You should be able to use figurative language in your own writing to communicate more clearly. "Turtle" is chock-full of imagery and figurative language relating to movement. Painting my age with beauty of thy daies. What would there be to lament? It appeared in one of the Two Pastorals 'made by Sir Philip Sidney upon his meeting with his two worthy friends and fellow poets, Sir Edward Dyer and M. Fulke Greville', first published in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody (1602) but written much earlier: My two and I be met, The Phoenix and the Turtle are not described. The allegory of the fall and redemption of civilizations plays behind each episode as in so many Elizabethan 'history' plays. Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing. It is the paradox that was stated already by Meleager (Anth. In Responses: Prose Pieces: 1953-1976, pp. thinkes he hath got . There remains the climax of Shakespeare's Phoenix song, the soaring Threnos with its contemplation of the transcendentals. This, indeed, is the only ground for his strange understatement when he describes as 'not obviously optimistic' a poem which begins in sadness and ends on a 'sigh'. For further information on The Phoenix and Turtle, see SC, Volume 10. 9 Cf. Theological overtones are present, but the simpler reading is preferable because of the emphasis on reducing to cinders and on enclosing (in an urn, as becomes clear in the final stanza). It was the nature of the Phoenix to be sole in its generation, and Constancy in Love, even Love itself, could not be its concern, since both imply duality. 9Dits et contes de Baudouin de Cond et de son fils Jean de Cond, ed. In other words, for the poet it signifies a process, the drama of selftranscendence, wherever it occurswhether in moral conscience or contemplative intellect, in planetary Intelligence or theological Angel. The second date is today's Chester made up for a lack of talent or discrimination by an excess of energy, and into his long poem he put not only all he knew of the legends associated with the Phoenix and with the Turtle-Dove but much about King Arthur, a lengthy catalogue of flowers, trees, fishes, beasts, and birds culled from recently published books, together with some confused history and geography, in which the island of Paphos (which is not an island) is translocated to North Wales, and Ferdinand and Isabella become Ferdinando (the name of Lord Derby's heir) and Elizabeth. Within the Petrarchan lover, there is a mental conflict: elusive bliss opposes sensual desire. Furthermore, that the selfsame should not be the same (1. Eagle, crow and swan become emblems of royalty, chastity, holiness and poetry. 125-7): Why I have left Arabia for thy sake . The royal throne had power 'For to reuiue his Honor-splitted Name, / And raise againe the cinders of his Fame' (p.86). What happens is simply that Chester often uses the names Phoenix, Turtle, and Dove interchangeably, applying them indifferently to the feminine Arabian bird and to the masculine Paphian one. For we must wast together in that fire, 22 E. A. J. Honigmann, Shakespeare: the 'lost years', Manchester, 1985, pp. In a mood hardly different did the dramatist in his later plays lodge 'beauty, truth and rarity' in one woman, one Phoenix-creature, miraculously preserved from this world's taints, like Marina among the bawds, Perdita among her flowers, Miranda on her desert island.13. Jove describes Blenerhasset's iconographie isle, Lyly's Utopia inhabited by elves, angels, Diana and Venus, the island of the poets where magic and supernatural forces can resolve all personal and political evils. 19 The suggestion is strengthened by the stage imagery, "Chorus" and "Tragique Scene.". Although the theory rested on a materialistic psychology, involving a transmission of spirits (Commentarium, II, 8; VII, 4), Shakespeare barely alludes to this doctrine when the Phoenix and the Turtle discern their mutual flame in each other's eyes (11. In fact, the notion that distance should not defy love but reinforce it is quite familiar. 