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Dark Lady of the Sonnets, a play by George Bernard Shaw

PREFACE TO THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS - Shakespear's alleged Sycophancy and Perversion

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_ That reply, which Mr Harris does not hesitate to give, is twofold:
first, that Shakespear was, in his attitude towards earls, a
sycophant; and, second, that the normality of Shakespear's sexual
constitution is only too well attested by the excessive susceptibility
to the normal impulse shewn in the whole mass of his writings. This
latter is the really conclusive reply. In the case of Michel Angelo,
for instance, one must admit that if his works are set beside those of
Titian or Paul Veronese, it is impossible not to be struck by the
absence in the Florentine of that susceptibility to feminine charm
which pervades the pictures of the Venetians. But, as Mr Harris
points out (though he does not use this particular illustration) Paul
Veronese is an anchorite compared to Shakespear. The language of the
sonnets addressed to Pembroke, extravagant as it now seems, is the
language of compliment and fashion, transfigured no doubt by
Shakespear's verbal magic, and hyperbolical, as Shakespear always
seems to people who cannot conceive so vividly as he, but still
unmistakable for anything else than the expression of a friendship
delicate enough to be wounded, and a manly loyalty deep enough to be
outraged. But the language of the sonnets to the Dark Lady is the
language of passion: their cruelty shews it. There is no evidence
that Shakespear was capable of being unkind in cold blood. But in his
revulsions from love, he was bitter, wounding, even ferocious; sparing
neither himself nor the unfortunate woman whose only offence was that
she had reduced the great man to the common human denominator.

In seizing on these two points Mr Harris has made so sure a stroke,
and placed his evidence so featly that there is nothing left for me to
do but to plead that the second is sounder than the first, which is, I
think, marked by the prevalent mistake as to Shakespear's social
position, or, if you prefer it, the confusion between his actual
social position as a penniless tradesman's son taking to the theatre
for a livelihood, and his own conception of himself as a gentleman of
good family. I am prepared to contend that though Shakespear was
undoubtedly sentimental in his expressions of devotion to Mr W. H.
even to a point which nowadays makes both ridiculous, he was not
sycophantic if Mr W. H. was really attractive and promising, and
Shakespear deeply attached to him. A sycophant does not tell his
patron that his fame will survive, not in the renown of his own
actions, but in the sonnets of his sycophant. A sycophant, when his
patron cuts him out in a love affair, does not tell his patron exactly
what he thinks of him. Above all, a sycophant does not write to his
patron precisely as he feels on all occasions; and this rare kind of
sincerity is all over the sonnets. Shakespear, we are told, was "a
very civil gentleman." This must mean that his desire to please
people and be liked by them, and his reluctance to hurt their
feelings, led him into amiable flattery even when his feelings were
not strongly stirred. If this be taken into account along with the
fact that Shakespear conceived and expressed all his emotions with a
vehemence that sometimes carried him into ludicrous extravagance,
making Richard offer his kingdom for a horse and Othello declare of
Cassio that

Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
Had stomach for them all,

we shall see more civility and hyperbole than sycophancy even in the
earlier and more coldblooded sonnets. _

Read next: PREFACE TO THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS: Shakespear and Democracy

Read previous: PREFACE TO THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS: The Idol of the Bardolaters

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