changes, since ‘[they] know what
[they] are, but [they] know not what [they] may be.’ (Shakespeare,
Hamlet, 4.5. 44).
Now, archetypes are not only present in real life but
also occur in the fictitious world of a play in the form of certain character
patterns. The picture that we, as the reader, get of a character is, on the one
hand, a reflection of what he says, and, on the other hand, of how he says it.
This is one way of analysing a character’s personality. Another way, one
that complements the first one, occurs by means of expectations. This simply
means that we already have a pre-conceived notion or idea in our minds of how a
certain character should behave or act. This is based on our personal experience
as well as on the force of habit. We have learned that in a play a whole range
of characters exist which are all organised in a particular pattern. There is
the protagonist of the play usually a young, beautiful, innocent person; then a
mean, wicked scoundrel known as antagonist, a brave soldier, a foolish lover, a
lonesome father, an uneducated fool, etc. We all have an idea of how these types
of characters ought to behave. In other words, we place them in different
categories, where each category represents one archetype. By making his speech a
caricature, Jacques wants us to become aware of the fact that life does not
always take its normal course, neither in real life nor in the fictitious world
of a play. He states that, although certain archetypal patterns are imposed on
every individual, he does not believe in the existence of an archetypal
character, since every single character is as much an individual as those in
life itself. It’s impossible to find any two alike.
When we look at stage four of Jaques’ speech
– ‘and then the lover, Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow;’ (Shakespeare, As You Like It,
2.7. 148-150) – it becomes obvious that Adonis, in Shakespeare’s
poem Venus and Adonis, violates this archetypal pattern. Throughout the
poem Adonis behaves in every possible way contrary to how a
16th century reader would expect him to. And so does Venus in her
way. In Petrarchan works we would normally expect to find – as Jaques
suggests in stage four of his speech – a male playing the active part in a
desired relationship. We would expect him to woo his beloved and to declare his
love by reciting interminable speeches. Very often men would also attempt to
coerce coy and innocent women into sexual relationships.
Venus and Adonis, a poem written by William
Shakespeare between August 1592 and April 1593, opposes this seemingly fixed
pattern of sexual identities of the early modern period, for Venus and Adonis do
not represent this traditional Petrarchan concept. Their sexual roles are
completely reversed. Instead of a male wooing a female, the 16th
century reader was approached with a most unusual theme for that time: Venus, a
desiring female, attempts to seduce Adonis, a resistant male. Bate refers to
this uncommon reversal as ‘a dissolution of the conventional barriers of
gender, for ... women take the active role usually given to men and young men
always look like girls.’ (Bate, 88). Already the opening lines of Venus
and Adonis tell us that something most unusual is taking place, something
that was by no means prevalent in the early modern period. On our first
encounter with the characters of the poem, Adonis is described as
‘Rose-cheek’d’ (3) and Venus as ‘a bold-fac’d
suitor’ (6), and by stanza four at the latest, the reader is in the
picture about what is happening, realising that ‘a woman [is] taking the
role that society conventionally assigns to the man’ (Clark, xxxvii).
Shakespeare’s non-compliance with the fixed archetypal pattern of those
days appears to the reader in both the characters’ outward appearance and
their behaviour.
In stanzas two to four Venus addresses her ‘object
of desire’ with the words ‘Thrice fairer than myself’ (7) and
she continues to praise Adonis’ beauty. She does her utmost to convince
Adonis of her insatiable desire for him by informing him of her urge to kiss
him.
Here come and sit, where never serpent
hisses,
And being set, I’ll smother thee with
kisses.
(17-18).
The intense wooing of Adonis is further elaborated on a
few stanzas later. As many as eighty lines are devoted to this second speech,
where in an inexorable stream of words Venus gives vent to her feelings. Once
again she does her utmost to make Adonis give her a return of her feeling.
Before Adonis is overcome with Venus’ third torrent of words, he
eventually utters ‘Fie, no more of love! The sun doth burn my face; I must
remove.’ (185-86). This utterance comprises exactly 14 words, which is
compared to Venus’ exceptionally long discourses extremely brief. Adonis
is not in the least interested in Venus and pleads to be left alone by rejecting
her advances. Venus, who regards Adonis’ behaviour as ‘unkind’
(187) in the sense of ‘unnatural’, is not to be put off so easily
and so she continues to pursue her intention. These unbalanced talks make it
quite clear that in Venus and Adonis the role of the wooer is assigned,
contrary to the 16th century custom, to a female.