'The Phoenix and the Turtle' is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. Reason speaks, or sings, gently, without raising its voice. Reygnyng above, strikes some readers as a light-hearted Falstaffian quip on a prim pair,34 and others as a compliment in good faith. In the ende of the verse, P. E. Memmo, Jr., Studies in Romance Languages and Literature, No. 19v), In Love's Martyr Shakespeare and his fellow poets were writing about a mystery, but they wrote coherently and in terms readily intelligible to any of their contemporaries. C. H. Herford, P. and E. Simpson (Oxford, 1925-52), viii. WebBy William Shakespeare. This Paphian Dove, rekindling the Arabian fires, will assure perpetuity for Phoenix and her triumph over enemies in Arabia-Brytania. If this were not so, the basic pattern of the other stanzas would still, I think, be the same: Truth and Beauty come to rest in eternity, those who are true or fair participate in the exemplars by sharing in their funeral. Again, chaste love is a condition of being which counteracts both the escapist alienation of vulgar love and the civilized subjectivity which sublime love substitutes for genuine feeling and participation. 203-204; T.W. This was no refinement of Petrarchism, but a new conceit, based both on the myth of rebirth and on the assumption of the bird's bisexuality. Come poore lamenting soule, come sit by me, 12 'false Mordred, thou deceitfull Kinsman . I wyll syng, quod she, On the one hand there are the two classical elegies. Many parallels, ranging from Michelangelo to Drayton, have been offered. False loue, hearts tyrant, inhumane, and cruell. The communication is made in Shakespeare's unique metaphysical mode by which he penetrates the world of visionof universal truthand leads after him those whose ears are attuned to the true accent of his voice and language. The perfection of their love not only leads to the mutual flame in which they and their "posterity" are consumed. Shakespeare's contribution to Loves Martyr is unlikely to have been first conceived as a mere complimentary puff, as F. T. Prince surmises, allowing only 'a chance conjunction of images' to precipitate 'a sudden intensity of emotion in the poet'. So shall she leave her blessedness to one The celebrant at the Requiem is the Phoenix, and the climax of the rite is, in its lighter mood, a splendid counterpart to Shakespeare's poem: Domine, exaud orationem mean! And chiefe obedience that thou owst to me, That thou especially (deare Bird) beware Since the second is praise only at the expense of a possible belittling of the hero and heroine, the first is perhaps preferable. 3Victoria County History: Lancashire (1907), iii. Grace in all simplicity, In The Phoenix and the Turtle the lovers are 'neither two nor one'. Gale Cengage Although our vndeuided loues are one. . To what degree Shakespeare's phrasing may have been prompted by the biblical thought that in the resurrection "they shall neither marry nor be married" remains conjecture. On the other hand, probably independent of this tradition, there is an episode in the early tenth-century Navigatio Sancii Brendani, 1 which multiplied into dozens of later versions and translations. Shakespeare's approach was different. Jonson refers affectionately to 'our Dove', and Marston speaks of the new Phoenix, 'arising out of the Phoenix and Turtle Doves ashes', which is 'now growne unto maturitie' (Brown, p. lxxi). He had also written the mysterious 'sugred Sonnets', which everyone knew about but which few people had seen. Into your flame, of whom one name may rise. The poet has set the scene for the birds to join in singing an anthem in praise of the Phoenix and Turtle, and with the shift of mood from imperative to indicative he now withdraws and leaves the scene to them. The startling tunefulness of the Phoenix, together with the appropriateness of the 'defunctiue Musicke', the customary dirges that round life off, are the positive values by which we judge the distasteful 'shriking'. Interpretation then implied inventing an 'occasion' for the poem, to fit one's choice of candidate. Were the anthem not to begin until the next stanza, it would begin with an unidentified pronoun. Troth is exemplified in the actions of Phoenix and loyal Dove, in command and obedience, in mutual vows and in mutual sacrifice. Offers a metaphysical reading of The Phoenix and Turtle that highlights its paradoxical nature and stresses the importance of symbolic language in the poem. The "sole Arabian tree" may, upon first encounter, suggest the possibility, but subsequent stanzas rule it out. Reason transcends herself if the love that is parting from the world can still be kindled, can still remain, in those who watch and participate. Divine unity is reflected in the human soul, 'Qui ne dement que peu d'un plumage mortel Le plumage admir du Phoenix immortel' (f. 16v). by John Wain, p. 4. 