(grouped by text)
Mackerel is a common food fish found in temperate and tropical seas all around the world. It is known to spoil "more readily than others" after death (see Croker 104). The eyes of a mackerel usually are clear, but become "gray and sunken" (Croker 104) after death.
The mackerel is a forage fish (cf. "Forage Fish"). These smaller fish types are food for their larger predators. This imagery can be linked to "chum".
Since the second half of the 19th century mackerel were caught by "chumming": "[The fishermen] also began ‘chumming' – casting scoopfuls of ground bait into the waters around the vessel – as a means of keeping mackerel at the surface and biting hooks." Hence, the term "makerel" might also be implicitly connected to "chum".
The Elegies the speaker refers to were written by John Donne. Donne's Elegies deal with multiple themes relating to human existence, life, death, love, sex, power-relations, the divine, and the mundane. Donne who is assumed to have written his Elegies between 1592 and 1597, is understood to be the first English "love-elegist" (Variorum xciv).
An Elegy in Greek was a lament or a funeral poem, while the Romans used the term for their erotic love poems. In the 16th and 17th centuries the topoi for elegies contained funeral/commemorative poems, didactic verse and witty, erotic or paradoxical love poetry (Variorum xciii).
The lines convey irony, in the sense that the soldier reads the Elegies to his dead chum to rouse him; they also contain cynicism as he speaker perceives the chum's facial expression as "grinning nastily" in reaction to the poetry he listens to. Upon this the speaker concludes that "the worms had got his brain at last" (l.17).
The ambiguity of the word "rouse" can be linked to the sexually charged Elegy "Upon his mistress going to bed" and thus refer to a hoped for "rousing" of his "chum".
The speaker quotes the last line of the elegy "To his mistress going to bed", written by John Donne.
Link to the full text: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/elegy20.php
In the sexually charged elegy "To his mistress going to bed" the speaker is soliciting his mistress into taking off her clothes and sharing the bed with him. Despite the sexual content of the elegy that bears resemblance to Ovid, here the arts of love (Ars amatoria) merge semantically more into the "arts of war" (Hadfield 52), as the male speaker describes the seduction in the terms of a military campaign (cf. l. 25-29; see Bell 208). The lover speaks like as if he were an "imperial ruler" discovering his conquered territory (Hadfield 53) and its riches, while the female body becomes the land that is waiting to be colonized. In this metaphorical sense the uncovering, the laying down of the clothing then becomes a symbol for the letting down of barriers, resulting in the invasion of the country (see Loomba 73).
In his last line " What needst thou have more cov'ring than a man" John Donne alludes to the Bible (1 Cor 11:3-7): there, a man who covers his head when praying or prophesizing dishonours himself, but a woman who does the same with her head covered, honours herself. Man does not have to cover his head because he is "glory of God," while the woman "is the glory of the man". Donne reverses these statements of St. Paul; in lines 34 and 35 ("As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be/To taste whole joys."), he wittily states "that she needs no more cloths than he does", and that she does not need more "covering" than him (see Guibbory 136). The soul's covering is the body, while the body's covering is the clothing – therefore to find true joy she should let down her clothing, her cover.
The soldier's "chum" grins nastily upon hearing the line: "What needst thou have more covering than a man?" This reaction can either be based on the strong sexual connotation of the line as well as the whole Elegy, or it entails sarcasm, if we consider the situation in the trenches, i.e. in the war, where soldiers need to rely on each other, they have to give each other air-cover and also need a shelter to hide.
The ambiguity of the quotation from Donne in the context of "Trench Poets" is related to the polysemy of the word "cover": a) A defensive or protective covering for the body; a piece of armour; b) an article of clothing which serves for shelter or concealment; c) protection from attack; esp. that afforded by the presence or fire of a supporting force; also, a force providing such protection. (see OED "cover, v.").
Giving up the shelter in war could lead to death. In the original erotic context of Donne's poem, the lover entices his mistress into laying off her cover to make her fit for invasion. In "Trench Poets" this meaning is re-interpreted as the idea of covering and uncovering becomes important for survival; every barrier that falls becomes a threat for life. Considering this reading, one could assume that the cover has already been lost once, which led to the "chum's" state he is in, namely death.
The title "Trench Poets" is ambiguous. It can refer to soldier poets of the First World War who often wrote directly from the trenches, drawing on their experiences during the war. However, the title could also refer to the poets read "within" the trenches, here Donne and Tennyson , rather than referring to the poets "of" the trenches, i.e. Rickword.
The term "trench poets" as a sub-group of "war poets" seems to have been developed instead of being coined by a specific person. The epithet "trench poet" probably originated in the fact that poetry by soldiers at the front often appeared in so-called trench newspapers, for instance the The Wipers Times, which was published by British soldiers (cf. Lee). The term is now used widely (see, for instance, the entry on "War poets" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, or The Short Story and the First World War by Ann-Marie Einhaus).
"Trench poets" was published in 1921 in a collection of Rickword's poetry called Behind the Eyes. Rickword wrote these poems after the war had ended, "reflecting on the experience rather than writing directly out of the experience" (see Schmidt/Young). Still, he had been a soldier and knew what he was writing about. He was a "trench poet," a soldier poet of World War I (Lusty 201). The "trench poets" included mostly young, unknown poets like Sassoon, Owen and Rickword himself who could, through their personal experience, write about the horrors of war in an "authentic voice" (Lusty 199), picturing war with all its atrocities, and creating a counter-image to pro-war propaganda.
The poets alluded to in the text are John Donne and Alfred Tennyson. In Donne's Elegy "The Autumnal," he mentions trenches in relation to lovers (link to Luminarium): "Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit, / Vow'd to this trench, like an anachorite" (15-16).
One might read the title "Trench Poets" as self-referential to the speaker and his "chum" in the poem. What they have in common, apart from being soldiers, is possibly that they are both poets. In the last line, the speaker says that "rats ate his thumbs" (24), indicating that the chum's ability to write has been taken away. If we accept this line of reasoning, the speaker and chum in the poem might relate to war poets in general, of which some survived the war (e.g. Rickword and Siegfried Sassoon) whereas others did not (e.g. Wilfred Owen).
Maud: A Monodrama (1855) is a poem by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). It was originally subtitled ‘The Madness' (Sanders 434).
Link to the full text of Maud: http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/desc/3030
In the poem the mentally unstable, unnamed speaker falls in love with a woman called Maud. The speaker and Maud are meeting in secret when Maud's brother appears. He insults the speaker and is probably killed by him in a duel. Maud dies and the speaker loses his mind completely, but when he joins the army he "recovers his sanity" ("Maud").
Death is a major theme in Maud, though it is not its natural, but rather its unnatural, violent form that keeps recurring throughout the poem. The suicide of the narrator's father, the (probable) murder of Maud's brother, and Maud's own premature death blend with visions of death that hold an escapist quality, connecting it strongly to the emotions of the speaker and thus to life itself. Early on in the poem Maud's beauty is described as "dead perfection" (Tennyson 1.2.7), herself being "ghostlike, deathlike, half the night long / Growing and fading and growing" (1.3.8-9). She seems to be in a state between death and life – ever "[g]rowing and fading." This obsession with death becomes even more evident in the second part of the poem where the speaker imagines himself to be in "a shallow grave" (2.5.6) and is thus actively blurring the line between life and death. Death, at least metaphorically, becomes another state of being, of self, and thus ceases to be a fundamental change to non-existence. Dorothy Mermin connects this rather distorted view of death to an inability of coping with loss and mourning. She describes the narrator's attitude as "an attempt to recapture the irrecoverable past, a refusal to accept the fact of loss," and draws the conclusion that "such an attempt cannot […] succeed, it leads to isolation, madness and further loss" (Mermin 267).
In Trench Poets we can find an echo of this "refusal to accept the fact of loss." The lyrical persona attempts to "rouse" (Rickword 6) his fellow soldier, not accepting his having passed away. He holds on to his "chum" (1) even though he is "far gone" (8) and "stiff and senseless as a post" (10) until he cannot, physically, bear his decaying presence any longer (23-24). Note also that he always talks of "him" and "he," never addressing the corpse as an impersonal "it." The denial of the actuality of death leads to this bizarre situation in which death loses its finality as long as the speaker refuses to accept the loss.
Since madness is a prominent theme in Alfred Tennyson's Maud, "healthy things" (if read as mental health) and the reference to "Maud" become an oxymoron.
By mentioning the poem Maud, the speaker in "Trench Poets," a soldier trying to cope with his comrade dying, establishes a connection to another soldier: the psychologically instable narrator of Maud who, at the end of the poem, joins the army to fight in the Crimean War.
The speaker of Maud esteems war higher than peace. In his view, people have made "the blessings of Peace [. . .] a curse" by fighting each other in secret (1.1.6). To him, open war seems more honest.
When the speaker decides to go to war, he gives several reasons for his decision: He claims that he will fight against an "iron tyranny" (3.2), and he is convinced that the war is God's will (cf. 3.4; 3.5). Furthermore, Maud's propagandistic song made him feel ashamed of his not being a warrior (cf. 1.4.1). For him, the war also proves that his people "are noble still" (3.5).
In Level 1, the theme of madness in both Maud and "Trench Poets" is mentioned. With regard to "Trench Poets," one could argue that the speaker lost his mind in war, because he does not realise that he is talking to a dead man throughout the whole poem. The speaker of Maud, however, could be said to recover his sanity by going to war. For example, while the speaker of Maud scorns others at the beginning of the poem, he feels that he is "one with [his] kind" when he goes to war (3.5). Thus, the war for him means reconciliation with his fellow people, while for the speaker of "Trench Poets" it means losing his sanity.
The speaker's assertion in quoting Maud for "healthy things" is most likely ironic. While the war proves to be a sort of remedy for the speaker in Maud, the "chum" (Rickword 1) in "Trench Poets" is not "recovering" with the war, but is actually dying in - and from - it. The sanity of the speaker of "Trench Poets" seems to be questionable, too. After all, he tries to "rouse" (6) his dead friend, not minding his being "stiff and senseless as a post" (10), and talks to him as if he were still alive (14). The term "healthy" is also ironic with respect to the high number of casualties in the First World War. In total, the Great War cost the lives of around 17 million soldiers as well as civilians. Of the 700,000 men fighting for Great Britain, 11.5 % died. A high number of those who survived were bodily or psychically maimed (cf. Winter 73).
However, it is also possible that the line is not ironic: The speaker of "Trench Poets" could also try to console his comrade by quoting Maud: The narrator in Maud claims that God decides who dies in war, thus, the quotes could convince the speaker's comrade that his death was predestined by God and serves a higher purpose.
In the OED, the word "purity" is defined as "the state or quality of being morally or spiritually pure; sinlessness […] innocence; chastity" ("purity, n. 1.").
The term "passion," however, can take several meanings:
(1) The sufferings of Jesus Christ or of martyrs in general (cf. "passion, n. I. 1. c." and cf. "passion, n. I. 2. a.").
(2) Any strong emotion (cf. "passion, n. II. 6. a.").
(3) A "fit, outburst, or state marked by . . . strong excitement, agitation, or other intense emotion. In early use also: a fit of madness or mental derangement" ("passion, n. II. 6. c."). (also see "healthy things")
(4) Strong affection or love (cf. "passion, n. II. 8. a.").
(5) Sexual desire (cf. "passion, n. II. 8. b.").
(6) An "intense desire or enthusiasm for […] something; the zealous pursuit of an aim" ("passion, n. II. 9. a.").
Since the term "passion" has many different meanings, the line "he sneered at passion's purity" is ambiguous. For more information, see "passion" Level 1.
The line "he sneered at passion's purity" can be understood in different ways. The fact that the word "passion" has a religious connotation could imply that the sufferings of the speaker of "Trench Poets" are equated with the sufferings of a martyr or of Jesus Christ. The equation of soldiers and Jesus Christ can be found in other poems from the First World War, for example in Charles Sorley's "All the Hills and Vales Along." If "passion" is understood as "sexual desire," the phrase "passion's purity" is cynical, because sexual desire and innocence are contradictory. If we take "passion" to mean "strong affection," the dead man could sneer at the speaker's affection and care for him. In this case, the line would not be ironic. Also, if we assume that "passion" means "the zealous pursuit of an aim," the dead man could sneer at the speaker's futile attempts to console him. If the word "passion" is supposed to mean "outburst […] marked by […] strong excitement", the man could sneer at the speaker's emotionality ("passion, n. II. 6. c."). An earlier meaning of "passion" was also "a fit of madness or mental derangement" (ibid.). Thus, the dead soldier could sneer at the speaker's madness.
The phrase "passion's purity" could also refer to the speaker of Maud. In this case, the line would be ironic, because the speaker's passion for Maud is not pure. Firstly, because he feels sexual desire for her and, secondly, because his passion drives him to kill Maud's brother. Thus, his passion is neither morally, nor legally pure.
It is also possible that "passion's purity" refers to the other poems quoted in "Trench Poets." In this case, the phrase "passion's purity" would be ironic, because all of them can be classified as love poetry or erotic poetry.
Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate in 1850 and held the position until his death in 1892 (Shatto 1). During his tenure he wrote two poems that dealt with the Crimean War: The narrative poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1854 and Maud in 1855. While "The Charge of the Light Brigade" can definitely be said to be the public and official work of a Laureate, Maud has been read as a far more private poem (cf. Markovits 488). As Markovits has shown, "Tennyson's monodrama revisits crucial periods of the poet's own life, including intimate aspects of his early love affairs and the family history of mental instability that contributed to his father's death" (488).
The Crimean War of 1854-1856 was only the first in a series of European wars and power-struggles which were to dominate the second half of the nineteenth century (see Royle ix). Nevertheless, there are important historical and political links to the First World War. For instance, a lot of the technology that is often connected to WWI today was actually first used in the Crimean War (see Edgerton 1-2; Royle ix). Additionally, similar to people's opinion during World War I, the attitude towards the Crimean War turned from romanticized notions about "Death or glory" (Edgerton 3) to the realization of the gruesome realities of trench warfare (see Edgerton 3).
Chum, as refuse from fish, might point to the use of soldiers in WWI as cannon fodder. The soldiers were "wasted" in pointless assaults, used like "chum," as a means to achieve military goals. Within the semantic field of fish and fishery it might be connected to "mackerel-eyed" (l.9).
"Get someone with child" is an archaic idiomatic expression and means, "Make a woman pregnant" ("Get. Phrases, 10").
The poem's speaker is quoting the second line of John Donne's "Song: Go and catch a falling star." (Donne 73, l. 2).
For the full text see: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/song.php
The line is part of the first stanza of Donne's poem in which the speaker is charging the addressee with impossible tasks, such as to "catch a falling star" (Donne 73, l. 1). "Get with child a mandrake-root" (73, l. 2) is to be read as: Make the mandrake root pregnant (cf. Allen 397, Redpath 119). The speaker stresses that, even if the addressee was able to fulfil these tasks, he could not convince him that a "true and fair" (Donne 74, l. 18) woman exists.
A possible interpretation would be to connect the impossibility of begetting a child on a seemingly human root to the futility of the speaker's attempt to "rouse" (Rickword 6) his dead friend by reciting poetry to him.
The root of the poisonous and narcotic plant Mandragora officinarum was "formerly credited with magi¬cal and medicinal properties esp. because of the supposedly human shape of its forked […] root" ("man¬drake, n."). It was used to promote conception, as a narcotic, an aphrodisiac, and a cathartic (i.e., to clear and liberate).
In the 16th and 17th century, "mandrake" was also used figuratively for "an unpleasant or unwanted person or thing; something to be rooted up, a pestilential growth" ("mandrake, n.").
For an image of a mandrake root see https://assets2.merriam-webster.com/mw/static/art/dict/mandrake.gif
The mandrake is mentioned twice in the Old Testament, presumably as a fertility drug and an aphrodisiac (see Ferber 122). In ancient Greece and Rome it was thought that the seemingly human-shaped root was in the power of dark spirits: "It could be safely uprooted only in the moonlight, after appropriate prayer and ritual, by a black dog attached to the plant by a cord" ("mandrake," Encyclopædia Britannica). After the dog had died of the shriek, the root could be used for beneficent purposes such as to sedate, to anaesthetize (cf. Hambel 56), to induce love and to increase sexual desire (see Roth 15), but also to poison, to drive insane and to kill (cf. Müller 619).
In medieval times the mandrake was thought to shriek when pulled from the ground to cause the madness or death of whoever uprooted it ("mandrake," Encyclopædia Britannica). "According to a fable mandrakes grew under the gallows fertilized by the urine or semen from a hanged thief" (Müller 622). In the early modern period, William Shakespeare and John Donne, for example, refer to the mandrake and its magical powers ("mandrake, n." OED Online); whether in their time, "educated men did not believe such things any more" (Robbins 193) is still being discussed among scholars (cf. Dickson 73).
The leaves and fruit of Mandragora officinarum contain several poisonous alkaloids (Müller 619). Taken in middle range doses, these cause hallucinations (Müller 617). Higher doses lead to the depression of the central nervous system (Vlachos and Poulos 521) and of the respiratory process (Müller 617) – com¬pare the comrade's "gaping" (Rickword l. 9). Severe poisoning results in the arrest of the respiratory process and, consequently, death (Müller 617).
The mandrake root's narcotic properties might relate to the comrade's apathy and stand in sharp con-trast to its aphrodisiac properties and the speaker's intention to "rouse" him (Rickword 6). See also: "Get with child a mandrake-root".
John Donne (1572 - 1631), was an English metaphysical poet and Dean of St. Paul's. He is best known for his love and erotic verses, religious poems and sermons. His major works include Songs and Sonnets and the Divine Poems.
Metaphysical Poetry is characterised by the use of inventive syntax, paradoxical images, and comparing ideas that seem unconnected to express philosophical and spiritual subjects. It combines imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an extended metaphor known as a conceit.
The term "metaphysics" was used first by Dryden to criticizes Donne for being driven by thought and not sensuality when writing love poetry: "He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with softnesses of love" (Dryden). However, Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher was the first to coin this term in relation to a literary genre: Metaphysical Poetry. It describes a loose group of poets including George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan, and of course John Donne.
All poems mentioned in Trench Poets are from Donne's collection Songs and Sonnets. Considering that the speaker quotes from love poems the quotations do not seem as randomly (‘random things') chosen to rouse his dead friend as stated.
In the context of "Trench Poets," the adjective "blacker" could refer to being "[d]eeply stained with dirt; soiled, filthy, begrimed" (OED "black, adj., 5"), or to "an emotion, state of mind, etc.: full of gloom, melancholy, misery, or sadness; [being] very depressed" (OED "black, adj., 14. a.").
In the poem, the expression "grow blacker" is ambiguous. The "chum," mentioned in the first line to which the adjective refers, is dead (this becomes clear at the end of the poem "He stank so badly [...] then rats ate his thumbs" l. 23-24), and his decomposing body is therefore turning black (see "blanch"). However, "grew blacker" can also be read as "becoming sadder," for the chum might be "full of gloom" because of the situation in the trenches and his death. There also seems to be a connection to the subsequent verb "blanch".
The noun "post" can either refer to "[a] support or column of timber or (later) some other strong material" (OED "post, n. 1"), "[t]he place where a soldier, guard, etc., is stationed when on duty" (OED "post, n. 5"), or to "[a]n autopsy, a post-mortem" (OED "post, n. 12").
Given the possible readings of "a post" (l. 10) (link to layer 1) the speaker might either try to emphasise that his chum is not able to stand anymore and, therefore, "lay[s] […] stiff and senseless as a post" (l. 9-10) or that the decomposing body of his chum, who "lay[s] gaping, mackerel-eyed" (l. 9), reminds him of a corpse after an autopsy.
"To rouse" has three possible meanings. When looking at the etymological background, the first one is "to animate": "to bring to life, to refresh" (OED "animate, v."). The second meaning is to wake somebody up ("rouse from sleep" OED "awake, v. Etymology 4"). It also refers to "a state of sexual arousal" (OED "arouse, v. 4"), which links it to the topic of Donne's Elegies.
When looking at the following lines of the poem, the speaker fails to animate his comrade as the chum "was far gone, / for he lay gaping, mackerel-eyed" (l. 8-9). By comparing the chum with a fish, another possible reading of "to rouse" is established, namely "[t]o sprinkle (fish, esp. herring) with salt, as part of the curing process" (OED "rouse, v. 3") in order to preserve it.
The (transitive) verb "blanch" mainly has two meanings relevant for the poem:
1. "To make white, whiten . . . by depriving of colour; to bleach. Also in a figurative sense" (OED "blanch, v., 1")
2. "To make pale with fear, cold, hunger, etc." (OED "blanch, v., 4")
"Blanch" refers to the chum mentioned in the first line of them poem and is ambiguous.
In the context of the poem, "blanch" is ambiguous. The most immediate implication in the context of lines 1-5 is that it refers to the soldier who is growing pale with fear by "the hum / of passing shells" (l. 4-5). Nevertheless, when the poem is read to completion and it becomes clear that the solider is dead with "rats [eating] his thumbs" (l. 24), the context of death changes the word's implication. If the solider is dead, his whiteness may be explained by his being deprived of colour. This is due to a stage of death called livor mortis or lividity, which is "the discoloration of the body after death due to the gravitational settling of blood which is no longer being pumped through the body by the heart" (Dix and Graham 4).
The negation of "would not" in line three points at the fact that this chum cannot grow paler, which is logical in the context of livor mortis: since there is no more blood current, there is no possibility of colour change. The soldier cannot grow whiter, but the accumulated and dried blood shows as black (cf. 5), reconnecting to the chum who "grew blacker" in line 2.
A mandrake is a plant with a short stem, a forked root and whitish flowers.
"The mandrake is poisonous, having emetic and narcotic properties, and was formerly used medicinally.
The forked root is thought to resemble the human form, and was fabled to utter a deadly shriek when plucked up from the ground. The notion indicated in the narrative of Genesis xxx, that the fruit when eaten by women promotes conception, is said still to survive in Palestine."
The mandrake's forked root, roughly resembling the human body, was valued in antiquity as an aphrodisiac and an enhancer of female fertility. But impregnating a mandrake root would be an impossibility (Mueller 494).
"intr. To divide, split, cleave."
An imaginary species of beings, more or less human in character, supposed to inhabit the sea, and to have the head and trunk of a woman, the lower limbs being replaced by the tail of a fish or cetacean.
"mermaids" could refer to the sirens of classical mythology, which seduced men with their singing and killed them subsequently. Thus teaching someone to hear the mermaids' singing without being killed serves as an impossible task (Ray 305).
"stinging" (OED): The action of wounding with a sting; an instance of this.
This sentence can be interpreted as a personification: to keep off envy's stinging means to stop the feeling of desiring a quality, possession, or other desirable thing belonging to someone else.