According to Traub ‘a desiring woman is masculine
because activity is a male prerogative’ (Traub, 521) and, indeed, Venus
with regard to her outward appearance and her physical abilities mirrors the
very portrayal of a man. Venus does not depict the picture of a fair, slender,
immature and chaste maid as we are accustomed to reading about in a
16th century poem. Quite the contrary, she is a ‘comic,
pathetic, ridiculous, humiliated, exulting, self-deceiving, playful, devious,
repulsive, aggressive ... helpless’ (Lindheim, 193) and, in my opinion,
also most unattractive man-like creature. Venus, however, regards herself as
beautiful and irresistible, as can be observed within the following
lines:
Were I hard-favour’d, foul, or
wrinkled-old
Ill-nurtur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in
voice,
O’erworn, despised, rheumatic and
cold,
Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking
juice,
Then mightest thou pause, for then I were not for
thee;
But having no defects, why does abhor
me?
Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my
brow;
Mine eyes are grey, and bright, and quick in
turning:
My beauty as the spring does yearly
grow,
My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow
burning,
My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand
felt,
Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to
melt.
(133-44).
Venus tries to expose her beauty and charms by listing
all features she does not possess. This does not make a great impression on
either the reader or Adonis, for it can hardly be doubted that this female wooer
is an unattractive and aggressive woman, who is obsessed with love and desire
for a handsome youth. Venus’ manliness is not only shown in her looks but
also in her physical strength. She has no difficulties ‘pluck[ing Adonis]
from his horse’ (30) and pushing him backwards. Adonis has not the
slightest chance to free himself from her, since ‘how a bird lies tangled
in a net, So fasten’d in her arms Adonis lies;’ (87-88). In lines
592-94 Venus clamps her hands so tightly around Adonis’ neck that both
lose their balance and fall over.
And on his neck her yoking arms she
throws.
She sinketh down, still hanging by his
neck,
He on her belly falls, she on her back.
(592-94).
Shakespeare’s main character is simply a
‘panting, sweating, teeming giantess of a Venus’ (Brown, 210)
resembling anything but an adorable, gorgeous 16th century
woman.
It seems to me that the beauty Venus is lacking, Adonis
is in surplus of. However, it is important to note that it is only through
Venus’ eyes that Adonis is identified and addressed as a beauty. If we are
to believe her, Adonis must have been the very embodiment of manly beauty.
Already in the opening-lines of her first speech she makes a reference to his
good looks and as the narrative progresses, we are told by Venus about
Adonis’ ‘fair lips’ (116), his unripe and yet beautiful body
(127-130) and his ‘mermaid’s voice’ (429), to name only a few
examples. Not only does Adonis’ outward appearance resemble that of a
woman but his way of acting does as well. When Venus tears him from his
stallion, Adonis blushes and when she then tucks him under her arms, he is too
faint to break loose. Adonis is furthermore an immature and innocent young male,
who is ‘on the threshold of sexual maturity’ (Bate, 89). Evidence of
Adonis’ youthfulness, which expands itself from childishness to petulance,
runs through the whole poem: He is ‘sullen, still he lours and
frets’ (75). Upon another occasion he also behaves in a most child-like
manner, when he pretends not to see Venus by hiding his face behind his
bonnet.
He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind,
And with his bonnet hides his angry
brow,
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed
mind:
Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
For all askance he holds her in his
eye.
(337-342).
Adonis keeps rejecting Venus’ advances. He is
fully aware of the fact that he is not mature enough to give himself to a woman.
‘His governing principle ... is immaturity. He is simply too young to
value another experience more highly than his games and his sleep’
(Lindheim, 196).
Fair queen (quoth he), if any love you owe
me,
Measure my strangeness with my unripe
years;
Before I know myself, seek not to know
me;
(524-526).
I know not love (quoth he) nor will I know
it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase
it.
(409-410)
Shakespeare was not the first to stand ‘the
convention on its head and [to make]...Venus play the part of the male
lover’ (Shakespeare, The Narrative poems, 8). Venus and
Adonis, which Shakespeare dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, is mainly
based on Ovid’s stories of Venus and Adonis and of Hermaphroditus and
Salmacia in the Metamorphoses. It is severely doubted that Shakespeare
knew the original, but he had certainly read Arthur Golding’s translation,
which was published in 1567. Shakespeare’s narrative of Venus and
Adonis is mainly based on the tenth Book of the Metamorphoses. There,
Ovid tells the story of a woman called Venus, who is accidentally touched by
Cupid’s arrow, thus, falling in love with Adonis. She then accompanies him
on his hunting trips. Ovid’s text provides no evidence that Adonis
disapproves of Venus’ company or that he considers her to be repulsive.
Although Adonis is fond of hunting, he does not seem to have an object to
love.
For as the armed Cupid kist Dame Venus,
unbeware
An arrow sticking out did raze hir brest uppon the bare
...
The beawty of the lad Inflaamed hir ...
Shee loved Adonis more
Than heaven. To him shee clinged ay, and bare him
companye ...
But now unwoonted toyle hath made
Mee [Venus] weerye: and beholde, in tyme this Poplar
with his shade
Allureth and the ground for cowch dooth serve too rest
uppon.
I prey thee let us rest heere. They sat them downe
anon,
And lying upward with her head uppon his lappe
along,
Shee thus began: and in her tale shee bussed him
among.