100-8) gives a broad survey of the classical, Platonic, and Petrarchan influences, while J. V. Cunningham tries to show that the central part, or anthem, reflects the medieval scholastic refinementand consequent displacementof Platonic (specifically Plotinian) thought. However loath one may feel to burden this lyrical flight with further plodding research, a re-examination of the bird symbolism and the 'Platonic' assumptions, supported by a fresh array of parallels, is required to avoid laying undue emphasis either on the poet's dependence on tradition or on his self-conscious originality in the handling of the Phoenix theme. At least, except for Chapman, they all conform to such a plan. Where Peace conioyn'd with Plenty still remaines.6. At the same time, in Shakespeare's two preceding lines it is the Turtle's right, his proprium, all that pertains to him as an individual, that he finds reflected in the Phoenix's eyes. Be that as it may, this bird, this unharmonious prefigurement of evil, is excluded from the company of "chaste wings.". As Bacon argued, quoting Plowden, 'There is in the king not a body natural alone, nor a body politic alone, but a body natural and politic together'.4. Vulgar love is unchastity or lust, the concupiscent force of the lover's worst motives. The language of its lines is crisp and gnomic, each line having a certain lapidary separateness, yet behind the lines we sense the creating mind impelling them together into lyricism. Such a love is to be despaired of in life, as the threnos with its emphatic negatives makes clear, but the capacity of art to contemplate it helps partially to overcome the disillusion. And put to flight the author of my fears. That it does is suggested by Knight,11 and is explicitly stated by A. Alvarez: The birds rest 'to externitie,' in a final resolution of chastity and theology. In the last decade little argument has been raised over earlier explorations of The Phoenix and the Turtle for personal allegory and biographical significance. A. The pregnant remarks of C. S. Lewis in his English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 1954), pp. As first printed in 1601, the poem includes only one line not ending with a punctuation mark, and, though this is, grammatically, a runon line, here too the final stress and the harsh final consonants enforce a rhythmical pause: From this Session interdict Although the abstract middle stanzas are brilliantly turned, everything they achieve lies within the Renaissance habit of antithesis and its stylistic deployment of oxymoron. The point need not be discussed since it is beyond proof. Already a member? [In the following essay, Schwartz argues that The Phoenix and Turtle is a funeral elegy for two dead lovers, rather than a metaphysical or philosophical poem.]. but "Let . The pelican sings a funeral lament and Chester's generous contribution finally closes with some 'Cantoes' of prayers and vows made for the Phoenix by her 'Paphian Dove'. So should our severed bodies three Such criticism draws allegorical significance from real events, taking its cue from Robert Chester's Love's Martyr. There were also contributions from 'Chorus Vatum' (perhaps of composite authorship) and 'Ignoto'. 32 See L'Influence de Ronsard sur la Posie Franaise by M. Raymond (Paris, 1927), pp. Yet it is precisely in these same dimensions that further clarification is needed. The anthem itself is repetitious; it plays variations of ingenuity on a common theme without appearing to advance. In the same way, I rejected the criticism implicit in the third stanza of the threne. "If something happens literally ," says children's book author Lemony Snicket in "The Bad Beginning," "it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it is happening. The very fact that the bird is not identified gives to the opening of the poem an element of mystery at the same time that it limits the irrelevant associations brought in by any direct identification. Reason begins by adding to the praise. An allegory is not a cryptogram; so, rather than go on a biographical or political treasurehunt, it seems better to take Chester at his word, and to search out that particular kind of truth of love which is adumbrated in the love-death of Phoenix and Turtle. That she was never yet that ever knew E. D., Property, 5b. What would be gained poetically for interpretation by seeing Reason in The Phoenix and the Turtle as yet another personification of the Ratio or Nous of the neoplatonists, with its kinships that extend to Solomon's Sapientia and Parmenides' nameless goddess, to Boethius' Philosophia and Bernard Silvestris' Noys? Some scholars and critics, including A. H. Fairchild in his long and illuminating essay, have denied that there is