This line is ambiguous. By connecting this phrase to the semantic field of impossibility it can be read as a criticism on the more general human nature not being able to be content with what they already have and always desiring more. Due to this fact, this sentence presents another impossible task. By connecting this sentence with the underlying semantic field of love between a man and a woman, this line can have a different and more paradoxical reading: Since there is no women that is true and fair (see annotation true and fair) then there is no need to feel envious of women about their alleged "truth and fairness", too.
The OED defines "wind" in two different ways:
1. used to express various kinds of rapid or forcible motion;
2. to go on one's way, take oneself; to proceed, go.
A further definition:
"The noun is ambiguous between two homonyms: 'air in motion' and 'curved or twisted form'" (Mueller 494).
Since the noun is ambiguous on the basis of several homonyms ( e.g. "air in motion" , "curved or twisted form", "to go on one's way, take oneself; to proceed, go"), there are several possible ways of interpreting it. We decided to annotate the noun based on the meaning "air in motion". However, it could also be referred to as "curved or twisted form", since this meaning would rather fit into the rhyme scheme (due to its pronunciation), which would establish a contrastive connection with the following line ("honest mind" as something straightforward). The "curved or twisted form" fits to the a reading that suggests the underlying semantic fields throughout the poem consisting of negativity in combination with femininity.
Since wind can be a metaphor from sailing, e.g. favourable wind (the wind which is leading the ship in the right direction), the meaning 'air in motion' seems to be the most relatable (Craik 235).
In the context of the poem (especially in the first stanza), the lyrical I is reflecting on several impossible tasks. One of them is to "find what wind serves to advance an honest mind". Therefore, the context of the poem justifies the interpretation of "wind" as "favourable wind" which leads to the fulfilment of the task.
The phrase "serves to advance an honest mind" is ambiguous: A possible reading could be that the lyrical I is looking for something that gives honest people an advantage. A different reading suggests that the reader is asking about something that encourages people to be more honest.
"The objective case of the pronoun thou, representing the Old English accusative and dative."
Referring to the line above (Line 12) "Ride ten thousand days and night" is another statement to point out that it takes a lifetime to find someone who is "true and fair" - namely until one's hair is white like that of an old person.
"The subjective case of the second person singular pronoun."
Second person singular of the verb "return" in the present tense.
"Archaic second person singular of "will"."
"Beautiful to the eye; of pleasing form or appearance; good-looking."
"Loyal or faithful" (OED).
True in the sense of "not lying".
The ambiguity between true in the sense of "not lying" vs true in the sense of "loyal or faithful" was a common field to be explored by early modern poetry (cf. Shakespeare's SON 138)
In a different version of the poem the line says "go see" instead of "to see". In that case the second line would no longer be a specification of the „strange sights" mentioned in the line above but an appeal to the addressee to go and look for invisible things (Redpath 119).
In the version with "go see" instead of "to see",the theme of giving the addressee tasks impossible to fulfill is continued in the second stanza.
These two lines can be read in two different ways. They could either refer to the feeling of being "carried away by an urge to see strange sights" (Ray 119) or the ability to perceive things that are strange (Ray 305). However, that Interpretation may change, considering the textual variants at hand.
Second person singular of the verb 'find' in the present tense.
"A journey (usually of a long distance) to a sacred place undertaken as an act of religious devotion" (Brewer's Dictionary 550). It can also refer to the place to which a pilgrimage is made.
The speaker compares the finding of a woman "true and fair" to the religious concept of pilgrimage, thereby presenting that said woman as something divine and almost otherworldly. Donne's love poetry, in general, is permeated by religious concepts and language and "either representing religious myths or mythologizing the real" (Cruickshank 49). Though the conjunction of sexuality and religion might seem contradictory at first, for Donne, those were not mutually exclusive. Thus,the love for a woman or a wife led to love for God (Bennet 141). By remarking that "such a pilgrimage were sweet", the speaker admits that he would actually like to go through the lengths of such a pilgrimage (i.e. ride then thousand days and nights) in order to find a woman that is "true and fair" and, by extension, hasn't lost all hopes when it comes to genuine love. This short remark seemingly breaks, even if only for a short amount of time, with the bitter and cynical tone of the poem and reveals the conflicting emotions of the speaker.
During Donne's lifetime, a shift of values occurred by which sexuality was now sanctified by marriage. Before that, sexuality in and outside of marriage was considered sinful by doctrines of church and contemporary morality (cf. Bennet 139). Judging by the recurring themes of love and lust in Donne's works, sex outside of marriage was unproblematic as long as a "union of soul and body" would be achieved (ibid. 145).
In nineteenth-century literature, the replacement of v by w was usually associated with the Cockney dialect spoken in London (cf. Gerson 263; cf. Matthews 181). Dickens (and other authors) often used the v-w replacement in order to show that a speaker is uneducated (cf. Brook 223).
The association of the v-w- replacement with Cockney started as early as the sixteenth century and was used in literature until the 1890s (cf. Gerson 263; cf. Matthews 70; 181).
In Dickens's complete works, there are more than 1000 instances in which he spelt words with a w instead of a v (cf. Gerson 259-62.). It occurs most often in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (approx. 400), but there are also many instances in Master Humphrey's Clock, Martin Chuzzlewit, Great Expectations, and in Our Mutual Friend (cf. 259-62).
Cockney was one of the most common dialects in nineteenth-century literature; thus, there was a literary convention that determined how it should be presented in texts (cf. Matthews 41; cf. 156f.). Dickens followed this literary convention when he wrote Cockney speech; he did not want to create an accurate reflection of the dialect spoken in his time (cf. 156f.). Sometimes, he even used it for characters who did not live in London to "represent general vulgarisms" (157).
Dickens did not use all characteristics of Cockney dialect in his texts, since this would have made his writings very hard to understand (cf. Page 340f.). However, readers were familiar with the literary convention, so a few hints (like the v-w replacement) were sufficient (cf. 340). According to Page, other hints Dickens used in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club include:
(a) the substitution of –in' for –ing (waitin',shillin', etc.) . . . (b) the omission of t and d after certain consonants (mas'rs, gen'lm'n, etc.) ; (c) the omission of certain unaccented syllables (reg'lar, b'longs, etc.) ; (d) indicators of established uneducated pronunciations, such as the vowel changes suggested by waggin, biled, babby, etc. (341)
Other nineteenth-century authors who replaced v by w to imply that a character is speaking Cockney dialect were Charles Dibdin, Thomas Holcroft and William Makepeace Thackeray (cf. Gerson 267).
The replacement of v by w was a common trait of Cockney in the Elizabethan age, but when The Chimes was published in 1844, this pronunciation was no longer used by Cockneys in actual conversation (cf. Matthews 180-181.). Several Cockney speakers relate that it was only used by them to create a comic effect in Dickens's time (cf. 181). It has even been suggested that nineteenth-century Cockneys jokingly imitated the v-w replacement they read in Dickens's works, even though they knew it to be outdated (cf. Wyld 292).
The fact that Toby confuses v and w might show that he is not educated, because Dickens often uses the v-w replacement and other features of Cockney in order to show a speaker's lack of education. However, it is not clear whether Cockney was really only spoken by uneducated people (cf. Brook 223; cf. Matthews 157). On the one hand, the dialect was used by the people living in the East End of London, or more precisely, those "born within the sound of the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside" (Santipolo 415). The East End was a slum in the nineteenth century, so it is possible that there was seen a connection between poverty, a lack of education, and Cockney (Brown n.p.). In Anecdotes of the English Language, it is stated that Cockney expressions were regarded as "evidence of vulgarity and want of education" (Pegge v.). In 1909, The Conference on the Teaching of English in London Elementary School also claimed that the
Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any person in the capital city of the Empire. (qtd. in Matthews 157)
On the other hand, several authors contradict these opinions: Samuel Pegge tries to defend the dialect by claiming that Cockney can be seen as a continuation of the English of former centuries (Pegge 19-20). Wyld differentiates between the "typical Cockney English of London, as spoken by educated Middle Class people", and the Cockney of the streets (7). Walker states that the v-w replacement could also be observed in people "not always of the lower order", although it is "a blemish of the first magnitude" (xii-xiii). It is also suggested that the stereotype of the uneducated Cockney was created in burlesques like Bickerstaffe's The Hypocrite, in which characters were ridiculed "for vulgarity of mind as well as vulgarity of speech" (Matthews 30).
Saying "Nor' Wester" instead of "North Wester" when referring to wind coming from the north-west is traditionally associated with seamen (cf. Gerson 248).
Wind from the north-west is usually said to be very strong (cf. "north-wester, n." Def. 1).
It is possible that the narrator uses a term that is associated with seamen because it is mentioned in the context of a woman thinking about her husband at sea.
The whole passage emphasises the benign (and possibly supernatural) qualities of the chimes: In order to console and encourage the despondent, they chime loud enough to drown even the noise of a "blustering Nor' Wester". Thus, the sound of the chimes is portrayed as having exceptional powers, as this wind is usually associated with a very strong gale (cf. "north-wester, n." Def. 1). For further aspects relating to this power, see "Toby Veck" Level 2 - Interpretation and Level 3 - Interpretation.
"To live like fighting cocks" means "to have a profusion of the best food, to be supplied with the best", because fighting cocks were highly fed to increase their strength and endurance ("cock, n.1"; "to live like fighting cocks."). By this statement, Mr. Tugby accuses Meg and Richard of living beyond their means and taking advantage of him and his wife.
Given the miserable conditions Meg and Richard have to live in and the fact that Meg works night and day in order to support her family, Mr Tugby's statement is clearly not true. Rather, it is Mr. Tugby who is living like a fighting cock: At the beginning of the fourth quarter, he is depicted as a fat man, who eats muffins, crumpets, and Sally Lunns for dinner (cf. Dickens 146).
Meg and Richard clearly do not live like fighting cocks. Dickens here uses irony in order to expose Mr. Tugby's cold-heartedness and hypocrisy.
Although the idiomatic expression "to live like fighting cocks" is used in order to describe a worriless and luxurious life, real fighting cocks did not have such a life. Their fights were bloody and sometimes ended with the death of one of the cocks (cf. Egan 149; 153). In the 1835 Cruelty to Animals Act, cock-fights were banned in order to stop this mistreatment ("Cruelty to Animals Act, 1835."). However, cock-fighting still remained popular in Dickens's time and was held quite openly (cf. "cock-fighting"). Thus, readers knew how fighting cocks were treated and might have made a connection between the cocks' life and Meg and Richard's daily struggle to survive: They do live like fighting cocks, but in the literal rather than the idiomatic sense.
"Sally Lunns" is an abbreviation for "Sally Lunn buns". It is a baked good, similar to the French brioche. Sally Lunns are yeast-raised, white wheat flour bread buns made with added egg and butter ("Sally Lunns").
For a picture see: http://www.sallylunns.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/sallylunnbun1.jpg?2419e6
There are numerous theories about the origin of Sally Lunns. The most prominent theory is displayed by Sally Lunn's Historic Eating House, a teahouse, museum and the oldest house in Bath. According to them, the Sally Lunn bun was created by Huguenot refugee Solange Luyon who came to England in 1680 and was called Sally Lunn due to her new environment's mispronunciation of French. She found work in the kitchen of a bakery in Lilliput Alley where she created those special buns and sold them on the street. They became very popular in Georgian England and since then many bakers all over the world tried to replicate the original recipe. However, Sally Lunn's Historic Eating House is said to be the only one that bakes according to the original secret recipe ("Meet Sally Lunn").
Another theory claims that Sally Lunn Buns are an anglicised version of the French breakfast cake "Solimemne". In 1845, Eliza Acton, cook and author of "Modern Cookery for Private Families", refers to "Solimemne - A rich French breakfast cake, or Sally Lunn" ("Sally Lunn"). Yet, one more theory combines even both and speaks of an anonymous French baker, around 1775, who sold her special buns on the street of Bath. Through her cries "solilem!" she was called Sally Lunn ("Sally Lunn").
Though the place of origin is known to be Bath, it is not possible to pinpoint the time in which Sally Lunns became common in England. However one of the earliest mentionings dates back to "a poem printed in ʽThe Caledonian Mercuryʼ on 9 August 1776 which says of Dublin; ʽSally Lun and saffron cake are thereʼ" (qtd. in "Sally Lunn"; "William Preston" 372). The Sally Lunn bun is often confused with the "London Bath Bun" (short: "Bath Bun") which was created in 1851 and is smaller, more doughy and sweeter in taste than a Sally Lunn ("Meet Sally Lunn").
On the basis of Carper and Attridge's system of indicating beats and offbeats (B – beat, o – offbeat, -o= - double offbeat, with a slightly more pronounced emphasis on the second part), the stress in these phrases can be indicated as follows (cf. Bauer 114):
Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!
B o B [o] B o B [o] B -o= B B o
As regards the distribution of vowel sounds, we come to the following:
Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!
[əʊ][ɪ] [e] [əʊ][ɪ] [e] [i:] [ə] [ʊ] [ɑ] [əʊ][ɪ]
The speech of the bells in The Chimes is a recurring motif that can be read as a leitmotif in the story. The bells call for Trotty and guide his way through the narrative. There is a total of seven speeches Trotty hears in their ringing.
As Matthias Bauer has noted, the "sound of the bells is both rhythmically and melodiously translated into human speech": "the bell notes appear […] as vowel sounds in a change of [əʊ] and [e], as well as [i:] and [ɑ]; the voice of the bells is thus founded on an alternation of back and front vowels (back/front // back/front // front/back // front/back); we note that this is a monotonous alternation but that it is rhythmically enlivened by the inversion of the back/front sequence in ‘keep […] heart"; if the offbeat vowels are included, we get an additional short [ɪ] and [ʊ] (another front/back pair) and perhaps a schwa in ‘a,' that is, a peal of between four and seven bells at all.
Toby's peculiar trot is one of "a regular alternation of beat and offbeat with variation" (116). According to the OED, the "combination of repetition and variation" is the definition of the expression "to ring the changes" (OED, "ring, v.1" 17.; Bauer 116). Toby is thus intricately linked to the chimes not only on the level of physiology and psychology, allegory and the supernatural (cf. Bauer 113), but also on the level of sound. The rhythmical patterns and sound patterns are accordingly not merely iconic, but they are "the meaning itself" (Bauer 122): "Dickens contrasts a world, a system, and a language ‘without a chance or change,' with a world marked by repetition and variation, that is, by rhythm or ‘change'" (Bauer 116). For further instances of repetition and variation, see the annotations on "He saw them young, he saw them old… " and "He sat down in his chair… ".
It can be noted that Dickens, "although imitating the different bell note and their ups and downs, does not represent a systematic, full peal as in the art of change ringing (made popular in English literature by Dorothy Sayers's The Nine Tailors)" (Bauer 114). Rather, he links Toby's ability to recognize "verbal messages in the melody and rhythm of the bells" to Toby's "own existence" (114): "And this is not only because his usual place of abode is a niche of an ancient church but because his life is intricately connected with other rhythms, such as the rhythm of the weather. Toby's own rhythm fits in well here, for whenever he has a message to deliver, he moves in his own particular and peculiar trot, from which he derives his nickname" (Bauer 114) This peculiar trot is one of "a regular alternation of beat and offbeat with variation" (116). For more information on this trot, see Level 3.
In this passage, Dickens again employs a specific speech rhythm:
He saw them young, he saw them old,
o B o B o B o B
he saw them kind, he saw them cruel,
o B o B o B o B [o]
For further examples of this rhythm in The Chimes see [Links einfügen]
This passage here has a special rhythm, which Dickens also uses in other parts of The Chimes.
He sat down in his chair and beat his knees and cried;
- o - B - o - B o B o B o B
he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed;
- o - B - o - B o B o B o B
he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed
- o - B - o - B o B o B o B
and cried together;
o B o B o
For other examples of a similar rhythm in The Chimes, see "Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!" and "He saw them young, ...".
Anon is a temporal adverb and has several meanings. The most fitting meaning in this context is:
"Now at this time, in contrast to at that time, presently again; here again" ("anon, adv.").
A casuist is a "theologian (or other person) who studies and resolves cases of conscience or doubtful questions regarding duty and conduct" ("casuist, n."). In the present sentence, however, the word is used figuratively (see Level 2).
In this passage, the word is used in order to emphasise that Toby does not contemplate why he likes the bells but that he instinctively feels close to them.
Another spelling of "chant", which means: "To sing, warble. arch. or poet." ("chant, v. 1. a.").
The word also has religious connotations: "To recite musically . . . to sing to a chant, as the Psalms, etc., in public worship" ("chant, v. 4.").
As "chaunt" also has religious connotations, it is possible that the wind is imitating a priest singing psalms at the altar (cf. Dickens 87).
The tradition of ringing out the old year and in a new year was established in the early seventeenth century and was followed all over England (cf. Walters 141; cf. "The History of English Change Ringing"; cf. Baker 100). The proceeding varied from church to church, though the most prevalent practice seems to have been the following: Before midnight, bells that were muffled by caps were rung. After midnight, these caps were removed and one could hear the open peal (cf. Wright 18-21).
It seems to have been a secular rather than a religious tradition (cf. Walters 141). The ringing of muffled bells was said to symbolise the death of the old year, while the open peal welcomed the new year (cf. Baker 100).
This is what a half-muffled bell looks like: http://www.whitacrebells.co.uk/uploads/1/0/1/4/10146774/328889.jpg?275
And this is what half-muffled bells sound like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCVqfKU1HdM
The echo you can hear in this video is the sound made by the half-muffled bells.
The ringing of the bells in The Chimes is important for two reasons.
Firstly, given that it symbolises death and renewal, one could draw a connection between Meg's (imagined) death and her ‘rebirth’ after Toby wakes from his dream or vision.
But more importantly, they represent how Toby's feelings towards the poor change. While he still thinks that poor people like him are useless for society and born bad, they sound fierce, impetuous, and haunting (cf. Dickens 144). When he is shown the future of his daughter, they are silent. After he has realised that poor people are not born bad, but that misery and despair drive them to commit crimes, the chimes sound like the "old familiar Bells [...] so merrily" (Dickens 157).
There is also a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson about ringing the old year out, which was published six years later than Dickens's The Chimes, in 1850. In the poem, Tennyson refers to the symbolic power of the bells ringing at midnight: They represent not only the end of the year, but also the hope that the next year will bring a change for the better.
Ring Out, Wild Bells
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Goblins are generally thought to be "mischievous and ugly demon[s]" that have a "small and grotesque" appearance ("goblin, n. 1"; Briggs 194). The name is derived from the medieval French word gobelin (cf. Simpson 146; cf. "goblin, n.1"). Dickens's description of the goblins in The Chimes might be influenced by the illustration (Fig. 1) by George Cruikshank for an 1823 translation of the brothers Grimm's story Rumpelstilskin (cf. Parker 142).
[Bild einfügen]
The mention of the goblin in the subtitle marks The Chimes as a ghost story. Around 1800, it became customary to tell ghost stories on Christmas (cf. Parker 104). Apart from The Chimes, Dickens also published other ghost stories for this time of the year: The most famous of them is A Christmas Carol (1843), but he also wrote The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (1848) and others. For a collection of Dickens's ghost stories see the Wordsworth Classics edition titled Complete Ghost Stories.
Even though the telling of ghost stories at Christmas became increasingly popular only after 1800, the connection of goblins and winter is already mentioned in texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth century. In Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, one can read: "A sad tale's best for winter, I have one / Of sprites and goblins" (2.1.33-34.). Another example is James Thomson's poem The Seasons. In the Winter-Part it is written: "Heard solemn, goes the Goblin-Story round" (619). In the introduction to the sixth canto of Marmion, Sir Walter Scott forms a connection between goblins and winter, as well: "On Christmas eve a Christmas tale . . . To jostle conjurer and ghost/ Goblin and witch!" (134-141). Thus, The Chimes stands in the long tradition of texts that form a connection between goblins and winter.
In The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836), Dickens makes use of this tradition, as well. In the 29th chapter of The Pickwick Papers, a Christmas story is told in which a goblin appears. He is described as a "strange and unearthly figure" with "long fantastic legs", sinewy arms and a "short round body" (Dickens 398). The main character of this story is Gabriel Grub, a misanthropist who hates Christmas. Just like Toby Veck in The Chimes, he is called by mysterious voices. Another parallel to The Chimes is the following description of the apparition of the goblins:
As the goblin laughed, the sexton [Gabriel Grub] observed […] a brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth with a lively air, and whole troops of goblins […] poured into the churchyard. (400)
In the course of the story, the goblin king kidnaps Gabriel Grub and takes him into the earth, where he shows to him "misery and gloom, a few of the pictures from our own great storehouse" (401). Grub is shown several incidents in the life of a poor family and – just like Toby Veck – has visions of the miserable future of his own family. Like the goblin in The Chimes, the goblin in The Posthumus Papers of the Pickwick Club wants to teach an embittered man a lesson.
Ghost stories were not only popular on Christmas, but throughout the whole year. Some argue that this can be attributed to the "rise of positivistic science and decline of religion" (Puntner & Byron 27). Ghost stories are seen as counteracting this development by questioning science and reason (cf. 27). Secondly, the popularity of ghost stories might be linked to the emergence of new periodicals and literary magazines, which would feature these stories (cf. 27). Dickens, for example, published ghost stories in Household Words and All the Year Round (cf. 27). In Victorian Gothic fiction supernatural elements tend to be a part of the world of the contemporary reader, as opposed to earlier Gothic fiction, in which the supernatural only occurs in "exotic or historical settings" (26).
"Speechmaking" (usually spelled "speech-making") means the action of delivering speeches or an occasion on which speeches are delivered (cf. speech-making, n."). The word is rare and it was mostly used in the nineteenth century.
Will Fern criticises Alderman Cute and others for using poor people like him in order to demonstrate their charity in public, e.g. by inviting them to attend a "fine Speechmaking".
In The Chimes, there are two instances in which charity events are depicted as being more about improving the benefactors' public image than about helping the poor: Sir Joseph Bowley tells Toby that a poor man may once in his life "receive – in public, in the presence of the gentry – a Trifle from a Friend" (Dickens 111). In his vision, Toby also witnesses a banquet at which the poor first have to eat in a different hall than their benefactors and, at a given signal, have to enter and "flock[ing] in among their Friends and Fathers" (133). Also see the annotation about voting charities.
A teetotum is a toy that is "spun round by twisting the upper part between the thumb and finger" (Cassell's Book 829).
Photograph of a teetotum (Victoria and Albert Museum): By comparing the umbrellas to teetotums, Dickens might emphasise their fast and chaotic movement.
Teetotums were already used by Greeks and Romans in ancient times (cf. "teetotum"). The toy can have four, six or eight sides. Originally, its four sides were marked with T, H, N and P, meaning "Take all, Take half, Nothing and Put in again" (Cassell's Book 829). Later, the sides were numbered. The teetotum is used in games as a substitute for a dice. There are no games made especially for teetotums, but they are often used for gambling. Sometimes, these games are played in order to gain nuts or similar items (cf. ibid.).
