Author Archives: Nicholas Benson

Bosola and Ferdinand: Concluding Thoughts

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Bosola and Ferdinand, undoubtedly the two most detestable characters in the play, play off each other, constantly shifting roles and changing the seeming balance of power. As the play goes on into the Acts 4 and 5, Ferdinand’s evil works further into the plot, while Bosola is portrayed less and less as the force of evil and more as the body through which Ferdinand is able to carry out his own evil wishes. Of course, Bosola is still a horrible person imo, but we really see Ferdinand come to the fore as he shows, even under pressure from Bosola, no remorse whatsoever for killing the Duchess. It is interesting to think broadly about how Bosola and Ferdinand’s respective roles change throughout the play, with Bosola’s agency appearing less in his own hands and more in the hands of Ferdinand as the acts play on. He is ultimately just the agent through which Ferdinand can carry out his psychopathic wishes, and while this does not excuse Bosola, it does present him less as an evil soul and more as a pathetic servant to Ferdinand, the true source of evil in the play.

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I found Scene 2 of Act 1 particularly interesting, if only to think about how this scene would play out on stage. Essentially there are two plays going on simultaneously: the play that we are watching, and the play that Delio and Antonio are watching. We look on and watch as Antonio and Delio look on and watch. We see not only characters entering and leaving the stage, but Antonio and Delio watching such characters enter and leave. In a sense, we are watching the action unfold through Antonio and Delio’s eyes – having spent the first Scene in their company, we are now party not only to their dialog, but also to their secrecy. This scene is in many ways similar to the garden scene in Twelfth Night, in which we (the audience) are able to voyeuristically peer in on private interactions taking place on the stage. The juxtapositions of various scenes within the scene are made clear only to us – in a sense the ultimate pleasure of the theater.

Poet and Preacher: Donne’s Two Lives

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It’s interesting to think about John Donne’s two lives – as a poet and as a preacher – and how they are both interconnected and separate. I have always known Donne as a poet, while his life in the Church took a backseat in my understanding of his work. But this weekend’s readings made it clear to me how important it is to understand his religious life, and how vital knowledge of his life as a preacher is in understanding his life as a poet (and vice versa).

I have a predisposition when reading Renaissance poets to assume that they are religious “on the side,” so to speak, and my reading of Donne’s poems proved on the whole no different. Sonnet 14 was an indicator of his deeply religious side, but the counterpoint to that are poems such as “The Flea,” in which he clearly tries to convince a woman to have sex with him outside of marriage (that’s a sin, right?). To feel as though Donne does not completely “buy in” to his supposed religion completely changes the nature of his poetry, and to read his sermons is to see a quite different side of the man.

I am now in fact convinced that students should be required to read some of his religious writings before setting upon his poetry, so as to look at his work with a greater understanding of Donne as a man for whom religion was a profession. Of course, whether or not Donne’s life as a preacher speaks to his belief in the Church is a different matter altogether – but it must be an indicator that he was a man of true faith. Assuming this to be so, how do we now read “The Flea”? Or does Sonnet 14 provide just such an answer?

Pornography as Invasion

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Partially in response to the question in Prof Kitch’s email – how do the poems seduce the presumably male reader – I noticed a common thread throughout, and particularly in the works by Herrick and Marvell. The poems’ graphic natures do justify their categorization as pornography, but rather than the sexual acts appearing consensual, the poems in many cases use aggressive language, portraying the (presumably male) speaker as dominating and forceful. The speakers, particularly in “To His Coy Mistress” and “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” don’t cajole the subjects into sexual acts as much as they attempt to force it on them, through scaremongering or other, more physical means. Likewise, “The Vine” takes on an invasive metaphor, describing the speaker’s penis as an invasive species of plant, making its way around the poem’s subject and then taking over, invading her very body.

This raises more general questions about pornography in the Renaissance age (and, indeed, how much these themes resonate even in contemporary pornography) – this porn, clearly produced for male readers, glorifies the masculine takeover of the female body, and encourages its reader to act on his lustful instincts regardless of the situation.