any significant connection between Shakespeare's poem and the bulky poem, or miscellany, by Chester which precedes.3 Many others have denied it in practice, by ignoring Chester's work. Que l'unique Phoenix de ma voix authentique While the beauty of a bird's song has usually carried the association of loudness, the use of 'lowdest' here, rather than some word meaning greatest or most beautiful, may well suggest 'most authoritative', or perhaps 'most apt for lamentation'. The Dove is at once a symbol for the love and fidelity of the monarch in her capacity as a natural woman, and for the love and fidelity of her subjects. Then blame not my homebred unpolisht witt, Another Damsell, as a precious gemme, But Shakespeare is unlikely to have waded through the poem with what French he had. In late Antiquity we find the 'complaint of Nature' as such in Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae (III 18ff). The swan that was in presence heere, in the same volume have drawn dissent, argues strongly for his authorship. Much effort has been devoted to explicating the Threnos, the "philosophical" part of the poem which describes the paradoxical relation between the Phoenix and the Turtle. 5 These imperfect rhymes are, perhaps, only a modern and not an Elizabethan effect. James Gatherer (London, 1703), pp. If Shakespeare was influenced by Roydon's elegy and thought of Sidney's Sonnets, he may well have had in mind a love relationship of this kind. It rests on the assumption that the bird sitting 'on the sole Arabian tree' must be the Phoenix since that tree has been described by Lyly, Florio and Shakespeare himself as 'the phoenix' throne' (Tempest, III, iii, 23). Upon their "repairing" to the shrine of these saints of Love, this urn in which lies a perfection they are denied, we might expect them to pray for intercession for themselves, perfection requires no prayers. Shakespeare's Phoenix may now be securely 'pigeonholed' in the tradition. Othello's egotism, which grounds his love, which grounds indeed all human love, is the ineradicable cause of love's death. The paradoxes of the anthem fall into two parts. In the Commentarium in Convivium, in Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'Amore and in Donne's later Extasie, (11. The threne continues to offer praise. . In the metaphysical vein the phrase would permit of translation in terms of such love as that celebrated by Donne in his "Valediction," love so completely and purely a union of minds and souls that it rests not in physical union, which is the essence of "sublunary love." There is no sexual mystery here, only a somewhat confusing use of names. When, in disgrace with fortune and mens eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this mans art and that mans scope, . In the last three lines of the sixth stanza, the occasion for the ceremony is first mentioned, but the very nature of the assertion is ambiguous. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. The condensed verse-form of the Threnos tempts the reader into thinking that it is an accurate summing-up of the events in the poem. 1 'Verbal interanimations', rev. . Such to the parrat was the turtle dove. Nature identifies the ancient founders of noble civilizations by giving an account of 'Britain Monuments' reminiscent of the Faerie Queene, Book II canto 10. Their Nature15 was single (compare "essence" in stanza seven) and yet had two names, Phoenix and Turtle; it could not properly have been called either two or one. The derogation implied by this view rather heightens than lessens the tragedy: the situation is the more tragic for their having remained childless. . But who are these enemies of Phoenix? Reason's reaction is first to analyse the behaviour of the lovers, and then to rationalize it. Surely the latter possibility should be thoroughly investigated before we settle for either of the others. The creative vow insists they are the same. The Phoenix in this poem, however, is no symbol of immortality but ratherand partially perhaps through its own irrational choicea dead bird. It is used to build imagery to deepen the audience's understanding and help give power to words by using different emotional, visual and sensory connections. The Arabian fiers are too dull and base, But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, The lover finds in his beloved not only his own essence or nature, but 'the whole worlds soule', or, to recall Shakespeare's own expression, 'great creating Nature'. WebFigurative language is found in all sorts of writing, from poetry to prose to speeches to song lyrics, and is also a common part of spoken speech. . "]. In Marlowe's translation: But most thou friendly turtle-dove, deplore. The critic additionally maintained that a sense of immortality or transcendence survives the death of the phoenix and the turtle, because the poem celebrates the eternal quality of love. . 