In Dickens's time, the world had several meanings, but in this context it most likely means "[a] small ornament or fancy article, usually an article of jewellery for personal adornment" ("trinket, n.1.").
"Afore" is a regional variation of "before" (cf. Gerson 300-01). Here, it suggests that Fern is speaking Dorset dialect, but other dialects also used this form in the nineteenth century. The word also appears in Poems of Rural Life, in the Dorset Dialect (1844) – one of the most prominent examples of Dorset dialect in nineteenth-century literature. In this collection, William Barnes spells the word "avore" (cf. Barnes 285).
Even though the context makes clear that Fern is from Dorset, there is no evidence that "nowt" was used for "nothing" in Dorset dialect. In his Poems of Rural Life, in the Dorset Dialect, William Barnes uses neither "nowt" nor "nawt". Bertil Widén only records / nɔ́þən / as "nothing" in Dorset dialect (cf. 71). Dickens here mistakenly uses a Yorkshire dialect word (cf. Gerson 104) for a speaker from Dorset.
"Afeard" is a regional variation of "afraid". Here, it is used by a speaker from Dorset. In one of the most prominent examples of nineteenth-century Dorset dialect in literature, this word is spelled "afeärd" (cf. Barnes 209).
"Afeard" was common in Old and Middle English, but was later replaced by "afraid" (cf. "afeared, adj.").
The words (mis)fortune, creature, and nature, which Fern uses in these passages, are of French origin, which means that they were originally pronounced with a [t] (cf. Gerson 253). Later, the plosive [t] in these words became the affricate [tʃ] in standard English but remained [t] in the dialects (cf. Wright §285). Thus, the standard pronunciation would be /ˈkriːtʃə/, while Dickens's spelling suggests the pronunciation /ˈkriːtə/ (cf. Gerson 251). Dickens often uses this pronunciation for uneducated characters.
The development from [t] to [tʃ] in words derived from French dates back to the early eighteenth century and might have begun as a "stage affectation" (Gerson 255). Webster suggests that the pronunciation with [tʃ] was introduced by the actor David Garrick (1717-1779) and that people then started to imitate the pronunciation of the famous actor (cf. 148; cf. 30). It is also argued that the pronunciation with [tʃ] was later used by "refined" speakers (cf. Gerson 253).
Despite the alleged use by "refined" speakers, this pronunciation drew criticism. In the 1780s, it is called an "anomaly of our language" (Nares 131) and a "modern corruption in the English language" (Webster 146). Nares also states that in some plays and novels the "proper" pronunciation with [t] is even ridiculed as "low-lived" (130), an observation that is shared by Webster (cf. Webster 158). It is possible that Dickens, writing eighty years later, still uses the pronunciation with [t] instead of [tʃ] in order to indicate that a speaker is "low-lived".
While it is likely that in The Chimes the pronunciation with [t] indicates that Will Fern is not educated, this pronunciation is used to create a humorous effect in other works by Dickens. Among the other characters created by Dickens who often use this pronunciation are the Cockney Sam Weller who works as a valet (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club), Mrs. Gamp, an alcoholic midwife (Martin Chuzzlewit), and Captain Cuttle (Dombey and Son). Furthermore, this pronunciation is sometimes used by the Americans in Martin Chuzzlewit (cf. Gerson 252f.).
For information about Will Fern's pronunciation see the annotation about misfortun'.
For information about Will Fern's pronunciation see the annotation about misfortun'.
For information about Will Fern's pronunciation see the annotation about misfortun'.
This lack of concord between verb and subject is a feature of the grammar used by uneducated or poor characters in Dickens (cf. Brook 242).
This lack of concord between verb and subject is a feature of the grammar used by uneducated or poor characters in Dickens (cf. Brook 242).
This lack of concord between verb and subject is a feature of the grammar used by uneducated or poor characters in Dickens (cf. Brook 242).
Unlike many of the other words used in this paragraph that deviate from standard spelling, "'em" is not an indicator of social status in Dickens. In his works, users of the colloquial "‘em" belong to "all kinds of social classes" (Gerson 251). Among other characters created by Dickens who often use " ‘em" are Sam Weller (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club), Tapley (Martin Chuzzlewit), Boffin (Our Mutual Friend), Blackpool and Bounderby (Hard Times) (cf. ibid.).
‘Tan't here means "it is not" (cf. Gerson 32).
While the omission of the i of the word "it" is very prevalent in Shakespearean texts, this spelling/pronunciation was "clearly dialectical" in the nineteenth century (Gerson 33). Thus, Dickens's omission of the i is "mainly restricted to provincial characters" (ibid.). ‘Tan't also occurs in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, David Copperfield, and Hard Times (cf. ibid.).
Saying "somewheres" instead of "somewhere" is either a sign of dialect or of vulgar speech (cf. "somewhere, adv. and n. derivatives.").
From the context, we can gather that Will Fern was an agricultural labourer before he came to London and that he mainly worked as a thresher (he "sift[ed] grain from husk", Dickens 116).
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, agricultural labourers were the "poorest strata of the English rural population" and their work no longer enabled them to make a living (Hobsbawm & Rudé 34; cf. Kerr 93). Their poverty had many reasons, including enclosures (and the labourers' subsequent loss of independence), rural overpopulation, the farmers' unwillingness to pay sufficient wages, the invention of machines that made labourers superfluous, and the general economic situation after the end of the Napoleonic wars (cf. Hobsbawn & Rudé 30-55; Hammond & Hammond; Kerr 90-119; Snell). (See Level 2 for more detailed information on these issues.) These problems led to widespread protests, for example during the so-called Swing Riots 1830-32.
The dire situation of nineteenth-century agricultural labourers had several reasons:
From 1750 to 1850, land that was originally open to be cultivated by all was turned into the private land of big farmers (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 27). This means that smaller farmers could no longer plant and reap their own food; they became mere agricultural labourers and lost their economic independence (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 27; 35; cf. Okeden 76). Thus, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, many farmers had become "landless proletarian[s] relying almost exclusively on wage labour or on the Poor Law" (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 35).
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the population of Britain grew not only in the cities but also in the country (cf. Armstrong 96). However, labour demand in agriculture did not rise correspondingly, which caused high rates of unemployment in rural districts (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 42). Even if no tools like threshing machines were used, there was often not enough work for everyone (cf. Kerr 105). Furthermore, non-agricultural work did not develop in agricultural counties (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 42-43; Boyer 5; 231). It is debated whether many among the rural poor were able and willing to migrate to more urban counties in order to find work (see Level 3). Those who did migrate most often went to London, which is also what Will Fern does in The Chimes (cf. Boyer 176).
In The Chimes, Will Fern asserts that the never refused to do any work "however hard, or poorly paid" (Dickens 116).
The agricultural labourers' low income was mainly due to the farmers' unwillingness to raise their wages (cf. Kerr 99; cf. Snell 376). The farmers were able maintain (or even lower) the wages for two reasons: Firstly, it is often argued that overpopulation and a high rate of unemployment ensured that farmers could always find men who were in need of work and who would accept low payment (cf. Snell 94; Armstrong 97). This view is, however, contested by Boyer, who argues that labourers were willing to migrate to other counties if their wages were too low (cf. 209). (For more information on this debate see Level 3).
Secondly, the farmers could rely on the poor rates [link to "poor rates" annotation] to support their labourers (cf. Kerr 99). This means that farmers deliberately paid wages that were so low that they did not enable their workers to feed their families, as they knew that the labourers would receive aid through the poor rates. Thereby, employers cut costs by forcing rate-payers to finance a part of their workers' income (cf. Boyer 5). Even though all farm owners were rate-payers themselves, they rather paid increasing poor rates than raise the wages of their labourers (cf. Kerr 99). As a consequence, the "Poor Law [...] became the general framework for the labourer's life" and no matter how much they worked, their income and poor rate support only provided them with a minimum to survive (Hobsbawm & Rudé 47). This made it impossible for the labourers to make provisions for times of unemployment and their old age, as they could not save any of their earnings (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 53).
Furthermore, the wages were not only low, they were also not even guaranteed: Often, agricultural labourers were not paid on days when work was impossible (e.g. due to rain), so when someone started to work in the morning, he could not be sure that he would receive any money in the evening (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 44).
Will Fern's assertion that he "could sift grain from husk here and there" hints at the fact that he did not have a permanent occupation when still in his home county and when Trotty meets him, he has just come "up to London […] to look for employment" (Dickens 116; 112; my emphasis). One reason for his unemployment during winter could be the "deterioration of social relations [between farmer and labourer] in southern agriculture" (Snell 68).
Until the middle of the eighteenth century, unmarried agricultural labourers like Will Fern were hired for a whole year and lived under the same roof as the farmer (cf. Snell 73; 101). (Married labourers usually lived in their own house and were hired for shorter periods; cf. Snell 73). As farmers became richer and more powerful from the second half of the eighteenth century onwards (and especially during the Napoleonic Wars), they grew apart from their workers (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 45; cf. Snell 87). This resulted in an "alienation of master and employed and a segregation of class interest and cultures" (Snell 68).
From this time onwards, agricultural labourers were only hired on a weekly or even daily basis and – like Will Fern – had to live in their own cottages (cf. Snell 67-103; Hobsbawm & Rudé 43-44). Thus, "the farmhand became essentially a causal labourer, hired and dismissed at will" (Hobsbawm & Rudé 44). For the labourers, short-term hiring was especially problematic during winter. When hired for a whole year, he could be assured that he would have an occupation and income even when the season made agriculture impossible (cf. Hobsbawn and Rudé 98). This security was lost when the worker was only hired for a week or day. Thus, unemployment during winter dramatically increased. The situation was aggravated by the fact that less and less non-agricultural work was available for agricultural workers due to the Industrial Revolution – goods were no longer manufactured at home but in the factories of industrial centres far away from rural areas (Snell 222; see also below).
Boyer, however, contradicts this view and argues that "because of the high cost of indoor relief, […] most farmers preferred full-employment contracts to contracts containing seasonal layoffs and indoor relief for unemployed labourers" (Boyer 215; cf. 222). Thus, according to him, farmers preferred hiring labourers for a whole year rather than pay for their poor relief.
Three economic changes that took place around 1800 also added to the agricultural labourers' dire situation. Firstly, machines like the threshing machine made many labourers superfluous, which often caused them to destroy these tools, as "threshing was one of the few kinds of works left that provided the labourer with a means of existence above starvation level" (cf. Kerr 105; Hammond & Hammond 221). Threshing was usually done in winter, when labourers were otherwise out of work; thus, the threshing machine "displaced a precious source of winter employment" (Shave 73)
Secondly, before the industrial revolution, many farm labourers also manufactured goods during their times of unemployment, especially in winter (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 36). Due to the revolution, most goods started to be produced in factories, which left less and less work to rural villagers (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 36).
Thirdly, around 1800, cereal crops became more widespread, which minimised "all-the-year-round work and maximise[d] the seasonal fluctuations of labour demand" (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 44).
During the Napoleonic war, little food was imported to Britain, thus British farmers could sell their corn at high prices. After the war, however, the prices collapsed (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 33) (also see "Corn Laws"). Hence, "in the years from 1815 to 1850 the British farming community saw itself under extreme pressure" and farmers cut costs "at the expense of their labourers" (Hobsbawm & Rudé 30). As a consequence, "unemployment [in agriculture] dramatically increased post 1815" (Shave 68).
When discussing the living conditions of nineteenth-century agricultural labourers, scholars are mainly divided over two questions: (1) whether rural labourers were prone to migrate to more industrial counties and (2) whether wages declined after the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834.
Regarding the first question, Hobsbawm and Rudé argue that even labourers who could not find work in agriculture seldom migrated to urban areas (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 42-43). It is asserted that the main reason for this unwillingness to migrate was that one could only receive aid through the poor rates [link to "poor rates" annotation] in one's settled parish and that until the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 [link to "Poor Law" annotation] those who applied for aid in another parish would be sent home under the Poor Removal Act of 1795 (cf. Kerr 97). In The Chimes, Will Fern relates how he tried to move away from his village in order to find work, which led to him being treated as a vagabond [link to vagabond annotation] (cf. Dickens 137). In some urban areas (especially London), migrants could be stranded without employment, poor relief and the hope to be brought back to their home parish, because these areas were "increasingly disinclined even to remove, and the pauper was left entirely to his or her own devices" (Snell 73). However, after 1834, migration from the agricultural south to the industrial north was endorsed by the so-called migration scheme (cf. Redford 95-96). Nevertheless, it is argued that "the number of labourers and their families who actually made the move was small" and Redford contends that many southern labourers still preferred to remain in their county (Edsall 52; cf. Redford 96)
Boyer, however, contradicts this view and asserts that rural labourers were very mobile and frequently migrated, especially (like Will Fern) to London (cf. 5, 176, 209-10, 230). This view is shared by Lindert and Williamson (cf. Lindert & Williamson 22).
The question whether agricultural wages (and wages in general) rose, fell, or remained stable after the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834 is even more contested. On the one hand, scholars argue that "agricultural wages had not increased with the cost of living" (Okeden 76) and Snell and Clark argue that these wages even fell after 1834 (cf. Snell 124, 126, 129-30; cf. Clark 27). Snell contends that fear of the workhouse induced labourers to accept even "precarious employment at low wages" rather than being unemployed, because able-bodied workers who were unemployed could no longer hope to receive outdoor relief (i.e. outside the workhouse) after 1834 (cf. Snell 124; 126; 129).
On the other hand, Boyer argues that Snell did not take into account the falling cost of living and asserts that "in contrast to Snell's conclusion, agricultural labourers' income did not decline throughout southern England after 1834" (cf. Boyer 207, 210, 220). Nevertheless, Boyer concludes that the New Poor Law did not have a positive effect on living standards (cf. Boyer 193). Lindert and Williamson are even more optimistic than Boyer; they argue that the real wages of farm labourers rose after 1834 and that "the average worker was much better off in any decade from the 1830s on than in any decade before 1820" (Lindert & Williamson 12, cf. 13).
Feinstein opts for the middle way and concludes that "[m]ost British workers and their families did not experience an actual deterioration in their standard of living during and after the Industrial Revolution. But neither did they enjoy the rapid progress which the super-optimists have discerned" (Feinstein 652).
Dorset (formerly: Dorsetshire) is a county in southern England. During Dickens's time, it was "agricultural and pastoral", as it had not been affected by the industrial revolution and was therefore comparatively backwards (Fripp & Wragge 229; cf. Crick 325; cf. Kerr 161-62). Dorset was a "by-word for agrarian poverty and wretchedness" and the cottages of agricultural workers often were "of the poorest description" (Page 257; Fripp & Wragge 258).
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In Dickens's manuscript, Fern is an inhabitant of Hertfordshire. Later, however, Dickens changed the location to Dorset. Page and Slater argue that he chose Dorset because this county was so infamous for its poverty (cf. Slater 266n30; cf. Page 257).
Around 1750, Dorset agricultural labourers already lived in poverty, but not to such an extent as during Dickens's time (cf. Kerr 161-62). In 1842, it was reported that the family of a Dorset agricultural labourer, consisting of eleven people, earned only 16s 6d [link to currency annotation] a week and had to live in a cottage with just two rooms (cf. Buckle 285).
There were two main reasons for the poverty of the Dorset agricultural population, namely overpopulation and low wages (cf. Kerr 162). The farmers' practice of paying labourers less than they needed in order to survive [link to Agricultural labourers L2 "low wages"] and depend on the poor rates [link to poor rates] to compensate the low wages was very prevalent in Dorset (cf. Kerr 167). In many areas of Dorset, this led farmers to employ mostly unskilled labourers and pay them as little as possible, knowing that they would be supplemented through poor relief (cf. Fripp & Wragge 259). Women and children in Dorset often contributed to the meagre family income by making buttons, but by the 1840s this occupation was "threatened by the industrial manufacture of pearl button" (Shave 74).
In 1834, ten years prior to the publication of The Chimes, Dorset also became known for the so-called Tolpuddle martyrs. These martyrs were six agricultural labourers who were tried and transported to Australia for trying to form a trade union in order to protest against a reduction of their wages (cf. Fripp & Wragge 259). Trade unions were still illegal then and the men were convicted for swearing an oath never to tell any of the union's secrets (cf. 260). The case gained nation-wide notoriety (cf. 259).
For the problems of nineteenth-century agricultural labourers in general see.
It is likely that not only Will Fern is from Dorset but that the Bowleys are as well. In the third quarter, Will Fern interrupts a meeting at Bowley Hall, during which he says that its inhabitants can see his "cottage from the sunk fence over yonder", i.e. that his home is close to the Bowleys' (Dickens 136-37). This could indicate that the Bowleys are directly connected to – and even partly responsible for – Will Fern's dire situation.
Slater's and Page's assertion that it was especially Dorset that was associated with poverty in the nineteenth century is, at least for the most part, correct (cf. Slater 266n30; cf. Page 257). Snell explains that the "Dorset agricultural labourer was associated with about the most squalid and depressed living standards to be found in England, and the most embittered class relations" (Snell 387). Furthermore, in Dorset "[c]ottage building was far behind by the 1830s, and remained so until very late in the nineteenth century" (Snell 380). In a similar strain, Shave states that the county was notorious for its "severe labouring conditions" and "below average agricultural wages" (Shave 73).
However, two examples can be used to partly qualify the impression that Dorset was seen as the poorest agricultural county in Britain: In 1830 Vincent Stuckey argued that agricultural labourers in Somerset are "considerably worse off than in Dorsetshire and Devonshire" (qtd. in Poole 169). Furthermore, articles from The Times suggest that in 1844 (when The Chimes was published) Norfolk and Suffolk rather than Dorset were at the centre of attention as poor agricultural counties. This was due to the frequent incendiary attacks by farm labourers in these parts of Britain.
It is nevertheless undeniable that Dorset was one of the poorest agricultural counties during Dickens's time and that it was also perceived as such by many contemporaries. However, it is impossible to ascertain whether Dickens shared this opinion and whether this was the driving force behind his decision to make Will Fern an inhabitant of Dorset rather than of Hertfordshire.
In the following paragraph, Will Fern uses non-standard grammar and pronunciation. On the basis of his language we can discern two things:
Firstly, it is implied that he is uneducated (see, for example, "misfortun'", "somewheres" or "their lives is").
Secondly, he is from Dorset (see "afore", "afeared"), even though the words he uses were also prevalent in Yorkshire dialect. For an explanation why Fern is not from Yorkshire but from Dorset, see Level 3 Intratext.
Dickens's spelling of the words "afore", "nowt" and "afeared", which are supposed to be Dorset dialect words, is misleading. "Afore", and "afeard" were prevalently used in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in the nineteenth century (cf. "afore, adv., prep., and conj."; "afeared, adj."). Furthermore, there is no evidence that "nowt" was used for "nothing" in Dorset dialect. However, it was used with this meaning in Yorkshire dialect (cf. Gerson 104).
Thus, readers are not able to infer Will Fern's origin from his dialect alone. Other passages in the story, however, makes clear that he is from Dorset (see Level 3 - Intratext)
Even though the dialect words used by Will Fern are found in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire dialect as well, the context makes clear that he is from Dorset: The most obvious hint is the fact that Lilian's mother died in Dorsetshire (cf. Dickens 153). Furthermore, Sir Joseph mentions that Fern "came up to London", which implies that he moved north (from Dorset to London) instead of south (from Yorkshire to London (cf. Dickens 104).
One of Dickens's closest friends, the actor William Macready lived in Sherborne House, Dorset, from 1851 to 1860 (cf. Barker n.pag.). Dickens and his family often paid visits to him (cf. Schlicke 367). However, as The Chimes was already written in 1844, it is unlikely that Dickens had much first-hand knowledge of Dorset dialect at this time.
Arson was a common means of protest for poor agricultural labourers at the beginning of the nineteenth century, especially during hard winters (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 98; Hammond & Hammond 219). Thus, Will Fern here implies that he will purposely set fire to something, presumably a building. The main targets of so-called rick-burners were hay barns and threshing machines, i.e. machines used for the separation of grain that rendered many labourers superfluous.
Before 1837 arson was punishable by death; in 1830, for example, "a small farmer and two agricultural labourers" were hanged for this crime (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 259-60; Poole 164). At the time when The Chimes was published, rick-burners were usually imprisoned or transported to Australia (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 259-60).
Michael Slater notes that there was an increase in arson in 1843, one year prior to the publication of The Chimes (cf. Slater 265n26). Furthermore, in 1844, newspapers reported on an epidemic of incendiary attacks in Norfolk and Suffolk (see e.g. The Times 7th, 11th, 14th, 21th, 24th, 28th June and 4th, 6th, 10th, 12th, 16th July).
The most prominent cases of arson as a means of protest took place during the so-called Swing Riots [link to L3] of 1830-32, fourteen years prior to the publication of The Chimes. Alderman Cute's fear that the "frightful and deplorable event" in the third quarter might be something "revolutionary" suggests that the fear of riots still resonated years later (Dickens 134). Indeed, rick burners still occupied a place in the public mind in 1844 (the year in which The Chimes was published), as this illustration from the same year shows:
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"The Home of the Rick-Burner": Cartoon by John Leech from 'Punch', London, February 1844. Vol. 7. Taken from Williams, Plate 11.
In this illustration, one can see a brooding man surrounded by his children, two of whom are crying. His wife seems to be sick, and the empty shelves, as well as the general appearance of the room, suggest that the family is very poor. A devilish-looking figure offers the man a burning torch. Even though the illustration condemns rick-burning as a fiendish act, it also provides an explanation why people are driven to such actions, namely poverty and despair.
It is possible that Will Fern's implication that he will commit arson reminded many Victorian readers of the so-called Swing Riots.
The Swing riots began in East Kent and later spread to many agricultural counties in England, including Dorset, which is Will Fern's home in The Chimes (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 97). The main reason for them was the miserable condition of rural labourers, who by rioting tried to get their wages increased (cf. Okeden 77). Beside committing arson, the rioters also destroyed agricultural machines, assaulted overseers, parsons, and lords, and sent letters containing their demands and threats, which were signed with "Captain Swing", from which the riots got their name (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 195-98; cf. Okeden 93; cf. Hammond & Hammond 233). Even though the destruction of machines was the most common action taken during the riots, the distribution of these letters and "incendiary attacks on farms, stacks, and barns" were most memorable for many contemporaries (Hobsbawm & Rudé 198).
As farmers hoped that the riots would result in them having to pay less rent and tithes (i.e. ten percent of their annual produce to be paid for the support of religious establishments), they often did not object to the destruction of their machines (cf. "tithe, adj.1 and n.1."; Hammond & Hammond 231-33; 241). Furthermore, the rioters attacked overseers, justices, and parsons much more frequently than farmers (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 197).
