#78 So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse

[Martin]

Sonnet 78

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee.
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

[Candy]

Wow...I did not see this Sonnet when I posted my last two posts about obscurity in art and literature.

It's as if you planned this order of the sonnets Martin to precede tis with ambiguous poems...only to set this one next!

Here we have the standard response to this poem as being about a rival.

However...I don't think it's "just" about a rival. I think the notion of a rival is a metaphor for other "writers"

And by writers he could mean other poets...but isn't every reader a writer? When we read a poem we bring our own knowledge to the reading...we bring our own structures belief systems...experience and very often we project what we know onto a poem.

In line 13 he says as much...your art influences my art...he puns on artifice or artificial...even for his own work in order contest the readers "art" of interpretation.

the interpretation being based not on the knowledge of the plot...but reduced by the knowledge of the reader. In this way this is a really hash poem...and painful. No reader wants to feel stupid.

I know a lot of people who don't like Cervantes, or Milton, or Melville, Eco, Sarteor esoteric "difficult" writers because 'they talk down' to the audience with their puzzles and ambiguity. Or pretentious languages and structures...as an example...

The youth is someone who is a student, an apprentice...and not bringing so much baggage to the relationship. In some ways "the youth" might be seen as a young fan, or young student...not set in their ways or programmed by society.

The elder poet can initiate the youth into his art and meaning...and initiate them into this "lost" tradition.

[Casey]

Candy, I like the idea that he's speaking to a rival - that competition fuels him and makes him better. It's a neater interpretation than his influence being a lover (at least to me) because there's more complexity in the relationship.

I am most struck by the second quatrain - the eyes teaching the dumb to sing, and then the images of feathers and flight and Majesty - sounds almost angelic. I especially thought of the eyes - how can eyes teach sound? I started thinking of Homer being dubbed "the blind poet" and thought perhaps S was alluding to more classic writers - the great epic poets of old.

[Martin]

I feel this could almost be addressed to the god Apollo himself.

[Martin]

I think Casey has got it exactly. There is an epic feel here, part pagan part Christian, that reminds me of Paradise Lost. Compare for example,

. . . heavy ignorance aloft to fly . . .

with Milton's

Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight

"incumbent" in the old sense of "to lie on", and the idea of a heavy body flying, and the air bearing the weight.

And yet there is a modern feel too. The one addressed, as Muse, seems to be puplisher ("under thee their poetry disperse"), sub-editor or ghost writer ("mend the style") and educator ("ignorance" becoming "learning"). I don't quite understand Candy here, seeing the one addressed as student/apprentice.

"Muse" might suggest a female addressed, but Milton (again!) admits of male Muses:

So may some gentle muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

[Martin]

I've been thinking about the nine Muses in relation to S's output, one has

for drama:

Melpomene, tragedy, e.g. Hamlet
Thalia, comedy, e.g. Twelfth Night

for poetry:

Polyhymnia, hymns, e.g. "Fear no more the heat of the sun"
Erato, love poems, e.g. the sonnets
Euterpe, lyric poetry, e.g. "When icicles hang by the wall"
Calliope, epic poetry

For these Muses at least, the Greeks made no disctinction between poetry and music, so Polyhymnia could be the Muse for any poem to the gods, and any poem of love might be sung. Euterpe, I think, was for poems about Nature and daily life. S's "Troilus and Cressida" is a drama, but with an epic behind it. In any case it is neither for Melpomene nor Thalia exclusively.

Clio, history

Usually thought of as a Muse for prose writing, but "The Rape of Lucrece", from Livy, is in a sense a historical work. And of course there is the succession of history plays.

And finally,

Terpsichore, dance
Urania, astronomy

and one thinks of the use of dance in the plays (and the dance with which the Elizabethans followed a stage play), the connection between dance and poetry, which Candy often mentions, and the way astronomical ideas are spread through S's works.

[Janice (JG)]

Martin wrote: "And yet there is a modern feel too. The one addressed, as Muse, seems to be puplisher ("under thee their poetry disperse"), sub-editor or ghost writer ("mend the style") and educator ("ignorance" becoming "learning"). I don't quite understand Candy here, seeing the one addressed as student/apprentice...."

(I don't know how I missed this week).

I thought immediately of the possibility of someone who is helping edit / advising S on his writings. The TV series Will suggested an interesting alternative -- that a woman S loved was also someone very creative and helped / inspired him with his writings.

While the series may have been wildly speculative and historically inaccurate, I did like how they had S scooping up ideas and lines of dialogue from every possible person and experience, whenever something caught his ear and intrigued or inspired him. I think that is definitely part of any artist's creative process.

That his muse might be a female he is in love with, and who is also talented, is not farfetched at all (I don't think). There are other researchers who are wondering now if S might have been in fact female, I would definitely buy into a heavy female influence in his life which reached beyond sex and romance.

[Candy]

Yes, I think this heavenly idea is apt. And I also thought perhaps these muses were the classical work...which the narrator says

"Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,"

And I am repeating but Cormac McCarthy say the dirty truth is that "books are made out of other books." The idea of originality is a false idea. What might be original is an original response to an existing object/book/music.