(Golding, Bk. X, 606-07; 610-11; 614-15;
642-47).
This is where Shakespeare differs from Ovid and many
other versions in that Adonis rejects Venus’ advances. He seems to be too
immature and young to be interested in Venus, whereas Ovid’s Adonis is
certainly mature enough to see through Venus’ intentions, as told in Book
X. There it says that Adonis advances from ‘The beawtyfullest babe’
to ‘a stripling’ and becomes ‘by and by a man’.
(Golding, Bk. X, 601-03). As shown above, Shakespeare has altered the concept of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the latter Adonis does not mind getting
involved with Venus, and Venus is depicted in a far less aggressive and
threatening way.
However, Shakespeare was not the only one who made use
of Ovid’s original by imitating parts of it. Abraham Fraunce’s
Amintos Dale was published in 1592, one year before
Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. In Fraunce’s version, as
opposed to Shakespeare’s, Venus and Adonis have a sexual relationship, as
do Venus and Adonis in Spenser’s The Fairy Queene. In Book III the
characters even appear twice: first in the Castle Joyous, where Adonis becomes
Venus’ ‘Paramoure’ (Spenser, Bk. III, i 34 4), and second in
the Garden of Adonis, where Venus ‘reape[s] sweet pleasure of the wanton
boy’ and enjoys ‘Her deare Adonis ioyous company’ (Spenser,
Bk. III, vi 46 2-3).
All these stories based on Ovid have one thing in
common: they all result in the loss of one or the other character. In Thomas
Lodge, Glaucus woos unwilling Scylla, then Scylla woos reluctant Glaucus. Both
eventually retreat in despair and Scylla is transformed into a rocky isle. In
Shakespeare, Adonis would not listen to Venus’ advice and hence ends up
dead after having encountered a boar, who ‘thought to kiss him, and hath
kill’d him so’. (1110). In Marlowe, Hero and Leander are in love
with one another but Leander drowns. It seems to me that regardless of whether
the characters allow passion to happen or not, love will make them suffer. Bate
says that ‘this inevitable future repetition is what gives the story its
mythic, archetypal quality’. (Bate, 87). This is, however, the only way in
which these narratives based on Ovid can be regarded as archetypal, for with
regard to the 16th century concept of sexual identities, they all
deviate from the archetypal pattern. This leads me to the assumption that the
observance of sexual identities was perhaps strived for, but was by no means
stable. However, none of the authors violates the perception of sexual
identities to so great an extent as Shakespeare does. Within his poem the male
is the wooed and, furthermore and contrary to all Petrarchan regulations, a
sexually inexperienced and indifferent young man, and the female is the wooer
and, what is more, a lascivious, desirous and at some times belligerent older
woman[1]. Nevertheless,
Shakespeare’s drastic pictorial representation of Venus and Adonis was a
popular story in the early modern period and generally greeted with intense
enthusiasm on the part of the public.
Bibliography
Bate, Jonathan, ”Sexual Perversity in Venus and
Adonis”, Yearbook of English Studies, 23 (1993), 80-92.
Brown, Sarah Anne, ”Shakespeare’s
Ovid”, The Cambridge Quarterly, 25:2 (1996),
208-212.
Campbell, Oscar James, ed., Shakespeare
Encyclopaedia, London: Methuen & Co LTD, 1966.
Clark, Sandra, ed., Amorous Rites: Elizabethan Erotic
Verse, London: Everyman, 1994.
Golding Arthur, trans., Shakespeare’s Ovid,
ed. by Cohen, J. M., London: Cantaur Press, 1961.
Harbage, Alfred, Conceptions of Shakespeare,
London: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Lindheim, Nancy, ”The Shakespearean Venus and
Adonis”, Shakespeare Quarterly, 37:2 (1986), 190-201.
Keach, William, Elizabethan Erotic Narratives. Irony
and Pathos in the Ovidian Poetry of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and their
Contemporaries, The Harvester Press, 1977.
Shakespeare, William, As you like it, ed. by
Oliver, H. J., The New London: Penguin Shakespeare, 1968.
Shakespeare, William, The Narrative Poems, ed. by
Evans, Maurice, London: Penguin Books, 1989.
Shakespeare, William, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
ed. by Schücking, L. L., William Shakespeare Complete Edition, 4 vols.
Darmstadt, 1996.
Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene, ed. by Roche,
Thomas P., London: Penguin Books, 1987.
Traub, Valerie, ”Friends and Lovers: The
Phenomenology of Desire in Shakespearean Comedy”, Shakespeare
Quartely, 38:4 (1987), 520-522.
[1] In a letter to
Mistress Agnes, Shakespeare refers to Venus as an ‘older woman‘. He
writes: ‘I well remember that thy only word was to ask me if I had made
Adonis to scorn Venus because she was an older woman.‘ (Harbage,
140).
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