The government feared that industrial workers would join the riots (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 257). Thus, it adopted severe measures: Troops of cavalry were dispatched to defeat the rioters and volunteers united in order to form "mobile units" to occupy villages "that were already rioting or likely to do so" (cf. Hammond & Hammond 231; Hobsbawm & Rudé 258; 256). "Among 1,976 Swing rioters brought to trial, 7 were fined, 1 whipped, 644 gaoled, and 505 were sentenced to transportation. Another 252 were sentenced to death, and execution was actually carried out in 19 cases" (Armstrong 108).
Despite its extreme poverty Will Fern's home Dorset was less affected by the riots than other counties, e.g. Suffolk, Essex, and Bedfordshire (cf. Okeden 81; cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 175; 125). Barbara Kerr states:
the agricultural riots in Dorset were mainly spasmodic outbursts of local resentment against unpopular farmers and parish officials, but in Wool and Winfrith an attempt was made to raise wages by an organised strike. (Kerr, "Dorset Agricultural Labourer" 165; cf. also Hobsbawm & Rudé 259)
Only ten machines were destroyed in Dorset, a rather small number in comparison to other counties (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 199). Furthermore, there are recorded twelve cases of arson during the Swing riots in Dorset, which is more than in many other counties, but much less than e.g. in Kent (61 cases) or Lincolnshire (28) (cf. Hobsbawm & Rudé 202).
It is impossible to ascertain whether Dickens knew that Dorset was not as much affected by the riots as other counties and whether he would have made Fern come from another county if he had known it.
Both of these words refer to the decorating of leather or cloth; ‘to pink' means to "cut a scalloped or zigzag edge on (a piece of fabric)" ("pink, v.1."). In this context, ‘eyelet' means a small round hole "worked for decorative effect in a piece of embroidery, knitting, etc." ("eyelet n.1. a.").
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Photograph of a pinked pincushion. Victoria and Albert Museum: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O166264/pin-cushion-unknown/#
In Dickens's time, needlework such as pinking and eyelet-holing was only done by women (cf. Kortsch 30-31). The only exceptions were professional tailors, which were usually male (cf. Kortsch 31). Furthermore, fancy sewing such as pinking and eyelet-holing (i.e. sewing that was not functional but decorative) was primarily done by upper-class women, while middle- and lower-class women were mostly concerned with plain sewing (e.g. "constructing garments, mending, and darning") (Kortsch 6; cf. 31).
Thus, Lady Bowley tries to make lower-class men and boys adopt the employment of upper-class women and girls.
It was mostly upper-class women who produced needlework that was decorative (like pinking and eyelet holing) rather than functional (cf. Kortsch 6; 31). Thus, contemporary readers would have been highly amused at the idea of male rural workers and boys performing the task of upper-class women and girls.
Will Fern shows the same reaction: He objects that he is no "great girl" and makes clear that, unlike Lady Bowley, he does not consider pinking and eyelet holing a "nice evening employment" for boys and men (Dickens 112). This passage demonstrates how little Lady Bowley understands of the needs of poor people like Will Fern [link to Lady Bowely's song annotation Level 1 – Interpretation]. It is possible that she already expected some kind of opposition from the village men and boys, as she makes them sing a song while working that starts with the line "O let us love our occupations" (Dickens 112)
Lady Bowley's misguided charitable activities run contrary to what Dickens himself advised: Paupers' children should get a "sound ‘industrial' training", which would later help them to find a job and prevent them from remaining poor throughout their life (Collins 81). Thus, for boys it would have been much more helpful and practical to be introduced to farming or a trade than doing needlework (cf. Collins 81).
Lady Bowley's attempt to get men and boys interested in needlework is only one example of how The Chimes satirises the rich characters' misguided attempts to understand and improve the living conditions of the lower classes. Throughout the story, Alderman Cute, Joseph Bowley, and Lady Bowley are presented as patronising the poor and ignorant of their real problems and needs. Furthermore, all three of them are shown to act from ulterior motives rather than from wanting to help the poor.
Lady Bowley does not only try to force her idea of a "nice evening employment" on others, but she also supports a voting charity for her own "excitement" rather than for supporting those in need (Dickens 112; 110).
Alderman Cute often behaves very condescendingly towards his inferiors. He believes that there "is not the least mystery or difficulty in dealing with this sort of people" and he explains to Toby that he must not tell him that he has not enough to eat, "because I know better" (Dickens 102). Cute also claims that it is his "place to give advice" to Meg, because he is a Justice [link to Justice annotation] (Dickens 104).
Sir Joseph even goes a step further and asserts: "You [Toby] needn't trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent [link to paternalism annotation]" (111).
Alderman Cute and the Bowleys never try to learn anything about the actual living conditions of the poor. The three are convinced that they know everything about the lower classes and that they have to put their own views into practice, no matter how unhelpful or even harmful they may be to those in need. Their charitable work is not driven by benevolence and compassion, rather, they see it as a way to assert their own superiority.
Lady Bowley is here referring to the votes cast by the subscribers of so-called voting charities.
A voting charity allowed its donors to choose the people that would receive aid through their institution. This means that those in need applied to a charity and the subscribers of this charity decided which candidates would be supported (cf. Kanazawa 358). The five pounds Lady Bowley has to donate in order to have two votes in such an election are a large amount of money when compared with the average wages in the 1840s. However, this sum was not unusually high for a donation to a voting charity (see).
In voting charities, donors were given a certain number of votes in accordance with how much they donated – the more money they gave, the more votes they had. In order to get the right to vote one could either donate an annual fee or make a one-time donation (cf. Kanazawa 359). One-time donors, however, had to spend much more money in order to get a vote (cf. Kanazawa 359) The number of votes one would get for a certain amount of money varied from charity to charity and could change over time (cf. Kanazawa 359).
Charity votes could be cast "regardless of the subscriber's sex, age or property", which was rather innovative as – for the most part of the nineteenth century – workingmen, agricultural labourers, and women were not allowed to vote in political elections (Kanazawa 359; cf. Everett n.pag.). It is, however, unlikely that any labourer was able to afford the subscription rates of voting charities .
Charity elections were held once or twice a year (cf. Kanazawa 362). The process usually went as follows: "Applications for relief were handed to the committee of the institution, which then eliminated" those who did not match the criteria specified by the institution (Kanazawa 359). Then, a list of candidates was formed and those who made it on the list, as well as their supporters, went canvassing [link to canvassing annotation] for votes (cf. Kanazawa 360). For this, they wrote letters to the subscribers of the charity or paid them visits at home (cf. Kanazawa 360). Applicants (and their supporters) often spent much time and money on canvassing. A great amount of this money would go to the printers of their canvassing letters and the post office (cf. Kanazawa 371).
On the polling day, the location of the election would be very crowded (as can be seen in Hicks' painting below). Candidates and their supporters would try to "attract last-minute votes" by persuading charity members to increase their subscription (thereby purchasing new votes) or to change their mind and vote for them instead of the applicant(s) they favoured (Kanazawa 363). Subscribers would use the opportunity "to judge the merits of the candidates" or to support the candidates they had pledged their votes to (Kanazawa 363).
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George Elgar Hicks An Infant Orphan Election at the London Tavern Polling (1865)
Most of the candidates were not elected, as each charity only had a very limited amount of money and other benefits to confer (cf. Kanazawa 363). Those who were chosen to become recipients of the charity usually came from the lower-middle and upper-working classes (cf. 360). Thus, the poorest often did not benefit from voting charities.
Dickens himself subscribed to several of the "leading voting charities", e.g. the Royal Hospital for Incurables (cf. Pope 37; cf. Kanazawa 362n37, 366n50). Nevertheless, he thought that this system was humiliating for the applicants and very time-consuming for subscribers, who were constantly beleaguered by "anxious suppliants" (Pope 78). However, at the time when The Chimes was published criticism of voting charities was rare – widespread criticism only began in the 1870s (cf. Kanazawa 383). Despite this criticism, some voting charities existed until the beginning of the Second World War (cf. 370).
The conversation regarding charity voting characterises both Lady Bowley and her husband. Both characters are presented as indifferent to the applicants' desperate situation and only interested in the power and "excitement" one can derive from being a charity voter (Dickens 110). Even though criticism of voting charities only became prevalent after 1870 (cf. Kanazawa 383), it is possible that here Dickens does not only attack the two characters but the charity voting system as a whole.
Neither Lady Bowley nor her husband are interested in benefitting the poor but in entertainment and "oblig[ing] one's acquaintance" (Dickens 110). The latter was often a driving factor when deciding who to vote for in a charity election, which means that in many cases the applicants with the best contacts and richest friends won rather than those who needed help most (cf. Kanazawa 375-76).
It does not become clear why Lady Bowley finds it "monstrous" to have only two votes. One possible reason could be that she has to pay a rather high sum for these votes (five pounds). Furthermore, having only two votes means that she is most likely not among the more powerful and sought-after voters. Thus, she is presented as not being interested in the poor but in her own power. In the Victorian age, playing an important role in charity was considered a sign of high social status (cf. Kanazawa 362). It is probable that Lady Bowley shares this opinion and is annoyed that she can exert only little influence over the charity she subscribes to.
The passage also makes clear that Sir Joseph is not "the Poor Man's Friend" (Dickens 110): He thinks that deciding applicants' fates is exciting and that canvassing is "wholesome" for them (110). This is only one of many instances in The Chimes in which Sir Joseph is shown to be a hypocrite [links to other annotations about Sir Joseph].
In Bleak House (1852-53), Dickens again criticises that some charity voters only have their own excitement and social standing in mind rather than the plight of the poor (cf. Kanazawa 366n50):
Ada told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle […] had for two or three years waged against another lady relative to the bringing in of their rival candidates for a pension somewhere. There had been a quantity of printing, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and it appeared to have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, except the pensioners—who were not elected yet. (Dickens, Bleak House 97-98)
In the 1870s, thirty years after the publication of The Chimes, voting charities began to draw widespread criticism (cf. Kanazawa 383). Here are the main arguments against and in favour of voting charities that were discussed from this time onwards. Even though the discussion of these issues began decades after the publication of The Chimes, it is likely that certain problems (see 1 and 2 in the following passage) were already prevalent during Dickens's time.
(1) One issue many people took offence at was that votes could be treated like property. Subscribers could sell their votes or exchange them for votes of other charities – people even advertised the sale of their votes in newspapers (cf. Kanazawa 373). Some subscribers also gave their votes "to dubious brokers who pretended to want them for a particular case and then sold them at fluctuating prices to the friends of candidates" (Alvey 150). Such practices were seen as irresponsible and voting charities were perceived as "a greedy, private business in a field which they [the critics] believed should be characterised by disinterested motives" (Kanazawa 374).
(2) Furthermore, it was often criticised that the applicants with the most (and richest) supporters won elections rather than those who were in dire need of help (cf. Kanazawa 375-76). Thus, critics believed most voters unable to choose appropriate candidates (cf. 377-79). According to them, charities should have a committee of experts instead of voting subscribers. Such committees were deemed to be better at deciding who should receive aid and how (cf. 378-79). The demand for giving experts greater power can be seen against the backdrop of the "new focus on science and ‘scientific' approaches to social problems" in the nineteenth century (356).
(3) Some also disapproved of the fact that women were allowed to vote in these charities (cf. 377).
(1) Those in favour of voting charities argued that the ability to participate led more people to subscribe to a charity, which in turn meant that the organisation had more money to distribute among the poor (cf. Kanazawa 373).
(2) Proponents of these charities contradicted the assertion that subscribers did not choose the most deserving applicants and maintained that those in need usually "secured ample voting power" (376).
(3) Furthermore, they asserted that even the applicants who did not win at the election benefitted from the system, because the canvassing brought them in contact with people who might help them independently from the charity organisation (cf. 376).
(4) The supporters of charity voting also argued that this system was the most democratic way of choosing recipients of charity and feared that the instalment of committees would lead to "backroom politics" and abuse of power (378-79).
Until the end of the nineteenth century, the voluntary and individual nature of charity was stressed (cf. Kanazawa 380). Then, a shift from privately financed charities to public welfare provided by the state took place (cf. 375). The controversy over charity voting should be seen against this background:
The major difference between the critics and supporters of voting charities lay in their ideas as to the true foundation of charity: whether it should be based on public-spirited bureaucratic administrators and top-down planning, or on the individual subscriber's free exercise of good will. (382)
The price of five pounds for two votes in a charity election is not unusually high. For example, a one-time donor to the Infant Orphan Asylum of Dalston even had to pay five guineas (i.e. slightly more than five pounds) for only one vote (cf. (Kanazawa 359). (One pound had the value of 20 shillings, while one guinea had the value of 21 shillings, cf. [link to currency annotation]).
A man with an average income in the 1840s had to work approx. 33 days in order to earn five pounds, an agricultural labourer, earning less than the average income, even had to work approx. 54 days. (cf. Clark 6). This shows how much money Lady Bowley is able to dispense of.
In this context "canvassing" means to "solicit votes or support previously to an election" ("canvass | canvas, v." Def. 6). Here, it refers to poor people trying to make subscribers of voting charities cast their vote for them.
Dickens indirectly characterises Sir Joseph as being ignorant of the poor people's needs by making him praise canvassing for "reduc[ing]" them to a "wholesome state of mind" (Dickens 110). Sir Joseph does not seem to notice the stark contrast between "reduce" and "wholesome" and he apparently believes that having to beg others to vote for oneself in order to receive aid is "wholesome". As he does so often in The Chimes, Sir Joseph shows himself to be the exact opposite of the "Poor Man's Friend" he claims to be (Dickens 111).
The mean duration of life in London during the 1840s was 37 years (Fifth Annual Report xxiv). The life expectancy of poor people like Toby was even lower (cf. Picard 180).
Using the information gathered in the Fourth Annual Report on the population of London, one can calculate that men aged from 60 to 65 years accounted for only ca 2.5 % of the total male population (cf. 13).
In the 1840s, most ticket porters were old men. Henry Mayhew explains that "some are very old, and none are under 40" (366). The reason for this was that, from the 1830s onwards, no new ticket porters were admitted into the Fellowship of Ticket Porters and Tacklehouse Porters as their business ceased to be profitable.
As Toby does not work near the wharves, he is a so-called uptown ticket porter. They "carried, loaded, and unloaded miscellaneous burdens, above all in the City markets, and acted as express letter carriers and messengers" (Stern 59).
Ticket porters were appointed by the City of London and were the only workers allowed to transport goods from one place to another, provided they carried out their work within "the precincts of the city [London]" (Mayhew 364). Thus, people were obliged to use licensed porters instead of their own servants or other unlicensed workers (so-called "foreigners") to deliver their goods and letters (cf. Stern 11).
Being a ticket porter had never been a prestigious occupation, but at the time when The Chimes was published, the situation of ticket porters was still worsening (cf. Stern 7; 120-95; Mayhew 364-6). In the 1830s, the number of ticket porters was reduced and it was decided that no new porters would be appointed (cf. Mayhew 365-66; Stern 186-87). Thus, Toby can be seen as belonging to the last of his trade.
Ticket porters were poor (cf. Stern 11). In 1838, a former ticket porter even considered this work as a "calling to starvation" (Stern 194). Most of them were unskilled workers, but there was also a minority of "skilled craftsmen fallen on bad times and resorting to porterage as a measure of despair" (Stern 6; cf. 43). As ticket porters had to carry valuable goods, they occupied a position of trust, however, they were not well-esteemed by society (cf. Stern 160; 7). Stern argues that ticket porters were always trying to find work that was more profitable and reputable than porterage (cf. 169-70).
Uptown porters wore white aprons and were obliged to display their ticket openly (cf. Stern 178). In 1838, it was decided that the metal shield had to show the wearer's name, his number and date of admission to the Fellowship of Ticket Porters, and the stand he occupied (cf. Stern 178-9). A ticket porter could only work at the place for which he had taken up his ticket (cf. Stern 56). It is possible that Toby's stand is in Fleet Street, which is often identified as the setting of The Chimes and in which a real stand for ticket porters was located (cf. Stern 57; Douglas-Fairhurst 426).
This is an illustration of Toby Veck from "Character Sketches from Charles Dickens, Pourtrayed by Kyd", in which you can plainly see his metal badge and white apron.
http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/art/illustration/kyd/58.html
Despite their low standing in society, ticket porters enjoyed several privileges. As mentioned in Level 1, ‘foreigners' (people with no ticket allowing them to work as a porter) could only be employed by merchants when no ticket porter was available (cf. Stern 60). Furthermore, the badge uptown ticket porters like Toby had to carry with them made them relatively trustworthy (cf. Stern 160) and they were seen as strong workers who were willing to work from midnight onwards (cf. Stern 160-1). Additionally, the Fellowship of Ticket Porters and Tacklehouse Porters supported blind or aged porters and the widows of porters (cf. Stern 52). In the 1840s, however, this was not possible anymore, as the profitability of their trade decreased (cf. Stern 188). Thus, despite being old and frail, Toby would not be supported by his fellowship.
Ticket porters had no regular wages, but were paid by their respective employer, who often tried to drive down the price (cf. Mayhew 367).
In 1823, the Common Council of London set down the following rates for ticket porters:
(Taken from Cruchley's Picture of London, p. 254).
[Link from "He would have got a shilling, too" to this annotation]
As the wages of ticket porters were set according to the weight they carried, it is likely that Toby does not earn much, because we learn that he is very weak (cf. Dickens 90).
Ticket porters had their heyday in the seventeenth and eighteenth century (cf. Stern 15). In the 1820s, work for uptown porters began shrinking and in 1842 the porters had little work left in the market (cf. Stern 180). Especially old porters like Toby "found themselves less and less able to make a living" (Stern 175).
The reasons for this are manifold. From the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards ticket porters met with several problems, which would lead to the end of their trade in the course of the century. During this time, their privileges were being more and more infringed (cf. Mayhew 366). This was partly due to the fact that the acts that defined the privileges of ticket porters were "carelessly drafted and obscurely worded", making it hard to decide when their rights were violated (Stern 158-9). Furthermore, more and more merchants became opposed to ticket porters. Innkeepers and meat salesmen petitioned to be allowed to employ their own servants instead of uptown ticket porters to carry their goods (cf. Stern 153-6; 159; 161). Merchants complained that they charged much more than non-licensed porters and that they were inefficient and expensive (cf. Stern 177; 122). Indeed, throughout the centuries their productivity had not much increased and they were superseded by "mechanical handling devices" (Stern 172). Furthermore, ticket porters were seen as ill-behaved workers, who often damaged goods out of laziness and carelessness (cf. Stern 177). Another problem was that railways carried goods to outlying places in London, where porters were not to be found, so the railway servants carried the goods (cf. Stern 174; Mayhew 366). Stern concludes: "Time and economic thought had overtaken the Porters" (120).
In 1835, the Society of Tacklehouse and Ticket Porters was limited to a number of five-hundred members by a Common Council Act (cf. Stern 186-7). This act "spelt gradual extinction for the Society" (Stern 188). Mayhew gives 1838 as the year, but it is possible that he is referring to a different class of ticket porters (cf. Mayhew 365-6). He also states that it was decided that no new ticket porters would be appointed (cf. Mayhew 365-6). Innkeepers took most of the porter's work in the markets and uptown porters had to try to become regular employees of bankers, warehousemen, and merchants (cf. Stern 188). Their fellowship could no longer support their poor members and did not have much money left for pensions (cf. Stern 188). In 1844, it gave up keeping its minute-book and after 1853, their Courts only met irregularly (cf. Stern 195).
Toby is not the only ticket porter to appear in Dickens's works. Often, they are merely entrusted with the characters' letters (e.g. in A Tale of Two Cities). Some ticket porters, however, are described in a more detailed way.
The porter in David Copperfield, for example, is portrayed as follows: He was "taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase [...], he swung into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion" (Dickens, Copperfield 311). Unlike the naive and amiable Toby, this porter seems to be rather sly. A little bit later, David meets the ticket porter again, who disguises himself so he can work at a dinner party, "assisting the family servant" (Dickens, Copperfield 317). In this porter's case, Stern's assertion that they often tried to find work outside of their usual occupation is true (cf. Stern 169-70).
In Bleak House, the ticket porters are described having "nothing to do beyond sitting in the shade there [Lincoln's Inn Hall], with their white aprons over their heads to keep the flies off" (Dickens, Bleak 232). It is possible that this is an allusion to the growing expendability of ticket porters.
In the Pickwick Papers, ticket porters are also characterised by their white apron. In this work, they do not carry letters or parcels as they should, but harass passers-by and act as "[t]outs for licenses", e.g. marriage licenses (Dickens, Pickwick 98). Furthermore, it is described how Sam Weller has to "rescue [his] luggage from the seven or eight porters who flung themselves savagely upon it, the moment the coach stopped" (Dickens, Pickwick 392). Later in the novel, a bagman tells the Pickwickers of a similar occurrence that happened to his uncle:
When a porter had put his luggage in the coach, and received his fare, he turned round and was gone; and before my uncle had well begun to wonder what had become of him, half a dozen fresh ones started up, and staggered along under the weight of parcels, which seemed big enough to crush them. (Dickens, Pickwick 549)
In contrast to the righteous and trustworthy Toby, the ticket porters in the Pickwick Papers are either criminals or a nuisance to their employers.
As in the Pickwick Papers and Bleak House, the ticket porter's main characteristic in Nicholas Nickleby is his white apron. The narrator describes the following scene:
The ticket porter leans idly against the post at the corner: comfortably warm, but not hot, although the day is broiling. His white apron flaps languidly in the air, his head gradually droops upon his breast, he takes very long winks with both eyes at once; even he is unable to withstand the soporific influence of the place, and is gradually falling asleep. But now, he starts into full wakefulness, recoils a step or two, and gazes out before him with eager wildness in his eye. Is it a job, or a boy at marbles? (Dickens, Nicholas 444)
Again, the porter is described as being without occupation. Another instance in this novel hints at the decline of porters: When Nicholas hires one, he observes that the man had "from the appearance of his other garments, been spending the night in a stable, and taking his breakfast at a pump" (Dickens, Nicholas 42).
While ticket porters are criticised and ridiculed in the Pickwick Papers (1837), later novels show an awareness of their plight. The Chimes (1844) can be seen as the climax of Dickens's preoccupation with the decline of ticket porters. While the novels only briefly mention unemployed ticket porters, the Christmas story features one of them as its protagonist, highlighting his every-day struggle to support his family.
The fact that the trade of the ticket-porter is on the decline is also mentioned by Alderman Cute, who claims that one should look "into Strutt's Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, in any of the good old English reigns" (Dickens 101).
In order to become a ticket porter, a man had to become a member of the Fellowship of Ticket Porters and Tacklehouse Porters (cf. Stern 9-10). For this, he had to pay a fee, procure securities for good behaviour from his neighbours, relatives, and acquaintances, and enter into a bond, from which compensations for lost or damaged goods were paid (cf. Stern 9-10; 12; 42).
Apart from ticket porters, there were other classes of licensed porters, as well. (For information on them see Stern passim, esp. 13-21). Sometimes, the term ‘ticket porter' is applied to all licensed porters.