Experience in All-Male Productions

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(N.B. TL;DR at bottom). Watching The Globe’s 2012 production of Twelfth Night had me thinking not only of all-male dramatic productions theoretically, but also experientially. From the ages of 9-16, I was enrolled in a very traditional boys school in South London, founded by no other than Edward Alleyne in 1619. Of course, taking part in dramatic productions was required, and of course, there were (apart from mothers in the audience) no women as far as the eye could see. I made particularly notable appearances as a woman in both Sweeney Todd and A Midsummer’s Night Dream. At the time – particularly having come directly from a Quaker school in Brooklyn – the idea of men portraying women in a play was baffling more than anything else. My parents had explained to me how deeply rooted the practice was in British dramatic productions, but nonetheless, it made categorically no sense to me that women were (for whatever reason) seen as not up to the role. However, these questions now take on a new level of nuance for me. Tonight’s performance from The Globe, in addition to Britomart’s crossdressing in The Faerie Queene, has me now thinking more generally about the concept of gender fluidity in 16th and 17th century England. I know relatively little about the attitudes toward such things at the time, but I am curious to learn more, and to hopefully draw on my own experiences in a manner with slightly more substance than this post. TL;DR: I have been in all-male dramatic productions before.

Reflections on The Faerie Queene

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Now at the conclusion of our readings of The Faerie Queene, I have been left thinking of all the comparisons that can be drawn between Spenser’s story and more contemporary tales. Most notably in my mind (probably because I have watched it in the region of 50 times) is the scene in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail in which Sir Gallahad the Chaste wanders up to Castle Anthrax, where he is promptly met by a castle full of rather sexually frustrated maidens. The scene as a whole mirrors very closely the Castle Joyous scene in which Britomart’s chastity is tested by the castle’s maiden. There are countless other examples, but this one stood out to me particularly, and speaks more generally to the true epic nature of the text – a text so epic that, even now, it is still being drawn from for inspiration.

Re:Raisa

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I am too finding this to be a difficult reading. On a literary level, the density of the text renders me pretty incapable of enjoying Spenser’s usage of the English language. Spenser is clearly a master of the poetic form, but I’m finding it difficult to dig at all into these pleasantries. Having said this, part of my difficulties stem from my inexperience in reading epic poems from this time period. Indeed, I often need to spend a great deal of time to figure out what is going on in the plot of our average class sonnet – with poetry of this length and of this density, establishing and maintaining the narrative arc of the story is, for me, a success in and of itself. Tl;dr I’m finding The Faerie Queene hard to read as an English student because I’m having a hard enough time trying to maintain an understanding of the plot. I feel like any literary analysis I attempt to offer on this epic is bound to fall short. I wish I could offer you some help, but I’m struggling to find an entry point myself.

Shakespeare the Private Poet?

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Wells talks at some length (particularly on pgs 48-50) about many of Shakespeare’s poems being personal rather than for public consumption. “Many of the sonnets, including–indeed, especially–those that seem most revelatory of sexual infatuation and self-disgust, are private poems, personal and almost confessional in nature” (Wells 50). He also speaks on page 49 about how, if Shakespeare had been writing for a public audience, he would have published them himself, etc.

I am drawn to one of his more famous sonnets, number 18, to somewhat question Wells on this point. “When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st; / So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this and this gives life to thee” (No. 18, 12-14). This is as blatant a statement as ever: to paraphrase, Shakespeare says, “as long as you are in my poem, you will live forever.” This does not sound like a man writing into a fire, it sounds like a man who expects his poetry to last. To me, this poem is a clear indication that Shakespeare was writing his work to be read not by one but by many. That this is one of the earliest in his collection is also significant, in that it shows his early recognition that his poetry would live on through the ages.

Shakespeare Was a Real Boss

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Reading Vendler’s article and then reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, I was struck by exactly how talented Shakespeare was as a sonnet poet. Now, yes this is blindingly obvious, but it comes with further justification. I had never fully appreciated that, as Vendler notes, “Shakespeare comes late in the sonnet tradition, and he is challenged by that very fact to a display of virtuosity, since he is competing against great predecessors” (Vendler 27). That Shakespeare came late in the sonnet tradition is something that I, if I am being honest, never knew. Because, growing up and reading Sonnets in English classes, you assume that the guy basically invented the form. That he was able to take the sonnet and have such an influence that, 400 years later, we are talking about him as the master, is really impressive. Impressive beyond the impressive nature of his poetry, and impressive beyond his list of achievements. It’s impressive because he, before he had first put pen to paper, had to mentally grapple with the fact that he was writing in a form that was 1) on its way out, and 2) already saturated with brilliant poets. I guess what I am saying in this post is that, putting his literary mastery aside, Shakespeare’s mentality is also something to be truly marveled at.