33-44), the oneness of the lovers was logically argued and stated in philosophical terms.27Shakespeare's restatement of it is of interest, because he made the truth his own, recreated the experience, revived the intuition. Hither, thither, and whither are typically locational; most uses of hitherto are temporal. 124-5). See also S.M. He interprets the Queen's behaviour over the succession (as it turns out, correctly) to imply her preference for James Stuart. To this urne let those repaire, 203-214. But tell me gentle Turtle, tell me truly Nerudas figurative language and wide-ranging imagination let us see the fish vividly as it was in life, making the acknowledgment of the fishs death all the more affecting. Then Dians tier) now springs from yonder flame? In Interpretations: Essays on Twelve English Poems, edited by John Wain, pp. On the basis of Christ Church MSS 183 and 184, containing poems by Chester, Salusbury and Ben Jonson, Brown conjectures that the Denbigh Chester served the Salusbury family, perhaps as chaplain. Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate The symbolic aura required higher, not lower, meanings, abstractions, not physical details. 55-6. But, unlike Shakespeare, he did not really call in question the principle of identity for the conceit only applied to the bird reborn from its ashes, a wonder in natural history but no contradiction in the realm of logic and ontology. To eternitie doth rest. And a little later, to persuade this bird to come with her to Paphos: There is a country Clymat fam'd of old, And set our feete on Paphos golden sand. But the final stanza quickly follows the claim that "Truth and Beautie buried be" with a quiet reference to those who are true or fair. For a time Calidore remained unseen amid the surrounding trees, astonished and delighted with what he saw, but not knowing what to make of it. Furthermore, the crow is specifically addressed as chaste. (The last line recalls the inscriptions over the doors in the House of Busyrane, Faerie Queene, III. Noble love is the soul's desire for God and immortality. 73)some authorities give other periodsthe unique Phoenix built a nest in a palm-tree which proved to be its funeral pyre and also the birthplace of the next Phoenix. In these troubled times, travel has come down to a trickle. 24 See the discussion on The Passionate Pilgrim, p. 59. In short, the vulgar lover knows neither self-control, respect, responsibility, gentleness, nor fidelity. Saue the Eagle feath'red King, Ed. But from Phoenix-Laura to 'Phoenix-Stella' (Astrophel, XCII) the celestial glory somewhat faded into the light of common day. . We by a love so much refin'd So is Chester's Phoenix 'analysde' by Jonson: Knight's reading only displays perverse ingenuity (pp. This effect is one of following unstinted praise with an evaluation, made by Reason, modifying that praise; celebration of excellence is balanced by a recognition of tragic failure. The lover who is possessed by vulgar passion seeks the sensation of sex in order to avoid confronting the kind of desire that calls for emotional maturity. Yet in 1601 there was no agreement about who that successor should be; without unanimity Elizabeth's demise would produce no second Phoenix. From this Session interdict ), it is clear that (until 1938 at least) the great majority have been per sonal or historical readings. . So betweene them Loue did shine, After the burning comes a series of cantos which have been cited as proof of Chester's superficial concern with the theme of chastity.10 Dismal as they are, these cantos illustrate the main theme and are designed to be read in two ways so that conventional love verses can be seen, through the use of acrostic, as something transcendent. . his ashes laden with Assyrian balm, It is Reason's vain attempt to describe the bond between the lovers that casts the 'Tragique' mood over the 'Scene' of their suicide. Although Reason is not aware of the irony of its confidence, it certainly is aware of its antagonism towards the intuition of love. 349-350. . Compressed syntax and a diction suggesting scholastic logic have been used in the anthem to express the commonplaces of mutual love carried to their furthest paradoxical extremes. "6 