Sleeping during a sermon was considered very disrespectful. An American newspaper article of 1845 calls sleeping during church-service "disgraceful" and an "insult to that Master whom they [the sleepers] profess to serve and honor" ("Sleeping in Church").
Neither Opie & Tatem, nor Simpson & Roud record a superstition that is connected with sleeping in churches at night. In The Chimes, the night-wind is given as the reason why no one would like to spend a night in a church. Other reasons could be the church's proximity to the graveyard and its gloomy atmosphere at night.
The narrator of The Chimes explains that the night-wind is the reason why people do not want to sleep in a church at night. One the one hand, the wind poses a very worldly problem: In a "gusty winter's night", the church would be freezing cold, as the wind constantly "seek[s] out crevices by which to enter" (Dickens 87). On the other hand, it creates a very gloomy and "dismal" atmosphere. The wind is personified and presented as "ghostly" rather than a natural phenomenon: It wanders round the church moaning and howling, and "creeps along the walls, seeming to read, in whispers, the Inscriptions sacred to the Dead" (87). Thus, people are deterred by both the sinister atmosphere and the cold.
In addition to the reason given in The Chimes, Dickens's novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood offers two further explanations for people's reluctance to spend a night in a church:
The cause of this [fear of churches at night] is not to be found in any local superstition that attaches to the Precincts […] but it is to be sought in the innate shrinking of dust with the breath of life in it from dust out of which the breath of life has passed. (Dickens, Mystery 105)
Old churches are usually built near a graveyard, so people would have to spend their night in proximity to the dead. Furthermore, the novel argues that people are afraid of encountering ghosts in such a place: They reflect that
[i]f the dead do, under any circumstances, become visible to the living, these are such likely surroundings for the purpose that I, the living, will get out of them as soon as I can. (Dickens, Mystery 105)
In "City of London Churches", Dickens again associates churches with the dead. The congregation inhales the "decay of dead citizens in the vaults below" and it "cough[s] and sneeze[s] dead citizens, all through the service" (Dickens, "City" 191-92).
The examples from Dickens's texts show that even though there was no specific superstition concerning spending a night in a church, most people would have been repelled by the gloomy atmosphere and the thought that they would have to stay near the dead or even undead.
It is likely that the narrator's suggestion that some people sleep during church-service is only a humorous remark. However, it might also hint at two more serious issues: The comment could either be connected to people being indifferent towards religion in general, or to poor church-goers feeling left out because the sermon does not address their interests and needs.
The first case occurs in Dickens's "Sunday Under Three Heads", in which a church-service primarily aimed at the upper class is described: The "fashionable members of the congregation" do not listen to the preacher but "inspect each other through their glasses" and at the end of the sermon "those who have been asleep wake up, and those who have kept awake, smile and seem greatly relieved" (Dickens 8). Here, attending church is not a sign of religiousness but a social obligation; it is one's presence that counts, not one's behavior or faithfulness.
At the other end of the social strata, many poor people objected to certain characteristics of Victorian church service. Their problems were discussed in a 1867 conference concerning "Working Men and Religious Institutions" to which churchmen, dissenters, and workers contributed (cf. Helmstadter & Phillips 225). Many poor people did not feel welcome at churches (cf. 229; 233). The preachers were usually college-educated, hence workers felt that they could not talk to them "in a familiar manner on common topics", which placed a barrier between the preacher and part of his congregation (229). Furthermore, people from the lower classes perceived men of religion to be hypocrites who did not "carry their teaching into practice" (230). It is possible that not understanding the sermon or thinking it hypocritical induced some people to sleep during it.
The passage in The Chimes does not make explicit which class of people might sleep during a sermon. Thus, it is impossible to decide whether it could allude to people's indifference towards religion or to poor people feeling left out during church-service. As stated in the beginning, it is also possible to read the passage only as a humorous remark and not as alluding to Victorian religious problems.
"To gambol" means to "run and jump about playfully; to play, dance, or move about in a lively, happy way" ("gambol, v. 2. 1.").
Embroidery is "[t]he art of ornamenting cloth and other fabrics with figures of needlework" ("embroidery, n." 1.).
By saying that Meg has "often, often" worked "at the same kind of embroidery," the narrator emphasises that this scene of Meg sitting and working does not appear out of the ordinary to Trotty when he is confronted with it in his vision. The repetition of "often" highlights just how frequently Meg must be occupied with this kind of needlework in their everyday life. The mention of "the same kind of embroidery" further stresses the repetitiveness of Meg's work.
In the 1840s, women who had to support themselves often turned to needlework and became seamstresses because this work had flexible hours, could be done from home, and "virtually all women had the necessary experience for needlework" (Harris, "Slaves of the Needle"). Women "found employment with the needle as milliners and dressmakers, [...] embroidered shawls and sewed the men's shirts and trousers" (Harris, Famine and Fashion 3). Not all seamstresses were from the working classes, but some middle- and upper-class women also relied on needlework to support themselves financially (Harris, "Slaves of the Needle"). These women of different backgrounds often worked from home or in small workshops and were paid per piece (cf. Burman). One reason why employers got away with paying seamstresses a small amount of money for a lot of work (see Inder) was the high number of women who could do this work and had to do it because they had no alternative (cf. Burman). However, Beth Harris also points out that "the needle trades supported many women, as both employees and business owners," thus also offering promising opportunities for some (Harris, Famine and Fashion 3).
Dickens made use of the common trope of the distressed seamstress, which underlines the poor living conditions Meg and Lilian have to endure in Trotty's vision. The statement is introduced by the narrator describing the room in which Meg works in Trotty's vision as "poor" and "mean." After having introduced the grim atmosphere and living conditions, the narrator emphasises that Trotty has "often, often" seen her working on "the same kind of embroidery," highlighting that Trotty's grave vision does not much differ from their real life in this respect. When this passage is read in the light of its contemporary context (see here), the reader understands the wider implications of Meg's occupation and is reminded of the contemporary social debate and frequently occurring scandals involving the occupation of the seamstress or needlewoman. It is hence rather likely that the contemporary reader would have read this sentence as implicit social criticism of the cruel treatment of working-class women.
The statement that Meg is presented to Trotty "working at the same kind of embroidery which he had often, often seen before her" is ambiguous. That this is not a scene which appears unusual or new to Trotty may be explained as follows: either Meg is embroidering a piece of fabric that is her own to fix it and save money, or she is embroidering fabric to sell it and make a little extra money to keep them afloat. If one follows the second interpretation, one can assume that Meg has already embroidered many fabrics for different clients based in the "demand for cheap, ready-made clothes (. . .) by a widening middle class" (Harris, Famine and Fashion 5). To Trotty, all these different pieces of needlework must look very similar for the narrator to call them "the same kind" in his vision. The Level 2 Context annotation and the Level 3 Interpretation annotation are also referring to this second reading.
The Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission, which was published in the spring of 1843, shocked the public because it depicted the exploitation of needlewomen and the cruel working conditions they had to endure (Harris, "Slaves of the Needle"). Although "approximately half of the statements from witnesses were favorable" (Harris, Famine and Fashion 3), the public was scandalized to find that some "young women lived, worked, and died, in such miserable conditions" (Harris, "Slaves of the Needle"). One account that was especially shocking to the general public was the case of the needlewoman Mary Furley, who tried to drown herself alongside her small child to escape her dire living conditions and the prospect of the workhouse. While her child died during the suicide attempt, she survived and was then sentenced to death for infanticide (Gates). This case is more explicitly referred to in The Chimes a few pages earlier, when Trotty reads a shocking account in the newspaper "of a woman who had laid her desperate hands not only on her own life but on that of her young child" (Dickens 122). Trotty considers this a terrible and revolting crime, attributing it to the wickedness of the working-class (122). Later on, this passage and the case of Mary Furley are again mirrored when Meg is about to drown herself and her toddler in Trotty's vision (156). Many contemporary commentators found that "the cruel irony of the Mary Furely case represented the worst of the government's abuse of the poor (McDonagh 119).
The shocking conditions some seamstresses endured became a topic of popular discourse: "newspaper articles, pamphlets, novels, short stories, poetry" dealing with the exploitation of needlewomen were published (Harris, "Slaves of the Needle"). The character of the desperate seamstress became a trope that appeared in various different works of literature throughout the 1840s, as for instance Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke and Cheap Clothes and Nasty, Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna's The Perils of the Nation and The Wrongs of Woman (Harris, "Slaves of the Needle"). While "the seamstress narrative, which leads by necessity to death and/or prostitution, was not the only narrative on seamstresses that was produced during this period, [...] it was by far the dominant one" (Harris, Fashion and Famine 3). Although the Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission showed that roughly half of the women working in needle trades were treated favourably, "most authors [...] wrote only about the darker side of the evidence offered" in the report (Harris, Famine and Fashion 3). This depiction of the "impoverished and exhausted woman sewing at home reduces the complexity of women's work" (Harris, Famine and Fashion 3).
The term "review" describes "the action or an act of looking over or inspecting" ("review, n." I.). The addition of the adjective "formal" suggests the contextual meaning of "review" as "a ceremonial display and formal inspection of troops or the fleet by a monarch, commander-in-chief, or high-ranking visitor" ("review, n." I.1.a.).
The term "field day" is ambiguous and can either be understood figuratively as describing "a day noted for remarkable or exciting events" ("field day, n." 1.b.), or it can also evoke military associations when seen as referring to its original meaning of "a day on which troops are assembled for a manoeuvring exercise" ("field day, n." 1.a.). Since "formal review" refers to a military inspection, this latter meaning of "field-day" with its military associations readily suggests itself.
The narrator's statement that Toby does not "[hold] any formal review or great field-day in his thoughts" contains two terms which strongly suggest a military meaning. Through the negation of the sentence, the phrase suggests that Toby does not evaluate this connection as commanders would examine their troops. These terms' references to military practices are, accordingly, used as a metaphor to illustrate that Toby's connection to the bells is unplanned, unconscious, and not analysed by him. Following the characterisation by the narrator that Toby was not a casuist, this phrase emphasises once more that Toby's connection to the Bells developed unconsciously rather than being something he instigated deliberately.
Lilian is referring to Meg's work as a seamstress. Seamstresses often worked under particularly hard conditions and only made little money (cf. here).
The phrase "not to live upon enough" is inverted. The reader would expect the expression "not enough to live upon". This inverted expression contains a contradiction and is contrasted by the phrase "just enough to toil upon", which follows shortly after and whose syntactical structure is unmarked and not inverted. This contrast emphasises the difference between "live" and "toil": Trotty and Meg have "just enough to toil upon" but not enough to (really) live.
The first part of the sentence "not to heap us riches, not to live grandly or gaily, not to live upon enough, however coarse" depicts a listing from rich to poor living conditions and brings forth a parallelism of the individual phrases through anaphoric expressions with „not to" while making them become worse and worse. This first listing is a tricolon diminuens because it is made up of three clauses of similar length. This listing is followed by another such listing that is, however, contrastive to the first, introduced by "but": "but to earn us bread; to scape together just enough to toil upon, and want upon, and keep alive in us the consciousness of our hard fate." The repetition of "to" connects the second phrase with the first. The living conditions are first described as increasingly worse, to be followed by that which is required for the sustenance of the poor. This whole passage is pleonastic in that it is used to convey one single idea, namely utter poverty.
The form of the sentence underlines and emphasises the dire living and working conditions Meg and Lilian experience in Trotty's vision (cf. here).
A "rasher" is a "thin slice or strip of bacon, or (less commonly) of other meat, intended to be cooked by grilling, broiling, or frying" ("rasher, n.1." 1.a.). The word probably originated from the now obsolete verb "rash", which meant "to cut, to slash" ("rash, v.3." 1.).
Dickens used the word "rasher" quite frequently. It also appears in The Seven Poor Travellers ("and sometimes one buys a rasher of bacon" (The Seven Poor Travellers 7)), as well as in Barnaby Rudge ("a few savoury trifles in the shape of great rashers of broiled ham" (Barnaby Rudge 165)), in David Copperfield ("I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon" (David Copperfield 55)), and in Bleak House ("the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty grate" (Bleak House 313)). That Toby and Meg can afford rashers might suggest that this was a food consumed mainly by the lower classes. However, this does not seem to be the case. Although working-class people could afford rashers, they were also consumed by other classes. This is suggested by the works of Dickens mentioned above, in which characters with different class backgrounds are shown to be eating rashers. The usage of the word in the different works also suggests that rashers were not eaten for specific meals but could be served at any time of the day.
Rashers of bacon were a type of meat also (although not solely) affordable for and consumed by the working classes in Dickens's time. This is suggested by the fact that A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes by Charles Elme Francatelli from 1852 contains a recipe for "Fried Eggs and Bacon" (cf. Francatelli 60). The Book of Household Management by Isabelle Beeton from 1861 also contains a recipe for "Fried Rashers of Bacon and Poached Eggs" (cf. Beeton paragraph 802).
When Toby covertly sends Meg to buy rashers for Will Fern and Lilian and then pretends not to like bacon anyway and to be glad to have found someone who will eat it, he shows great kindness towards Will and Lilian and tries to prevent them from feeling guilty about the expenses they cause him. Although rashers were affordable, they were not solely working-class food. Toby's serving them to Will and Lilian and declining them himself is, thus, a very generous gesture. The rashers in this passage serve to highlight Toby's selfless and kind character and underline one of the book's main moral principles, i.e. that everyone can be good no matter their social or financial background.
"Sifting grain from husk" describes the separation of the grains of wheats from their "dry outer integument" ("husk, n.1." 1.a.). The grains can then be processed to make flour while the husks are useless for the consumer.
Will Fern states that he "could sift grain from husk here and there," which implies that he worked as a thresher before he came to London, but that this was not a safe employment. "Here and there" further implies that he had no fixed abode. In the nineteenth century, agricultural labourers often lived in dire conditions, see here. Before the invention of the threshing machine in 1786, agricultural labourers were employed to separate the husk from the grain by hand, using a flail (cf. Macdonald 63).
This work was done during the winter months after the harvest had been brought in and therefore "gave employment at times of the year when other work may not have been available" (Collins 22), supporting many agricultural labourers, who "constituted the relative majority of the labor force in most English counties" (Carprettini and Voth 6) and preventing large-scale unemployment throughout the winter. The invention of the threshing machine was, according to some historians, one of the first steps towards the industrialisation of agriculture and forced many farm labourers into unemployment during the winter months, thereby fuelling social unrest and contributing to a greater social divide (cf. Collins 16). In the course of the nineteenth century, threshing machines were developed from being powered by men or horses to being powered by wind, water, and later steam. They became more and more popular with farmers and replaced labour by hand using a flail (cf. Collins passim). Thus, less and less men were needed while the farmers' profit increased (cf. Collins passim).After the invention of the threshing machine, the increase in the unemployment rate of farm workers during the winter months led to growing frustration among labourers and resulted in social unrest. The invention of the threshing machine and the consequential unemployment is said to have been one of the main causes of the Swing Riots which started in southern England in August 1830 (cf. Caprettini and Voth passim, esp. 3-13). Rioters showed their frustration with the technical development by destroying threshing machines. During the riots "over 200 [threshing machines] were destroyed in central southern England alone" (Collins 18). But while "[m]achine-breaking in response to technological unemployment was a key part of the riots, […] it also spilled over into other forms of unrest, such as arson, blackmail, and attacks on Poor Law administrators" (Carprettini and Voth 3). For more information on the Swing Riots, see here.
Since the invention and spread of the threshing machine and the Swing riots had only quite recently passed when The Chimes was written, one can imagine that this statement by the financially and socially struggling character of Will Fern is supposed to remind contemporary readers of these recent developments and how these led to farm labourers no longer having stable incomes or workplaces, but instead living and working "here and there". The statement highlights the injustice with which agricultural labourers were treated and the struggles they had to face due to the increasing mechanisation and industrialisation. The high unemployment rate caused by the implementation of the threshing machine is one example of the effects of mechanisation and industrialisation on the working-class. In The Chimes, we can find frequent criticism of the idea that people's worth is dependent on their income. Like Trotty, Will Fern too thinks that he is responsible for his own "misfortun'," while the reader, who knows the historical context, can see that he is not at fault for his unemployment.
The word "woof" is a term used in the context of weaving and describes "the threads that cross from side to side of a web" ("woof, n.1." 1.a.). In this context, "woof" can also simply refer to "a woven fabric" ("woof, n.1" 3.).
Toby's relationship to the Bells is described as having developed into a rather intimate, complex, and strong connection, as he "knit[s] up his first rough acquaintance with them into something of a closer and more delicate woof" (Dickens 91). His life is highly influenced by the Bells as "they were very often in his ears, and very often in his thoughts, but always in his good opinion" (Dickens 92).
The word gait means a "manner of walking or stepping, bearing or carriage while moving, walk" ("gait", n. 1. a).
The word mufflers is not in use anymore, according to the OED. Today, the term "a glove, [or] a mitten" is more common ("mufflers", n. 3. b).
The word worsted describes "a fine, smooth fabric made from closely-twisted yarn spun of long-staple wool combined to lay the fibres parallel" ("mufflers", n. 1. a).
"[B]uoyant" is an adjective that literally means "to have the power of floating, tending to float" ("buoyant, adj." 1.a.). The denotation of floating is also reflected in the figurative meaning of the English word: it describes both "spirits: Easily recovering from depression, elastic, light" and "persons: Light-hearted, cheerful, hopeful" ("buoyant, adj." 3.).
In The Chimes, the adjective "buoyant" is used in its figurative meaning to characterize the extraordinary nature of Meg's hope that is expressed through her eyes. Despite the hardships she has suffered, her "spirits" (cf. "buoyant, adj." 3.), i.e., her outlook on life, still remain "buoyant, vigorous, and bright" (Dickens 94).
In ancient Greek myth, Heracles (or Lat.: Hercules) is a demigod, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, a mortal princess ("Heracles" 201). Hercules is deemed one of "the most famous of Greek heroes, noted for his strength, courage, endurance, good nature, and compassion" ("Heracles" 201).
The strength of the mythical hero Heracles materializes in particular when he has to perform twelve labours as a punishment for his unfortunate past: Because Hera, the wife of his father Zeus, disapproves of the illegitimate child, she sends a madness upon Heracles that makes him kill his wife and children; to atone for this deed, he is sent into exile to serve the king Eurystheus for twelve years ("Heracles" 202). Eurystheus then makes him solve the abovementioned twelve impossible tasks, each of which is a mythological story of its own.
The first part of the phrase ("a weak, small, spare old man, he was a very Hercules" 90) constitutes a paradox: the reference to Hercules evokes notions of strength and endurance, which are the direct opposite of Toby's fragility. More on the implications of this paradox can be found here.
The paradox (see here) that is established by the contrast "a weak, small, old man, he was a very Hercules" (Dickens 90) closes with the information that Toby is not physically like Hercules, but "in his good intentions" (Dickens 90). This emphasizes that, at heart, Toby is just as valiant, determined and hard-working as the Greek demigod, focusing on his inner strength and compassion rather than physical features. Therefore, the Heracles metaphor serves two purposes: first, the paradox it creates through its opposition of physical and mental strength reminds readers not to judge a person merely by external impression, and second, it characterizes the seemingly weak Toby as heroically strong, not in terms of physical strength, but at heart.
Because the phrase occurs only three pages into the novel, this description essentially contributes to Toby's character exposition. It instates him as a selfless, hard-working man, who, as becomes more and more obvious as the narrative progresses, does not let unfavourable circumstances stand in the way of being compassionate with those around him; i.e., the phrase foreshadows the love he is later shown to have for his daughter (cf. Dickens 93), and the selfless help he offers Will Fern and Lilian (cf. Dickens 116-17).
A "Justice of the Peace" was "a magistrate who deal[t] with less serious crimes" ("Justice of the Peace." Cambridge Online Dictionary). Officeholders supervised towns or local districts, and being a justice did not require any legal qualifications ("Justice of the Peace, n." OED). They were "men elected out of the nobility, higher and lower […] the ideal justice of the peace ought to combine title, wealth, and legal training" (Sipek 9).
The word "Justice" is used ambiguously in this passage. Whereas Alderman Cute superficially refers to his office as a Justice of the Peace ("You know I'm a Justice, don't you" 104), the narrator then uses Cute's position to characterize the way he constantly judges his surroundings, especially poor people: "O dear, so active a Justice always!" (104). Thus, the repetition of the word in different contexts reveals Cute's peculiar understanding of what being a Justice entails; it shows how he thinks that his position entitles him to lecture other people (e.g., "It's my place to give advice, you know, because I'm a Justice" 104).
The long version of "Lilly" (Dickens 118). First appearing in the sixteenth century, the name "Lilian" can be a derivative of "Elizabeth", which translates from the Hebrew "Elisheva" to "my God is abundance" (Hanks). The name underwent a change in connotation when "Lily" gained popularity at the beginning of the nineteenth century in England, then signifying the flower rather than the Christian name (Hanks). Thus, the name was already fashionable when Dickens wrote The Chimes in 1844; fittingly, "Lilly" is Lilian's nickname in the book (118, 132).
"Lilly" is the short version of "Lilian". Further information on the latter can be found here.
In floriography, the lily is a symbol of "purity; virginity; the purified soul; heavenly bliss; peace; … innocence" (Olderr 127). Because of these attributions, it is often used in Christian contexts as "the flower of the Virgin [Mary]," serving as a symbol of chastity and innocence; saints are also often depicted carrying the lily to signify their holiness (Ferguson 33).
In The Chimes, Lilian's nickname is "Lilly" (Dickens 118, 132), which has both the floral connotation and the symbolism connected to it. Like the flower that the name stands for, Lilian's character is depicted as innocent, pure and peaceful: she is repeatedly described as beautiful ("beautiful face", 117; "pretty", 118; "so pretty and so young", 132; "sweet", 141), which refers to her youthful innocence and to the notion that she is not only outwardly pretty but also pure at heart. This link is reinforced by the encouraging, almost angelic effect she has on the adults around her (e.g., "She has a beautiful face […] I've thought so, when my hearth was very cold, and cupboard very bare", 118; "so peacefully and happily", 123). Therefore, Lilian not only embodies the abstract virtues of purity and peace that the lily signifies, but she also lives up to the Christian values that the flower's symbolism insinuates: her saint-like depiction is corroborated as she prays for the people around her (Dickens 121). Therefore, Lilian's character indeed personifies the symbolic traits of the lily as they are described in Olderr: "purity; virginity; the purified soul; heavenly bliss; peace; […] innocence" (127).
A "flip" is a "mixture of beer and spirit sweetened with sugar and heated with a hot iron" ("flip n.1", 2).
Dickens uses a meiosis here, a "figure of speech by which something is intentionally presented as smaller, less important, etc., than it really is" ("meiosis, n.", 1a): In reality, the "little flip" is not little at all. Quite the opposite, the pitcher is "of terrific size" (Dickens 159), it "steam[s] and smoke[s] and reek[s] like a volcano" (Dickens 159), and the man carrying it is "faint" from carrying so much weight (Dickens 159).
The text tells us that "Mrs. Chickenstalker's notion of a little flip, did honour to her character" (Dickens 159). This remark implies that Mrs. Chickenstalker is generous, as she brings such a large gift to Meg's wedding, but she downplays the gesture, being humble. She has clearly taken a liking to Meg, which is also reflected in the speech she gives when bringing the flip: "I couldn't rest on the last night of the Old Year without coming to wish you joy" (Dickens 159).
Mrs. Chickenstalker's kindness especially towards Meg is also shown earlier in the story when she displays compassion for Meg and Richard in Trotty's dream, defending them in front of her husband (cf. Dickens 147-151).
In this sentence, the narrator's voice establishes the setting in which the reader can imagine both the narrator and the narratee to be situated throughout the entire span of the story. The narrator's comment further reinforces the idea that he is directly telling the story to a listener. This method of narration clearly introduces another, namely extradiegetic, narrative level, namely the level of the narrator, the narratee, and the intradiegetic characters, which is separate from the events of the story itself.
In The Pickwick Papers, Dickens describes the characters gathered around the fireplace on Christmas Eve and listening to a Christmas ghost story:
… they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper (…). "This," said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, "this is, indeed, comfort." "Our invariable custom," replied Mr. Wardle. "Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now – servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories." (Dickens 797-798)
One may imagine the situation described on the extradiegetic level of narration in The Chimes to be quite similar.
This scene also shows that the reading of Christmas stories is a popular theme in Dickens' narrative worlds, especially since he also published a number of Christmas stories himself.
By using the pronoun "us", the narrator includes the audience , both in the world of narration and on the external communicative level, in the story and shows how he imagines them reading or listening to the story. The picture that is evoked by the expression "sitting snugly round the fire" (Dickens 87) creates a stark contrast between the comfort and warmth surrounding the audience and the atmosphere in the church that is described in the (intradiegetic) passage. Trotty is waiting in a spot close to the church, which is "a breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed, stony-toed, tooth-chattering place" (Dickens 89). It might make the audience (and, by implication, readers on the external level of communication) conscious of their own comfortable position and therefore feel compassionate towards Trotty, who does not have the luxury of a warm fire.
The reader of The Chimes might be able to connect the image of "sitting snugly round the fire" (Dickens 87) to the scene of the characters gathering for a story in The Pickwick Papers. It might as well suggest a setting in which Dickens' Christmas stories are best read. The scene may also be intended to evoke a feeling of a shared tradition and thus solidarity between reader, narratee and narrator.
A "Union" was "a number of parishes consolidated under one Board of Guardians for the purpose of administering the Poor Law" ("union, n.2" III.15.a). Unions were officially recognized in 1834 by the Poor Law Amendment Act ("union, n.2", III.15.a), which introduced new systems for the care of the poor, most prominently through the establishment of workhouses.
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation in nineteenth century Britain and established new systems for the relief and care of the poor (Bloy, "Introduction"). The main feature of this new Poor Law was the introduction of workhouses. Instead of being provided relief in their own homes, all people in need of seeking relief had to enter the workhouse now. Orphans and the children of the poor between the ages of five and fourteen were housed in separate Poor Law schools and "could be hired or apprenticed by overseers" (Neuman 613).
There was plenty of criticism against establishing workhouses as proposed by the Poor Law. Living conditions could be harsh, and there was especially a psychological factor to it, as "inmates were depersonalised through being made to wear a uniform and through regimentation. There is no doubt that the stigma of the workhouse was deeply felt and even continued many years after the abolition of the system" (Bloy, "Implementation"). The situation was so drastic that, reportedly, some people preferred to starve instead of entering the workhouse (Bloy, "Implementation"), a sentiment also shown by Betty Higden in Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend (cf. Dickens).
The phrase "they'd have taken care of her" seems to be used here rather ironically by the narrator. A contemporary reader familiar with the conditions in the workhouses, where Lilian would have been brought, would have known that a child was not been "taken care of" there.
Will Fern's statement shows that he has a difficult attitude towards the Union and its institutions. The orphaned and poor Lilian would have probably been taken into one of the workhouses by the Union, where she would have lived together with other young children. Similarly, Will Fern's father had been brought into one of the workhouses as well after he was too old and unable to provide for himself anymore (Dickens 118). However, Fern has decided to take Lilian in himself, instead of letting the Union "take care" of her, despite his own very limited means. It is not exactly clear why Fern has decided to do this. He seems concerned about the distance between him and his niece that could result from the decision to entrust her to the Union. That may have been his only reason, or he may be aware of the implications of bringing her to one of the workhouses and share the critical views about them. He may also remember what happened to his father who died soon after entering the workhouse (Dickens 118) and therefore mistrust the Union and the workhouses.
The order of the baronet is the order that ranks below a baron but over the orders of knighthood ("baronet, n." 2) and thus the highest rank that is not nobility.
Baronets were members of the gentry (Pool 265), and "landowners in the country" (Pool 313). This explains why Joseph Bowley's guests are also referred to as "his tenants" (Dickens 133). Baronets were among the upper ranks in the gentry (Pool 313), and it was a title of the "very upper middle class" (Pool 37). Accordingly, baronets do not sit in the House of Lords, but they might sit in the House of Commons (Pool 38), as Sir Joseph Bowley does. The title of baronet is hereditary (Pool 265), and therefore Joseph Bowley's son, "the heir of Bowley, aged twelve" (Dickens 133), will inherit the title and become a baronet as well.
This enumeration describes different kinds of supernatural creatures:
"Dwarf" could be meant either as an adjective or a noun in this sentence. As an adjective it describes something "of unusually small stature or size" ("dwarf, n. and adj." B.1.a), as a noun "one of a supposed race of diminuitive beings, who figure in Teutonic and esp. Scandinavian mythology and folklore" ("dwarf, n. and adj." A.1.b).
A phantom is "a thing (usually with human form) that appears to the sight or other sense, but has no material substance" ("phantom, n. and adj." A.2.a).
A spirit is "an incorporeal, supernatural, rational being, of a type usually regarded as imperceptible to humans but capable of becoming visible at will, and frequently […] conceived as terrifying, troublesome, or hostile to mankind" ("spirit, n." II.10.a).
The adjective "elfin" means "pertaining to elves; of elfish nature or origin" ("elfin, adj. and n." A.1). In Old English, aelf was used as a general term for a fairy (Simpson and Roud 109). It was later replaced by the term fairy, originating from the French, but in literature elf and fairy were still often used interchangeably (Simpson and Roud 109).
Elves and fairies are ambiguous figures and can be regarded as both helpful and harmful: they were, among other things, known to give prosperity or skills to humans (Simpson and Roud 115) but also to cause illnesses or tangle humans' hair while they were sleeping (Simpson and Roud 109). Fairies are also imagined to have a variety of magical powers, shapes and other supernatural characteristics: they "could be visible or invisible at will, and could change shape; some lived underground, others in woods, or in water; some flew" (Simpson and Roud 115). According to folklore, some fairies live in larger social contexts and pursue activities such as dancing and feasting, others live solitary, sometimes attaching themselves to a certain location, such as a human household (Simpson and Roud 115).
For more information on spirit-like visitations in 19th century literature, see here.
The scene with its motion and chaos creates a visual contrast to the appearance of the goblins of the Bells that immediately follows: These, unlike the variety of creatures before, are "motionless and shadowy" (Dickens 127).
The main effect of naming this broad variety of beings is to produce an image of confusion. The text does not assign the creatures to one fixed category of nightly spirits; instead the description "dwarf phantoms, spirits, elfin creatures" (Dickens 125) remains vague and encompasses a variety and mix of creatures. This also goes with the following paragraphs, where the creatures are described to be of many different shapes and forms, and to pursue different activities such as singing and tearing their own hair. Thus, the creatures can do good as well as evil for humans, showing opposites in their behaviour.
There might be two possible reasons for depicting the variety of creatures in such a vague fashion: It could be that Trotty, witnessing these creatures around him, does simply not know better, as he is not familiar with the supernatural and thus cannot find the specific names to describe what he sees. On the other hand, these might be creatures that are unique to the setting of "The Chimes," and they are not named further so as to not potentially bring them into connection with any other stories or beliefs about supernatural beings. Whether the creatures do exist in the fictional world of "The Chimes" or are merely products of Toby's mind remains unclear.
Additionally, through the use of the more archaic term "elfin" instead of "fairy" and the extensive description of the variety of creatures, Dickens creates a dream-like and whimsical atmosphere in this passage that marks a crossing from Trotty's actual world into an imagined world.
"Strutt's Costumes" refers to the book A Complete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England by the antiquarian Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) ("Joseph Strutt"), originally published in two volumes from 1796 to 1799. A new edition was released in 1842, two years prior to The Chimes, showing that the book was still popular at the time. In his work, Strutt describes the different kinds of clothing and their development throughout the periods of English history up to the close of the seventeenth century. The text is accompanied by a number of engravings (see Strutt).
There are multiple ways to interpret this reference. For one, it could demonstrate that the gentleman does not actually have knowledge of the work he refers to, as there is no specific mention of a porter in it (see here). Considering the original publication date of Strutt's Costumes, it could also insinuate that the gentleman's ideas, just like his sources, are outdated, thus the reference is used to ridicule him and his nostalgia on the external level of communication.
It is unclear whether this is supposed to refer to any particular passage in Strutt's work, as there is no explicit mention of porters in the text nor the accompanying engravings.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘table' in the context of Ancient history as "[a]ny of the tablets on which certain specific collections of laws were inscribed; (hence) the laws themselves" ("table, n." 2.b.). In this passage, the "tables of the law" are associated with the ten commandments which were originally inscribed on two stone tablets ("table, n." 2.b).
The "flawed and broken" tables of the law represent the ten commandments and criticize society's Christian values as equally "flawed and broken". Specifically, "Wrong and Murder done" (Dickens 87) and the Worship of "false Gods" (Dickens 87) are named in the short narrative. Christian ideals therefore form a crucial part of The Chimes' moral contexts. Other aspects of Christian belief become obvious when Trotty tries to avoid being indebted to Mrs. Chickenstalker as much as in the depiction of suicide as a sin.
A myriad was a measuring unit that used to denote the number ten thousand in ancient Greece (cf. "myriad, n. and adj." A.n.1.a.) and that has now evolved to define "a countless number of specified things" ("myriad, n. and adj." 2.b.). The meaning in The Chimes no longer denotes a specific number, but emphasizes the uncountability of the number of figures that Trotty sees. For more information on the effect this measuring unit has in The Chimes see here.
Chitterlings, chiefly used in the plural form, are the smaller intestines of pigs or other animals like cattle. Mostly prepared as food by frying or boiling, it may be served as a kind of sausage, filled with mince- meat or force-meat (cf. "chitterling, n.", 1.a.).
It can be assumed that chitterlings, being part of the animal's intestines and thus cheap left-over meat, were mostly eaten by poor people, such as Meg and Toby.
The phrase lists sensory adjectives that describe Toby's usual spot and workplace next to the church.
The narrator emphasizes just how cold Toby's spot is in the winter by hinting at symptoms of a cold. The list emphasizes the inhumane working conditions Toby endures to make a living and the bad consequences for his health these conditions may result in.
A steeple is a tower that is on top of a religious building, such as churches or temples. The steeple usually contains the bells of the church (cf. "steeple, n.1" 2.a.).
In this passage of The Chimes the phrase "high up in the steeple" is repeated four times. Using repetitions as a literary device "can generate greater focus on a particular subject and intensify its meaning" (Repetition). For more information on the meaning of "steeple" see here.
The notion of Trotty climbing up the stairs of the steeple and ascending in height is emphasized by the repetitions of the phrase "high up in the steeple". These repetitions separate the location of the steeple from the other locations of the narrative, thereby stressing the upward movement and disconnecting the reality of Trotty's everyday life from the experiences he lives through under the influence of the goblins in the steeple. This detachment between Trotty and his ordinary world allows him to critically evaluate his life. Repetitions of the same phrase also create the impression of an enchantment or a magical spell that has to be repeated, which plays into the supernatural elements of the story that take place in the steeple.
The proverb ‘to be worth one's salt' is defined as someone being "efficient or capable" ("salt, n.1." 2.g.).
The proverb "to be worth one's salt" has its origins in the Roman conquest of Britain. Roman soldiers are believed to have been partly paid in salt, which was a valuable and expensive commodity (cf. "Roman Times").
Toby is proudly convinced to do a good a job and that he is worth the money, he is being paid.
The belfry is located in the steeple of a church. It is the floor or room of the tower that contains the church bells (cf. "belfry, n." 4.b.). For more information on the steeple, see here.
A workhouse was a place that offered "paid work for the unemployed poor of a parish" and, in 1834, it became a "public institution" that provided food and a place to sleep in exchange for work for the poor ("workhouse, n." 2.b.).
Throughout the nineteenth century, there was an increase of public institutions, such as the workhouse, based on the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, also referred to as the NPL (Newman 123). The NPL introduced a new institutional board which had the power over the financial aid of the poor. It was originally passed owing to society's belief that "idleness [is] the root cause of poverty" (Newman 123). Harsh living conditions had to be endured to receive poor relief, because the NPL's main objective was to reduce costs (Newman 123). Thus, the workhouse had a bad reputation, and it was usually perceived as a "shameful and harrowing prospect" by Victorian society (Newman 123).
What is Charles Dickens's attitude to workhouses in his other novels?
Sir Joseph's comments on Will's story such as "it seems", and "that's his story" foreground that Sir Joseph questions Will's agenda of moving to London because he was found in a shed, instead of working (Dickens 112).
During the Victorian Era, industrialization caused the relocation of labour from the countryside to urban areas, resulting in the economic growth of Great Britain (cf. Long 2). The main reason for rural-urban migration in nineteenth century Great Britain was the "uneven spread of industrialization", low migration costs, as well as a demand for factory workers (Long 2). Even though most workers benefited from migration to the city, not every migrant was able to compensate for the "high living costs" and "psychic costs of moving" (cf. Long 30).
The context proves that it is likely Will is telling the truth and he came to London to look for work. Therefore, Sir Joseph's comments display the opinion of wealthy characters in the story, who are prejudiced against the poor and assume Will is behaving illegally ("they become impatient and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude" p. 112), even though he merely needed a place to sleep after having travelled to London.
The term "as old as Methusela" describes a person who is "extremely aged or ancient" ("Methuselah, n." 1.a.). It can also represent a person bearing resemblance to "Methuselah by virtue of longevity" (cf. "Methuselah, n." 1.b.)
"Methuselah" appears in the Great Bible and Bishops Bible, as well as in the King James Bible (cf. "Methuselah, n."). It is, however, commonly written as Methusael in most English Bibles. "Methuselah" is the name of the grandfather of Noah in the Old Testament, who is said to have lived for 969 years. (cf. "Methuselah, n.").
Mr. Filer uses the simile "as old as Methuselah" to emphasize his dissatisfaction with the poor who he perceives as living off his labour owing to their inability to contribute anything to society (103). His use of the expression further highlights his tendency to exaggerate and to base his argument on indefinite amounts of numbers. Mr. Filer thus repeatedly presents himself as a diligent and hard-working member of society that "heap[s] up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry" (103), only to reveal, ironically and on the external level of communication, his feckless and misanthropic endeavors to oppress the poor .
A "red-letter day" is "a saint's day or other Christian festival" usually marked in the calendar with red letters (cf. "red-letter, n." C.2.a.).
The tradition of red lettering derives from antiquity and medieval manuscripts which included the use of red pigments to indicate significant letters (cf. "rubricate, v."). The red-letter day contrasts the black-letter day, which is an "inauspicious day" in the Christian calendar marked in black letters (cf. "black letter day, n." C.3.).
By comparing Toby's windy workdays to "red-letter days", the narrator plays with the bad connotation of storms that usually cause a great amount of discomfort for those who are caught up in them (89). According to Toby, windy weather is "a sort of holiday", because, to him, it serves as a distraction from hunger and negative thoughts (89). The passage thus suggests that the windy weather causes him bodily discomforts which reach such high levels of intensity that they drown all other discomforts, making it a ‘holiday' for other problems. By contrast, for example, Toby describes wet weather as the "days that tried him" (90). The narrator's rather cynical description of Toby's personal red-letter days on the external level of communication highlights not only the protagonist's unwaveringly optimistic nature, despite all adversities set before him, but, in a straightforward example, illustrates what living at a subsistence level means for those concerned.
The term describes a "snuffling sound in the act of respiration" which is caused by a running nose (cf. "snuffle, n." 3.).
"The Snuffles" is an onomatopoetic metonymy for a cold, and it is a euphemism that plays down Toby's seemingly endless cold.
The use of the euphemism "The Snuffles" supports the notion that, as nothing can be done anyway, this neglectable, yet, "disordered action of [Toby's bodily] functions" is accepted as a minor incommodity of every-day life. Moreover, throughout the story, Toby's character repeatedly serves as a representative of the lower classes; here, his perpetual cold can be said to generally reflect the condition of the working classes that constantly suffer from sickness and disease owing to their bad working conditions and lack of access to proper healthcare services.
The verb "chaff" is colloquial and describes a form of banter that takes place in a light-hearted manner, but it is also understood as a calculated conversational move to "try the good nature or temper of the person ‘chaffed'" (cf. "chaff, v. 2." a.).
The term "chaff" can be interpreted in two different ways: on the one hand, the Alderman assumes that Toby uses a certain vulgar sociolect typical of his class, and, on the other hand, he uses the ambiguity of the word to disguise whether he provokes a light-hearted banter, or whether he is trying Toby's temper (102). It is likely that Alderman Cute does both. He uses "chaff" to emphasize the class difference between him and Toby, and to explicitly distinguish Toby's language from his own (102). For example, the word appears in inverted commas to show that the Alderman does not use the word himself but ascribes it to Toby (102). Moreover, the Alderman makes it clear that he uses the word only to demonstrate his skills to deal with Toby's "sort of people", believing that "there is not the least mystery or difficulty" in that "if you only understand ‘em, and can talk to ‘em in their own manner" (102). He, therefore, employs the word in a patronizing way because of his implication that he knows everything about a class that he is not a part of, since he has tasted their food and knows their language (102). Thus, the scene shows that the Alderman uses Toby's language and degrades him under the disguise of light-heartedness.
The term alderman describes "a member of the legislature of a municipal council or corporation" in England ("alderman, n." 3.). Its origin is in Anglo-Saxon England, when the word "ealdorman" indicated a nobleman, sometimes of royal descent, who had the power to exercise authority over a group of people (cf."ealdorman, n." 1.).
The narrator's introduction of the Alderman is ironic because it highlights the Alderman's self-important disposition. On the one hand, the Alderman is introduced as a "sly" and "knowing" fellow, and on the other hand he is supposedly in the hearts of poor people even though he belittles them. What we find here is an ambiguity of perception: his self-perception is juxtaposed in an ironic fashion with the perception of the narrator.
A "cross-grained" person can be described as someone who is "difficult to deal with" because they are "intractable" and "of opposed nature and temper", and therefore "across the grain" ("cross-grained, adj." 2.). The term is generally used to describe wood that has its "grain or fibre arranged in crossing directions, or irregularly, instead of running straight longitudinally," making it difficult to chop ("cross-grained, adj." 1.).
Will Fern emphasizes that, unlike cross-grained wood, he is not naturally a "contrarious" person, but that in a society in which his desire to "live like one of the Almighty's creeturs" is categorically denied, he may appear as though he was ("cross-grained, adj." 2.). Will thus points out that it is impossible for the poor to simply want to live without automatically incurring the anger of the exclusionary societal system, and that, therefore, there is a gap between rich and poor that increases the unequal circumstances (Dickens 117). The passage serves to show that Will Fern's character is not innately bad, but that he merely wishes for equality.
If someone is despondent, they are "characterized by loss of heart or resolution[...]" (cf. "despondent, adj. and n."A.1).
Sir Joseph Bowley is the self-proclaimed "Poor Man's Friend", and he pretends that it is his duty to provide parental guidance for the poor (110). Before Toby mentions his debts, Sir Joseph talks about wanting to encourage people like Toby to strive for a better life; however, his reproachful reaction shows that he lacks empathy towards the real struggles of the poor (111-114).
The passage is conspicuous because of its sound pattern. Apart from the stresses in the phrase "Wet weather was the worst" (cf. auer 115), the line is also marked by the alliteration of the voiced labial–velar approximant (w sound) and the voiced dental fricative (th sound). Not only do such sound patterns contribute to the overall musicality and rhythmicality in the novel, but, at this point specifically, they enhance the sensory experience (cf. Brooke 712) of reading about rain and wet weather as well. The quick repetition of the fluid "w" and "th" sounds embedded in the specific rhythm echoes the rain drops falling from the sky.
Whereas in the preceding paragraph the narrator remarks upon how windy and frosty weather is akin to a holiday for Toby (cf. Bauer 114), in the paragraph under consideration here the narrator emphasizes several times the adverse effect of wet weather; he does so through highly descriptive passages and the use of alliteration. Wet and cold weather becomes a source of discomfort for Toby, and it surrounds him like a moist and misty coat. The reason for this could be the plain fact that under rainy and cold weather the perceived temperature is much lower than with snowy or windy weather which reminds Toby of the "great-coat" he could never have owned.
The city is personified and compared to Toby with the city's throat (the streets) being choked by the mist. The reason for this is that with the industrialization and rising urbanisation the suburban periphery was reserved for the rich and upper classes who lived further away from their place of employment whereas the city centre with its many work places, such as stores, became more and more identified with the unskilled working classes (cf. Pooley 24). Thus, it is as if Toby and the city seem to merge into one another, which enhances the description of Toby's rather miserable life. The city as a public sphere and working-class people are grouped together while wealthy and upper-class people are secluded into private spheres of their own and protected from the adverse effects of nature through their isolation from the public sphere (i.e. the city). Thus, this kind of weather is not solely circumstantial in the narrative but becomes the primary source for the ruminations about Toby's miserable life, which becomes evident in the rather negative and discomforting descriptions of this kind of weather by the narrator.
"Put […] Down" means to put an end to (an activity, practice, ideal, institution, etc.) by force or authority; to suppress, crush, quell; to abolish ("put, v." 2.b.). Moreover, in some contexts it can also allude to an even harsher action: To kill, put to death. It is used as a euphemism to killing (an old, sick, or injured animal) in a humane manner. ("put, v." 4.).
The phrase "Put […] Down" is used multiple times in this passage as well as regularly throughout the story. The constant repetition of this phrase in relation to different disadvantaged groups – such as children and women of the lower classes –creates a certain ominous atmosphere due to the lack of sympathy and compassion for these people.