Though I would agree that such is certainly not the meaning of the word, I do not object to considering it an additional overtone. Nature exclaimes for Justice, Justice Fate, It was not merely the usual compound of simples, but a compound resulting impossibly in a simple, for here, as in the sixth stanza, a singular form (here a noun, there a verb) is used where a plural would be expected; the impossible unity is thus effected in the verse and not merely described by it. "The Dead Phoenix." . Is this the true example of the Heart? None the less, he is surely right to argue that Shakespeare consulted Chester's verses and incorporated their 'mystical-allusive' manner in his response (Honigmann, p. 109), though he probably did not do so until Ben Jonson showed him Chester's miscellaneous compilation. The tyrant bird is too absorbed in its own clamour to appreciate the offensiveness of the noise. Which the deere tongue would afford, 35 Price's suggestion that Poe or Mallarm might 'help us to approach The Phoenix and the Turtle' as pure poetry, however sensitive and stimulating, might prove misleading in the perspective of literary history. 8 See Roy T. Eriksen, ' "Un certo amoroso martire": Shakespeare's "The Phoenix and the Turtle" and Giordano Bruno's De gli eroici furori', SpS, 2 (1981), 193-215. 1998 eNotes.com of Poetries: Their Media and Ends, by I. Dana Ramel Barnes. The intellectual idiom and rational structure are set into double negation, drawing the reader's attention to transcendent values. Her ashes flying with the wind. The Turtle was a bird dedicated to Venus, yet chaste since it had but one mate in its life and therefore was a type of absolute constancy in married love.24 The chastity of the Phoenix was absolute in a different way. But linked in binding bands Four golden Swords before the King did beare, In his most recent play the vocabulary of Wittenberg had never been far from Hamlet's speech, and the use here of a learned diction was in keeping. 15, 1962, pp. With the authority of a long dramatic tradition behind him, Shakespeare celebrates this ideal, in spite of death and disaster, as chorus to a tragic scene. WebThe phoenix and the turtle-dove are allegorical figures, whose identities may have been known to some of Shakespeares readers, but not all. It can prove an astringent for the "creative" reader and at the same time lead towards further clarification and new synthesis. 1998 eNotes.com Who from the sacred ashes of her honour 33-36. Stanza rhymes have twice repeated the reduction not merely of two to one, but of that one to noneonce with a final stress on violence, and once with a stress on finality. 30 This may be traced to an anonymous expansion of Lactantius' Carmen in the ninth century: HubauxLeroy, p. 53. In the same elegy Roydon described Astrophel as a love poet and Stella as a nymph most rare (st. 22-7). 288v (heading of a Welsh poem of congratulation). In The Phoenix and Turtle, Green argued, Shakespeare explores the interaction of all three. Here enclosde, in cinders lie. It is fitting that the royal bird should not be named, because only when it receives the recognition of perfect love and duty can it be acknowledged as Phoenix. It came into medieval and Renaissance tradition, I think, from two sides. Only a naive scepticism will ask whether the bird on the Arabian tree is the old or new Phoenix. And its second cry, its admission of defeat, rests on a stressed conditional. 38 Du Monin apparently believed in it since he argued that such a wondrous bird could not be wholly deprived of intellectual faculties (f. IIv). The larger part of the poem elaborates 'la science de l'Humain Phoenix: "Le vrai Phoenix est l'me humaine", "L'Arabie du Phoenix humain est le corps", "Le Phoenix humain doit suivre son Soleil Dieu", "L'Ame pour renatre comme le Phoenix doit se dpouiller de soi et s'investir des seuls merites de Christ son Soleil".' Chester tells the story of Arthur, centring on his coronation to describe countless subjects kneeling and four vassal kings bearing swords before him. One might add that the flock of birds following him after his rebirth represented the crowd of the elect.30 Furthermore, the mystical significance of the turtle dove had a wide range, embracing Divine Sapience, the Blessed Virgin, the Church and the contemplative soul.31 The Phoenix, though queenly in Shakespeare's poem, like Spenser's Sapience, might therefore stand for the second Person of the Trinity and the Turtle might represent either the Church betrothed to Christ, or the soul rapt in contemplation.