In this part of a larger passage Alderman Cute is condescendingly talking about certain groups within society, in particular poor people. When Cute claims that "boys will grow up bad, of course" (104) he puts forward the deterministic idea that disadvantaged groups in society will stay as such and hence should be segregated and removed. He will "convict ‘em summarily, every one"; Cute is "determined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down" (104). We may see early forms of what will be later called social Darwinism, which comprises the approach that societies, classes, and race are subject to and product of Darwinian laws of natural selection. This theory has often been used to justify political conservatism, imperialism as well as racism. It was coined by Joseph Fisher in his 1877 article on "The History of Landholding in Ireland" ("social Darwinism, n.") and the idea of the "survival of the fittest" was first used by Herbert Spencer in 1864, in his Principles of Biology ("fit, adj." 1.b).
Concepts of social Darwinism and the survival of the fittest were coined and further analysed decades later than The Chimes. However, this passage constitutes a perfect example of the view that social concepts did not arise solely from biological findings, but that they resulted from several shifts within the thought and social organization after the Industrial Revolution (cf. Claeys 225). Which is to argue that, the discernment and conceptualization of social Darwinism has its roots not only in the study of evolution and non-human animals but more so in the observation and analysis of social phenomena like poverty. The reason that poverty became more visible in comparison with pre-industrial times is due to the rise of the population and the concentration of this population in the cities. This observation becomes evident in the sentences following this passage, when Alderman Cute implicates that the "brood" of poor people will stay as poor as they are to begin with and "run wild in the streets" (104). He accordingly hints at the view that they will cause social disruption in the growing slums. Throughout the patronizing passage, Cute, as someone who distances himself from these groups, claims that he has the right and authority to "protect" and "cure" society from these disadvantaged groups. He does not view them with pity but rather contempt. His only solution to these problems is to "Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down" (104). Hence, decades before the coinage of social Darwinism, the idea that poor people should be exterminated for the "good of society" is put forward as an emerging idea in Dickens's works – and has something that he condemns.
Polony is a large dried sausage made originally of a mixture of pork and other meats, partly-cooked. It probably is a variant or alteration of another lexical item: Bologna sausage ("Polony, n.1").
Polonies, as opposed to trotters, pettitoes and tripe, which are later mentioned by Toby, are based on meat instead of offal.
Toby's succession of guesses starting from a meat-based food, polonies, and then proceeding with offal-based foods, mirrors the typical food of the Victorian poor (cf. Mejer 174).
The name of the banker may derive from the word deedle, which in turn is a variant or alteration of the word devil ("deedle, n.1").
Beginning with the nineteenth century, which also saw the rise of capitalism and the monetization of global economy, bankers became the new "aristocracy of the City" (cf. Cassis 229). Not land or blood alone but also the accumulation of capital became a major class marker. In that way bankers became part of the larger bourgeoisie. Legal regulations on private property and inheritance ensured that this earned capital stayed within this certain class. Intermarriage between banker families and the old landed gentry also intensified this shift in class structure. The lower class was the working class who had to labour for long hours in order to make the factories of the bourgeoisie work. Thus, bankers, as representatives of this class were the thorns in the side (or devils as in this case) of the workig class and in that way naming the banker as "Deedles" cannot come as a coincidence. It is rather a critique by Dickens on the social stratification and inequality in Victorian society.
Dickens's novel Little Dorrit, published in the years 1855 to 1857, comes nearly 10 years after "The Chimes", published in 1844. In Little Dorrit, Dickens presents the character Merdle – a banker whose name not only echoes the earlier character's but also evokes similarly negative connotations. Merdle, a variant of the word mardle, is a borrowing of the French word merdaille which in turn originates from the word merde, meaning dung or excrement ("mardle, n."). Considering the two consecutive negative connotations of banker names in Dickens's novels, this leaves the question of whether Merdle in Little Dorrit is based on the earlier Deedle.
Being "born bad" is inextricably tied to the poor working class, and in that way the phrase is used within an essentialist view of the social classes.
The deterministic conception of poor people's inherent depravity, here in the form of being "born bad" uttered by Trotty, will appear later again on page 104 with Alderman Cute's passage to "Put boys without shoes and stockings Down". Through this and Alderman Cute's passages Dickens criticizes deterministic views on poverty.
When the reader has a closer look at the preceding sentences wherein Trotty uses the pronouns we and us to differentiate himself and people like him as a class distinct from the rest of society, it becomes clear that he is a class-conscious character. Michael Shelden argues that through this character Dickens foregrounds the dominant ideas about poor people as Other in the Victorian era (cf. Shelden 330). Through Trotty Dickens aims to criticize the social order of the nineteenth century in more general terms. Whereas on page 93 Trotty still seems to have hope for a new life and a fairer order in the new year (cf. Shelden 347), here he seems to have lost hope as he reiterates "We are born bad". The inability of Trotty and his class to change for the better necessitates him to find an answer to his questions. Trotty finds a rather ironic one that prevents further ruminations: determinism and fate.
In Victorian England, during a time of major socio-economic events such as industrialisation and urbanisation, the nuclear family gained importance especially for the working classes. Lack of financial security and social welfare programs at the beginning of the nineteenth century forced individuals to live closely in order to survive. The family was seen as a protective harbour. Thus, it was also "a commonplace idea in the nineteenth century that the traditional patriarchal family unit was the best defence against self-destruction" (cf. Deacon 13). Women who as wives and mothers constituted an integral part of the nuclear family were especially thought to be "immune against" any form of self-destruction or suicide.
Suicide was a felo de se in English law, a felony against the self. In Christianity it is a grave sin. Thus, suicide burials were at crossroads, and in effect these burials became signifiers condemning the act of suicide even posthumously (cf. Deacon 5). This explains Toby's highly emotional exclamation and repetition of the phrase "unnatural and cruel," which is further supported with the exclamation marks at the end. Along with this comes his reaction in a nearly fretting way: The crime is "revolting" to him, causing nausea. He instantly has to think about doing the same to his own Meg and is unable to identify with the woman, he is "appalled".
The phrase "cord of existence" refers to the idea of life being symbolized by a thread. This idea originates in ancient Greek mythology and revolves around three minor goddesses called the Fates or Moirai (ancient Greek μοῖρα; meaning "lots, destinies"). The Fates are in charge of observing the destiny of any mortal being, "particularly with regard to the timing of their death" (Hard 27). They are traditionally portrayed as weavers spinning the threads of mortal life. Each thread the Fates spin "is or carries on it" the destiny of one mortal being, and once a thread is cut the respective life is ended (Hard 28). While Homer only refers to the goddesses by the underspecified plural of the Fates, Hesiod and other later Greek writers mention their names as being Atropos, Klotho, and Lachesis, and even speak of a "division of labour" between them "with Klotho spinning the thread, Lachesis determining its allotted length, and Atropos cutting it off pitilessly at the time of a person's death" (Hard 28).
Instead of simply referring to his death by using that word, Sir Joseph Bowley calls life "the cord of existence" and describes death as the breaking of it (Dickens 109). This choice of words alludes to the Fates of Greek mythology, who watch over the destiny of any person by spinning and cutting their threads of life. Sir Joseph's statement, thus, indicates him claiming that the class system and his high position in it are neither the results of coincidence, nor man-made inequality, but destined to be like this by a higher power (i.e. God, see ["Ordained", Level 2 – Interpretation]). At the same time, he shows off his learning and thus pronounces a further claim to superiority.
The exchange between Sir Joseph Bowley, Mr. Fish, and Toby, and especially Sir Joseph's choice of words, is used to characterize Sir Joseph. Sir Joseph, a "stately gentleman" (Dickens 109), belongs to the upper classes of society and thinks himself to be better than others because of that. This belief is mirrored by Sir Joseph's language which is marked by a preference for lofty diction and allusions to classical learning. Thus, Sir Joseph refuses the basic verb ‘cut,' which is supplied by his secretary Mr. Fish, in preference for the more sophisticated ‘sever' and alludes to Greek mythology by using the phrase "the cord of existence" to describe life and death (109).
Before Sir Joseph settles on the phrase ‘to sever the cord of existence' to describe death, his speech is halted by his search for words as indicated by his stuttering: "So if death was to – to ––" (109). Moreover, Sir Joseph reacts "with great asperity" to his secretary's attempts to help by proposing the simple ‘cut' (109). Both Sir Joseph's refusal to speak in plain English and his momentary inability to sound as highbrow as he would like to suggest a certain pretentiousness in his way of speaking. Dickens thus satirizes Sir Joseph as a member of the supposedly sophisticated upper-class who not only reveals his affectations in the way in which he acts, but also the underlying elitism and snobbism that cause him to act like that in the first place.
A dirge is a type of song that developed as part of the Latin rite of the Office of the Dead, which sometimes included the Evensong or the Mass ("dirge, n." 1.). Because of its origins, a dirge commonly refers to "a song of mourning or lament" ("dirge, n." 2.). It is sung during burials, funerals, or memorial rites to commemorate the dead, and frequently exhibits characteristics of a funeral march ("dirge").
A shuttlecock is "a small piece of cork, or similar light material, fitted with a crown or circle of feathers" ("shuttlecock, n." 1.). It is a piece of sports equipment necessary to play jeu de volant, battledore, or shuttlecock. All of these games are predecessors to modern-day badminton which still uses the shuttlecock to bat from one player to another.
The Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors also lists "shuttlecock" as a metaphor from the mid-seventeenth century that refers to "an unsettled life where a person is frequently moved from one home or job to another" (568).
Based on the entry in the Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors, Dickens's use of shuttlecock to describe Toby's involuntary movement in this text passage may be read as a metaphorical reference to the inherent uncertainties in Toby's way of life. Being a "ticket-porter" (Dickens 89), Toby has to wait and hope for people, like Alderman Cute, to hire him to deliver letters or goods. Since his work as a ticket porter is based on commission, Toby only gets paid when he makes a delivery. The lack of a stable income and its dire consequences for Toby are referred to repeatedly in The Chimes – even before the text passage that compares Toby to a shuttlecock. For example, Toby's poverty and the resulting insecurity shows itself in his shabby clothes (90), his debts with Mrs. Chickenstalker (114), and in his astonishment at his daughter Meg, who earns her money with commission-based needlework, but who is able to afford dinner for the both of them (97).
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "shark" as "selachian fish of the sub-order Squali" ("shark, n." 1.). The OED entry also notes that the word "shark" is often used "in popular language" generally referring "to the large voracious fishes of this suborder" ("shark, n." 1.). Thus, the common image of the shark as marine animal is already loaded with ideas of immense size and insatiable hunger and, therefore, danger.
When used to describe a person, the word "shark" links the person not only to a large and strong animal, but also to a predatory one. The "allusion to the predatory habits and voracity of the shark" ("shark, n." 2a), thereby, suggests an animalistic quality in the person referred to. While the voracity emphasizes the shark's nature as savage, and therefore, driven by animalistic desire, the hunting of and feeding on smaller marine animals associates the "shark" with a cold mercilessness that further emphasizes its inhumanity. Accordingly, in its figurative use the word "shark" denotes somebody "who enriches himself or herself by taking advantage of the necessities of others" such as "a rapacious usurer" or "an extortionate landlord" ("shark, n." 2a). Similarly, the Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors lists "shark" as a metaphor for a person who is deemed a "swindler" or "extortioner" ("shark").
The simile "a maw as accommodating and full as any shark's" likens the little shop to a dangerous beast of prey (Dickens 144). Like a shark hunting and feeding on smaller fish, the little shop is used by its new owner, Mr. Tugby, to prey on his most vulnerable customers (see ["voracious little shop", Level 3 – Interpretation]). Toby notes how there are less "accounts of credit customers" since Mr. Tugby took over the shop of his wife and concludes "that the porter was an advocate of ready money transactions, and on coming into the business had looked pretty sharp after the Chickenstalker defaulters" (Dickens 145). In other words, Mr. Tugby denies his poorer customers, most likely those of the working classes, the possibility to buy food and other necessities of life on credit, i.e. if they do not have enough money in cash.
The simile that likens the little shop to a shark is used to personify and then characterize its owner Mr. Tugby as an extortioner and a swindler (see ["voracious little shop", Level 3 – Interpretation]). Thereby, the narrator alludes to the dangers and downsides of a purely capitalistic society where the imbalance of power is left unchecked, and the strong like Mr. Tugby (i.e. the upper and middle classes) prey on the weak like Meg (i.e. the working classes).
In its original meaning, "awe" is defined as "a feeling of fear or dread, mixed with profound reference, typically as inspired by God or the divine" ("awe, n." 1.b.). In the course of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, and especially through the reflection on the sublime by the Romantic movement, the meaning of "awe" was broadened in the sense that it was no longer felt only towards Gods or the divine. Instead, it may also be "inspired by a person of great authority" and "the power or beauty of the natural world" ("awe, n." 1.b.).
The combination of "a species of" and "awe" is marked in that it is a specification that, however, does not really clarify the exact meaning of the term in context.
In the description of the bell tower and the bells that fill Trotty "with a species of awe" (Dickens 91), Dickens uses elements of the Gothic novel. The Gothic novel was a popular genre well into the early nineteenth century, and it was generally characterized by its ample usage of medieval settings and "sensational and supernatural occurrences" (Abrams and Harpham 152), such as ghosts and visions, to both excite and frighten its readers. Later nineteenth-century novels, like Charles Dickens's Bleak House and Great Expectations, still used Gothic "elements of the macabre and terrifying" (Abrams and Harpham 153).
This passage describes how Toby experiences "a species of awe" when he passes the old church and hears the "deep strong melody" of the bells (Dickens 91). The term "awe" combines in itself both negative and positive connotations as it is defined as "a feeling of fear or dread" that is "mixed with profound reverence" ("awe, n." 1.b.). Toby's ambivalence towards the Chimes is intensified by prefixing "awe" with "a species of" (Dickens 91), thereby creating a further underspecification of Toby's feelings.
The uncertainty of Toby's feelings about the Chimes which results from the phrase "species of awe" is further developed by the narrator's description of the old church that is reminiscent of the atmosphere of a Gothic novel. Not only does the old church sport such typical features of Gothic architecture as "dark arched windows" in its bell tower (Dickens 91), but also an air of uncanny mystery. The wind that howls through the old church "moans and cries" and "has an awful voice" and "ghostly sound too" (Dickens 87). Moreover, the narrator calls the church's bell tower a "wild and dreary place" that is "far above the light and murmur of the town and far below the flying clouds that shadow it" (Dickens 88).
Being distanced both from the town below and the sky above, the bell tower is turned into an intangible, almost otherworldly, in-between space. It seems to belong neither fully to the realm of the natural (i.e. earth), nor the supernatural (i.e. heaven). The eeriness in the description of the bell tower is repeated in the portrayal of the bells themselves as "mysterious, often heard and never seen; so high up, so far off, so full of such a deep strong melody" (Dickens 91). That the bells appear to be far removed from the earthly every-day life of Toby but are still able to affect him by filling him with uncertain and peculiar feelings of awe; as such, they help to create the uncanny atmosphere of The Chimes as a ghost story and foreshadow the supernatural influences of the bells on Toby later on in the story.
In its common usage the adjective voracious refers to animals "eating with greediness" or "devouring food in large quantities" ("voracious, adj." 1.). These characteristics are partially transferred when voracious is used figuratively to describe persons as being "excessively greedy or eager in some desire or pursuit" ("voracious, adj." 1.).
The phrase "a little shop" is foregrounded through anaphora and then characterized as being "perfectly voracious" in the second instance of that phrase (Dickens 144). This personification of the little shop as greedy and predatory is reinforced by the simile in the following clause "a maw as accommodating and full as any shark's" that further likens the shop to a feeding shark (see ["shark", Level 1 – Context]).
The little shop itself is described as "greedy" and "voracious," a characterization that is underscored by the simile "with a maw as accommodating and full as any shark's" (Dickens 144). Both the marine and the predatory motifs are continued in the following sentence when the little shop's stock is described as "fish that came to the net of this greedy little shop, and all articles were in its net" (Dickens 144). The repetitions of the phrase "a little shop" in close spatial proximity to the imagery of the net full of fish, and especially the shark and its metaphorical meaning of "swindler" or "extortioner" ("shark") conveys the idea of the shop as a commercial place intended only to make as much profit as possible (see ["shark", Level 1 – Context]).
The personification of the little shop as a place of insatiable commercialism can be transferred to the characterization of its new owner Mr. Tugby, who acquired this ownership by marrying the widowed Mrs. Chickenstalker. By transferring the qualities of the shop to its owner, a kind of metonymy between the two is created. Mr. Tugby's voraciousness is, thus, mirrored in the physical appearance of himself and the little shop. The little shop is described as being "quite crammed and choked with the abundance of its stock" (144). Similarly, Mr. Tugby is heavily overweight with a "short thick throat and labouring chest" (145), "fat legs" (146), and "eyes […] sinking deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft face" (145).
Mr. Tugby's overindulgence in food and resulting appearance is in stark contrast to the privations of his customers, among them Meg. But as Toby's observations about Mr. Tugby's cold-hearted behavior – he turns Meg and her baby out on the streets in the middle of a cold night because she cannot pay her rent – shows that Mr. Tugby is only interested in making enough of a profit for himself and does not care for the misery and hardships of others. This characterization of Mr. Tugby as a greedy and self-serving capitalist is reinforced by the use of the simile "with a maw as accommodating and full as any shark's" that likens Mr. Tugby to a predatory beast of prey by describing his little shop as such a beast (see ["shark", Level 2 – Interpretation]).
John Donne (1571-1631) was one of the leading metaphysical poets.
He is known for both his love poetry and religious verse, and often used complex conceits, such as extended metaphors, with startling impact.
We have to keep in mind that most works by Donne "circulated in manuscript, remaining within Donne's private circle for years after they were written," and that his poems were published posthumously. Especially love poems like this one may have sprung from personal experience and may be addressed to one of his female lovers. (Bell 202)
the time of day when sunlight first begins to appear
This poem consisting of three stanzas with six lines each is written entirely in rhyming couplets. The first two couplets of each sestet are in iambic tetrameter, while the last couplet of each sestet follows an iambic pentameter. As a result the addition of syllables to the last two lines of each stanza slows them down and gives them more weight.
"Break of Day" is an aubade. It is a love poem or a song which welcomes the arrival of the dawn or complains about it. Often they are adulterous or illicit lovers, who don't want to separate but don't want to get caught either.
"Break" is an ambiguous term in the context of this poem. While the break of dawn is the start into a new day, it also brings with it the breaking apart of the couple sheltered by darkness during the night.
Break of Daye.
perhaprs by John Dowland
Stay, O sweet, and do not rise,
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die,
And perish in their infancie.
In the 1669 edition and some MSS., the stanza attributed to Dowland (in a different meter and spoken by a man, and probably not written by Donne) precedes the three stanzas of this poem (Donne/Clements 11).
It is unknown when the poem was written but presumably during the early 1590s. (Robbins 141)
First printed with music in W. Corkine's "Second Book of Airs" (1612). (John Donne The Complete English Poems; ed. Albert J. Smith. London, Lane, 1974)
"Break of Day" was set by William Corkine and appears in his Second Book of Ayres, 1612. It is set for voice and viol. (John Donne: The Elegies and The Songs and Sonnets, Appendix B. Ed. Helen Gardner. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.)
archaic, 2nd person sing. of "will".
obj. thee; poss. thy or thyne; pl. ye or you
second person singular pronoun, now replaced by "you" except in some formal, liturgical, dialect, and poetic uses.
"hither": adv. & adj., formal;
adv.:to or towards this place
"All eye" is a metaphor for the sun. This singular eye donning the sky is watching and, through its gaze, symbolized by the light, disturbing the lovers.
"‘All eye' is energised here as a threatening ‘spy'." (Robbins 142)
"All eye" was also an emblem of the deity, e.g. on the title-page of Ralegh's 1614 History of the World. (Robbins 142)
Walter Raleigh - History of the World (1614) - title pageIn this context "all eye" could have a religious meaning since the expression was also used as a synonym of "god". It is not only the sun and the light that spies for the lovers but also god who may look down upon them. This may result in an interpretation of the lovers as knowing that their affair is not appropriate, and therefore they feel observed/spied upon.
Personification of "light" which is a metaphor for "day". "Light hath no tongue, but is all eye " means that the day itself is unable to speak, but the light at daytime is able to make things visible, therefore light = day is able to spy but not to speak.
"darkness" is introduced in opposition to light and day
The sun and its light is the antagonist in this poem. The "break of day" marks the rising of the sun, and hence the light is breaking up the lovers' intimacy as the man has to leave his woman behind to pursue his business. However, while it is true that in the first stanza of the poem the sunlight threatens to split up the lovers whom its counterpart "darkness" had brought together, it changes into being personified by "having no tongue" and being "all eye " in the second stanza.
"fain": adj. & adv., archaic;
here: adverb: gladly (esp. "would fain").
Paraphrase: "That being well I gladly would stay."
The speaker in this poem is probably a woman who speaks as the day breaks. (One can assume that it is a woman by the use of the pronoun "him.") During the night she and her lover can be together but when the sun comes out, they must part.
The fact that the speaker of this poem is female is striking because in most Renaissance love poetry "the male poet/lover formulates and speaks the words", which could suggest that the Renaissance speaker "inevitably subordinates the woman to his ‘masculine persuasive force'" (Bell 202). Giving voice to a female speaker may represent a different attitude towards gender matters or just an allusion to the tradition of the aubade.
Considering gender matters, Donne has often been wrongly described as misogynist, but the literature today has come to the conclusion that it is "impossible to identify an abiding or systematic view of women and gender" in his poetry; it rather "echoes and challenges the gender stereotypes of his day" (Bell 201) by focusing and "satiriz[ing] individuals" (204).
This passage varies in some manuscripts and prints of the poem. According to Albert J. Smith, some versions print the line as "him that hath them," while several others print it as "her that hath them" and one edition in 1669 offers it as "her, that had them". Nevertheless, the 1612 first print (in William Corkine's Second Book of Ayres) gives the line with the male pronoun "him."
"hence": adv., archaic: from here; from this place.
Paraphrase: "Must business thee from here remove"
The phrase is potentially ambiguous: "disease of love" may either refer to venereal diseases ("morbus veneris" was an early name for what later became known as syphilis; the Latin expression appeared first in 1527) or the topos of love as a sickness (going back to ancient philosophy, for example in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and Cicero's Tusculan Disputations; it was well-established as a literary topos by the time of Donne).
In the case of this poem, the allusion to (actual) diseases of love (as in venereal diseases) is used for a comparison: what the female speaker goes through is worse than that. The forcefully parted lovers and the pains of the disease of love is analogous to, for example, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The lovers are torn apart by vis major (a larger power) that neither can do anything about, and what remains is the disease of a broken heart.
(adjective) grossly offensive to the senses, physically loathsome; primarily with reference to the odour or appearance indicative of putridity or corruption.
(adjective) busily occupied or engaged; actively employed.
(verb) to receive or accept (a person or thing)
According to Albert J. Smith, this line's "when [...] doth," was in some manuscripts printed as "when [...] should" or "if [...] should."
1. court; seek the hand or love of (a woman).
2. try to win (fame, fortune, etc.).
3. seek the favour or support of.
4. coax or importune.
The complaint of lovers parted by the dawn was popular with the Provençal poets in the twelfth century, who frequently put speeches or whole lyrics in the mouth of the women. Donne does it in only one other poem, "Self Love" (Smith, however, in his edition states that "modern editors have not felt confident" about the authorship attribution to John Donne) (Donne/Smith 399, note to "Self Love").
"Break of day" is spoken by a woman and this is in the tradition of popular not courtly, song. It descends from the Provençal "aube," the dialogue of lovers parted by the dawn (see Donne/Gardner 158).
In Greek mythology, the amazons were a class of female warriors living either in Scythia or Africa, fighting with bow and arrow. These communities consisted of women only who had their right breasts burnt off in order to make it easier to draw the bow; the word ‘amazon' accordingly derives from the Greek a- (not) and mastos (breast). The term is also used to describe women with traits traditionally ascribed to men, such as physical strength and a talent for warfare.
The "tyrant's love" may refer to the Governor that is mentioned in the legend of St. Margaret the Virgin. He asked for her hand in marriage, expecting her to renounce Christianity. Upon her refusal to become his wife and give up her faith, he had her tortured and eventually executed.
The tyrant might also be connected to the dragon mentioned in the poem as the ‘drake of hell' (l. 11) and therefore refer to the devil himself. In the legend of St. Margaret according to de Voragine, the dragon is presented to Margaret whilst in prison as the true enemy, and therefore exposing the devil, and not the Governor, as her actual opponent (de Voragine 369). The referential underspecification may, however, also refer to a link between governor and dragon, making them both symbols of the devil.
"St. Margaret" may refer to various different saints. Based on the biography of Henry Constable and intertextual references, the most likely candidates are either St. Margaret the Virgin, also called Margaret of Antioch or Saint Marina the Great Martyr, or St. Margaret of Scotland.
- St. Margaret the Virgin (c. 289 - 304) is famous for refusing to renounce Christianity and slaying a dragon in the process. She was beheaded at age 15 and is the patron saint of women in labour. Her Saint's Day is the 20th of June.
- St. Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 1093) was an English princess and Scottish queen. As the wife of Malcolm III, she adjusted the ways of the Scottish church to those of the Roman Catholic church under whose influence she had grown up. After losing her husband and her eldest son to the Battle of Alnwick, she died of grief. She was declared a saint in 1250. Her Saint's Day is the 16th of November.
However, the context of the poem strongly suggests that the poem refers to St. Margaret the Virgin (despite the fact that Constable had strong Scottish connections and converted to Catholicism).
St. Margaret the Virgin is mentioned by Blessed Jacobus de Voragine in his hagiography, Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea). She was born in 289 in Antioch, Pisidia (today Turkey), to a Pagan priest father and was raised by a Christian nurse. Upon embracing Christianity and pledging her virginity to God, she was disowned by her father. Refusing to renounce her faith following a marriage proposal, she was tortured by her suitor. Thrown into prison, Margaret asked God to show her the demon she was fighting against. When it came to her in the shape of a dragon, she signed a cross at it, and it vanished. Upon her second refusal to renounce her faith, Margaret was tortured again, of which she emerged unharmed once more, which caused bystanders to convert. Afraid of more people following this example, the authorities sentenced Margaret to death.
The dragon is a common metaphor for the devil going back to Revelation 12:9: "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (KJV, see also St Michael). Through this biblical connection of the devil with a dragon, the latter became a common symbol of sin and paganism in the Middle Ages (Brewer 413). In religious contexts, the terms ‘dragon' and ‘serpent' are often used interchangeably (Brewer 413).
There are different versions of how St. Margaret the Virgin slayed the dragon. One version states that she signed a cross at the dragon, which caused the beast to vanish. Another version claims that Margaret was swallowed by the dragon and she was able to save herself by making the sign of the cross, upon which "the dragon burst open and the virgin emerged unscathed" (369). However, de Voragine comments on the latter version that it is to be considered "apocryphal and not to be taken seriously" (369).
The dragon also features in the legends of St. Michael and St. George.
"St Michael" refers to the archangel Michael. He is explicitly mentioned in both the Old and the New Testament (Da 10:13, 21; 12:1, Jud 9; Rev 12:7-9). He is also often associated with the angel that led the Israelites through the wilderness (Ex 23:20, 21, 23; 32:34; 33:2, cf. de Voragine 587). The most relevant Bible verses for the poem are probably Revelation 12:7-9 where he is depicted as leading the angels into the battle against the dragon. In art, Michael is mostly represented as slaying a dragon or weighing souls (Farmer 309).
Based on both the Old and the New Testament, in Christian tradition four roles are assigned to the archangel Michael: "to fight against Satan; to protect the souls of the faithful from Satan and his minions, especially at the hour of death; to defend God's chosen people […] and to call away souls from earth and bring them to judgement" (Johnson 105). The figure of St. Michael is strongly linked to the final judgement, mainly through these named functions (weighing the souls and slaying the dragon). Additionally, he announces the end of time with a blast from his trumpet (Johnson 104). From these various roles, Johnson concludes a duality of his character: He is both "the ruthless commander of the celestial troops who smites the enemies of the Lord, and the merciful angel who intercedes on our behalf" (107). According to the Legenda Aurea, "Michael receives the souls of the saints and leads them into the paradise of joy" (de Voragine 587).
Michael is most commonly represented in art as a young man, dressed in white or armour, bearing a lance and a shield and fighting the dragon (Brewer 901). In images of the final judgement, he is represented with scales to weigh the souls of the risen dead (Brewer 901). This representation was frequent in medieval art but became less common with time. Still, this image appears again and again in (early modern) religious poetry, however, often without Michael being explicitly mentioned (e.g. in John Donne's "Thou hast made me and shall thy work decay", l. 8). This might be due to the fact that although England became predominantly Protestant, elements of earlier creed did not disappear and were still part of the culture and the religious beliefs of many (see also the author's background).
The poem seems to focus on Michael's role as the dragon slayer since Michael and the titular St. Margaret are frequently pictured with dragons, just like the third saint mentioned in the poem, St. George (Brewer 413). Furthermore, the poem explicitly mentions Margaret's fight against a dragon in line 8 while comparing her to St. Michael and St. George. Through the symbolic function of the dragon in the bible, it is usually identified with the devil. Consequently, in Christian art (and therefore arguably also in Christian writing) the dragon may also symbolise sin in general. Hence, the depiction of a Christian figure slaying a dragon may allegorically represent the triumph of the Christian hero over evil (Brewer 569).
Like the titular St Margaret and the archangel Michael, St George is considered a dragon slayer. According to the Legenda Aurea, he killed a dragon that was terrorising the city of Silena. As a condition for his help against the dragon, he told the people of Silena to believe in Christ and be baptised, which led to "twenty thousand [being] baptized, not counting the women and children" (204). The Legenda Aurea also chronicles his death as a martyr in Lydda during the reign of Diocletian and Maximilian (cf. Farmer 181).
The verb ‘to wink' means "to close one's eyes"; a meaning that is now obsolete (OED 1a). ‘To wink' can also be used as a synonym for "to blink" which describes the action of "open[ing] and shut[ing] one's eyes momentarily" (OED 2). Possible other meanings also are "to sleep", "to slumber" or to "have the eyes closed in sleep" (OED 3).
A possible interpretation is that ‘to wink' was used as a synonym for "to blink" (OED 2). One could suggest that the speaker is able to see better when blinking more often. This could be compared to looking into the sun or a bright light, and being able to see better when blinking rapidly. Because of the explicit mentioning of sleeping and dreaming in line 3 of the poem ("But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee"), a different interpretation would be more fitting.
The use of the word ‘to wink' can also be interpreted as having the eyes closed in sleep which would suggest that the speaker is able to see the clearest when he is asleep or has his eyes closed. This, however, is a paradox since one cannot physically see with one's eyes closed. The reader may assume that the speaker of the poem is asleep and dreaming which is also confirmed in line 3. The word ‘most' in this phrase indicates that the speaker is able to see best when he sleeps deeply. Booth suggests that ‘wink' in this context means to shut one's eyes or to sleep (203). This reading is also corroborated by Evans who paraphrases the passage as: "when I sleep most deeply" (144).
The adjective ‘unrespected' describes something that is "not held in respect or regard" (OED 2). Other annotations of ‘unrespected' in previous editions paraphrase the term as "unvalued" (Duncan-Jones 196), "ignored" (Booth 203), or "unnoticed" (Hammond 194).
The speaker describes how he "view[s] things unrespected" (l. 2) all day. These things seem to be less important to the speaker than the sight of the addressee. The line can be interpreted in two different ways, depending on the paraphrase chosen. In the first interpretation, the reader is aware of his surroundings, in the second he is not.
First, ‘unrespected' can be substituted with "ignored" (Booth 203), which would suggest that the speaker observes his surroundings, but deems the things to be unimportant and actively chooses to ignore them. Evans supports this reading, paraphrasing ‘unrespected' as "not worthy of respect" but also as "unregarded, not carefully observed" (144).
Second, ‘unrespected' could be substituted with "unnoticed" (Hammond 194). This reading would indicate that the speaker does not even observe or notice the things around him.
The emphatic repetition "shadow shadows" in this line is an example of both a polyptoton and an antanaclasis. A polyptoton (Gr. for "word in many cases") is a form-related figure of repetition where the repeated word varies in terms of word class or inflection ("Polyptoton" 1086). Antanaclasis (Gr. for ‘reflection') is a semantic-related figure of repetition where the repeated word "shift[s] in meaning" ("Polyptoton" 1086).
The two rhetorical figures, polyptoton and antanaclasis, overlap in this line. The repetition "shadow shadows" (l. 5) is a polyptoton in that the two, otherwise identical, nouns differ in grammatical number. However, on the level of their semantic meaning, the antanaclasis becomes relevant. Although ‘shadow' and ‘shadows' share much in their connotations, they actually refer to two different things: the shadow of the addressee as opposed to the shadows (or darkness) that the addressee makes bright. Polyptoton and antanaclasis are closely related figures and, whenever a word is repeated in a different form and with a different meaning, they are often used interchangeably ("Polyptoton" 1086).
According to The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Shakespeare was quite fond of such playful devices, as they "[increased] patterning without wearying the ear", and lines 4-7 of Sonnet 43 are cited as an illustrative example of his deliberate and diligent use thereof ("Polyptoton" 1086).
‘Form' may generally refer to the visible shape of something (OED 1a), or, more specifically, to a bodily frame "considered in respect to its outward shape and appearance" (OED 3). In the seventeenth century, the term could also be used to refer not only to a material body, but also to "an image, representation, or likeness" thereof (OED †2). In Platonic philosophy, a form is the ideal state of a thing or a concept (cf. Bruce n.pag.; OED 4a).
The distinction between shadow and form was quite popular in the Renaissance as Platonic thought was re-discovered and re-interpreted at the time. Plato's theory of forms, evoked in a number of his works, assumes that there is a world or a dimension beyond human reality that contains "the ideal or archetypal forms of all things and concepts" (Bruce n.pag.). In Book 7 of The Republic, Plato elaborates on this idea and comes up with an allegory known as ‘the allegory of the cave'. According to this conception, human beings are inhabiting a cave and what they perceive as their immediate reality is just a shadow of the outside world reflected on the illuminated walls of their confined abode. The cave represents the world of senses and the outside represents the world of forms. It is only through "true knowledge" achieved by philosophical contemplation that one can "[perceive] the forms directly, with [one's] mind's eye" (Bruce n.pag.).
In Neoplatonic thought, the notion of contemplation is broadened to include the intense contemplation of sensible things, such as a "person of rare beauty", which would then lead the way up to the world of forms (Jones 10). Under these premises, imagining or dreaming about a beloved constituted "the first step towards a higher form of love" (Wickert 283, my translation).
‘Form' in this phrase is ambiguous. On the one hand, it could refer either to the shape of the addressee's actual shadow in the literal sense, or to the outline of the shadow image appearing in the speaker's dream. On the other hand, ‘form' could refer to the original substantial body of the addressee of which the shadow is but a reflection.
The latter interpretation is favoured both by Evans ("your real, physical shape (‘form') which produces this mental image (‘shadow')" (144n6)) and by Booth ("the model for the image, the reality of which the shadow is an image, body, self" (204n6)). Similarly, Catherine Duncan-Jones paraphrases "thy shadow's form" (l. 6) as "the substance behind your imagined image" (196n6), yet ‘substance' itself is an ambiguous term. Substance could either refer to the physical "material of which a body is formed" (OED 7a), as Booth and Evans suggest, or it could refer to the immaterial "essence of a thing" (OED 6b) that could be associated with the Platonic form.
Duncan-Jones, perhaps undeliberately, identifies this inherent ambiguity of the word ‘form' that becomes even more complicated when combined with the ambiguous ‘shadow'. While the context of the "clear day" (l. 7) suggests that "thy shadow's form" (l. 5) most probably refers to the addressee's real bodily presence, the Neoplatonic context still implies that this presence could be compared to a Platonic ideal.
In this context, shade is what the OED describes as "[a]n unsubstantial image of something real […]" (Def. II.5.b). Here, the ‘shade' is the image of the beloved. However, the same OED definition also indicates that this image has the qualities of "an unreal appearance; something that has only a fleeting existence, or that has become reduced almost to nothing". ‘Shade[s]' and ‘shadow[s]' repeatedly occur in the poem and contribute to the permanent play on bright and dark elements (cf. l. 5 "shadow shadows", l. 8 "shade shines" and l. 11 "fair imperfect shade").
Though unsubstantial and associated with darkness, it can be argued that a shade is not as dark as a shadow (ll. 5, 6). In this respect, there is a tendency towards brightness with the change from shadows (ll. 5, 6) to shades (ll. 8, 11) which then culminates in "bright days" (l. 14).
Vendler also points out that lines 1-10 "all brighten as they end" (224), followed by the "only two lines in the body of the poem" (224) in which this dynamic works the other way around. She attributes both "desire and frustration" (225) to the couplet, and argues that after this downward progression, the sonnet ends with "the up-driven push of desire" (225) in the couplet.
According to the OED, ‘dead' describes night as a period of day "without animation, vigour or activity; quiet, dull; lifeless" (16a). Therefore, the expression "dead night" can refer to a part of the night of the most intense quietness, darkness, etc. The Farlex Dictionary of Idioms suggests that the phrase "in/at the dead of night" means "in or during the middle of the night".
The actions that take place in the "dead of night" happen during the quietest and darkest period of a day. Moreover, "dead night" can elicit nocturnal visions and ghostly images within the semantic field of the recurring ‘shadows' (ll. 5, 6, 11). The editors Evans (144) and Booth (205) agree that the meaning of shade as a ‘ghost' may well impinge on a reader's understanding triggered by nocturnal images. Thus, we can agree with Duncan-Jones' interpretation of "dead night" as a "night-time, which is associated with death and lifeless phantoms" (196).
The phrase "heavy sleep" is associated with deep sleep. The adjective ‘heavy' can also stand for "slow, sluggish, dull" (Schmidt 5) and "weary, drowsy, sleepy" (Schmidt 6).
Day and night are used as metaphors for emotional states. The speaker juxtaposes contrasting images ("days are nights" (l. 13)), which is the case of an antithesis.
Also, in this line, one encounters a diacope, which is the repetition of a word with one or several words in between: "[…] see till I see […]". This creates an internal rhyme, which stands next to a second internal rhyme within the same line in "see thee".
The speaker reckons that all days are like nights to him until he sees the addressee in person, not only his ‘shade'. The days are compared to nights probably to show that the days have become dark and dismal to the speaker's sight, because the addressee's image only lights up his life with his beauty (fair shade). Thus, "[c]ompared with the empty real day, the real night of vivid dreams is desirable" (Vendler 223).
The verb ‘to see' does not only mean that one is perceiving their surroundings through their eyes. According to the OED, it can also mean "to behold (visual objects) in imagination, or in a dream or vision" (1e). Therefore, the semantic meaning of ‘to see' goes beyond the eyes' mere physical abilities.
In the early modern period, people had a different notion of vision and the act of seeing than we have today. It was believed that one could not only physically see while being awake and conscious, but also while being asleep. Seeing a person in one's sleep was not seen as a dream, a creation of the subconscious mind, but as a real depiction of the other person.
Campbell argues that seeing in these sleeping visions was "considered far deeper and ‘truer'" (34). This phenomenon goes back to the idea of an inner eye. This idea is based on the understanding that what was once perceived by the physical eye would be memorised, and could be revisited via the inner eye.
The speaker claims to be able to see best in his dreams. This is due to the belief in an inner eye that enables to see objects even with one's eyes closed. The object that the speaker sees is the addressee of the poem. This is revealed in line 3: "in dreams they [the eyes] look on thee". The image of the addressee is therefore projected before the speaker's inner eye. This experience is not a physical, but a psychological one.
‘To look on’ means that one directs her/his sight "in observation or contemplation; esp. to watch without participating, to be a spectator or observer" (OED 1a).
The speaker is able to see the addressee in his dream ("they look on thee", line 3), i.e. to see a projected image of the addressee before his inner eye. This interpretation would also tie in with the definition provided on L1, according to which the speaker would be the observer. Furthermore, the idea of observation is taken up again later in the poem.
For ‘darkly', the OED suggests the meaning of "in the dark; in secrecy, secretly" (OED 1), with line 4 of this sonnet being offered as the first example of this usage.
The phrase "darkly bright" is an oxymoron as it "yokes together two seemingly contradictory elements" – darkness and brightness – in order to form a "condensed paradox" (Princeton 988).
"[D]arkly bright" in line 4 of the poem refers to the color or degree of brightness of the speaker's eyes. The oxymoron makes it impossible to determine whether the eyes are dark yet sparkling, or bright yet darkened or blurred. Bearing in mind the suggested meaning of ‘darkly', the phrase can also be read in the sense that the eyes can see (brightly) in the dark. This description bestows an enigmatic quality to the speaker's eyes. For more context on theories of vision, cf. "And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed" (l.4).
The phrase "bright in dark directed" (l. 4) works as an antithesis, since it is what The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics describes as a "juxtaposition of contraries" (58) and it echoes the preceding oxymoron "darkly bright" in the same line. (For further information on the whole line, cf. "And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed" (l. 4)).
The antithesis "bright in dark directed" (l. 4) stresses the blurring of light and darkness. The eyes unite both and the trope emphasises the idea that there is something bright to be found in this darkness. Yet, it is unclear what kind of darkness the speaker is talking about. It could be the darkness of the night, as this is the time when people go to sleep and close their eyes. Given that "But" in line 3 introduces a shift away from "day" (l. 2), the night-reading would make sense. However, it is equally possible that the speaker refers to the darkness perceived upon closing one's eyes. Instead of seeing nothing (or only blackness), the closing of the eyes allows the speaker to see something brightly and clearly. As the eyes are "directed", it can be assumed that the image he sees is not random, but evoked deliberately.
Ingram paraphrases the expression as "alertly directed in the darkness" (100), indicating the dynamic towards the dark and a certain purpose to do so: whenever the eyes of the speaker are closed, the desired image would appear brightly in his imagination. However, Ingram's following remark on this line "[h]ere the adverb [bright] balances ‘darkly'" (100) is to be criticised: describing the effect of ‘bright' as a balance is too weak, as it also creates tension and bewilderment instead of merely re-establishing harmony. The speaker is neither in a place of darkness nor of light. Describing this in-between state as a ‘balance' would neglect the tension created by the semantics and rhetorical figures of the poem: they all indicate that the speaker is torn between positive and negative emotions.
Booth (203) provides a detailed list of figures to be found in this sonnet, with line 4 containing most of them. These include an "antithesis: […] bright, dark (4)" and a "diacope (repetition of a word with one or a few words in between); bright, are bright (4)". Furthermore, he lists an "antimetabole (inversion of the order of repeated words): darkly bright, are bright in dark (4)", as well as a polyptoton consisting of the variants "darkly" and "dark". The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics describes the polyptoton as a "word in many cases" (1086), which means that it "repeat[s] a word or words by varying their word class" (1086).
Booth explains that "in the Renaissance eyes were generally thought of as giving off light" (203). Duncan-Jones' annotation on this line mentions the notion that light moves in both ways, as "[e]yes were thought of as emitting light, as well as receiving it" (196). Hammond gives slightly more details on this by pointing out that "Renaissance theories of vision held either that the eyes send out rays which connect with the object seen, or that the object sends out rays which connect with the eyes" (194). All three remarks are hints that theories of vision are vital for a better understanding of the intentionally puzzling line.
In Vanities of the Eye (2007), Stuart Clark provides a detailed discussion of the historical development of theories about vision and the eyes and points out that there were controversial discussions during Shakespeare's time around this topic. In chapter 1, going back to Greek antiquity, Clark names Aristotle and Plato as two of the main sources for the ancient hierarchy of the senses, which gave the eyes a special preference over the other sense organs (9). This ocularcentrism included an extramission theory of vision, which means that the process of seeing things was imagined as the result of the "projective power of the soul to […] produce objects of vision" (17). According to this Greek idea, "perceptions were ‘encoded' as phantasmata, ‘representations'" (11), which "could [then] be ‘seen' by the ‘eye' of the mind and resulted in a "mental picture" (11).
Centuries later, a shift from extra- to intromission theories became dominant: "[I]ntromission itself [was] largely preferred in optical theory after the thirteenth century" (20). Clark describes intromission as being based on "the projective power of objects to emit their own likenesses and then have them propagated through a medium and replicated in the faculties of sense" (17). A crucial element of this approach was the "doctrine of species" (15), which "radiated out from […] objects into […] the aire, transmitting images […] to the eye" (15). In this theoretical framework, the eyes are not active emitters of light or projections. Instead, "objects act on passive recipients, leaving impressions in their senses and intellects which translate into conceptual images" (15, emphasis in original), and the eyes are "reduced to […] a passive receiver" (20).
According to Clark's accounts, the sixteenth and seventeenth century, then, made the most decisive shift towards a dominance of intromission theories. Yet, simultaneously, "new importance and attention [were] given to the human imagination" (39). The previously common idea of the eyes being merely recipients of images projected by objects was increasingly challenged, and scholars and writers discussed the issue of "the extent to which sight is a constructed medium and the eye not the innocent, objective reporter of the world but its creator and interpreter" (39). In this tension between objective and subjective influences in the process of perception, imagination "became the single mediator between the corporeal soul and the corporeal human body" (43), acknowledging both the real world that could be seen and the influence of the human mind on these perceptions. As Clark puts it, "[imagination] was, indeed, the ‘eye' of the mind, in the sense that, in an ocularcentric psychology, the rational powers were deemed to ‘see' the external world only via its agency" (46).
This acknowledgement of the subjective element in the perception of things in the world also gave rise to doubts about the reliability of visual impressions, and "serious anxieties about [the imagination's] capacity to mislead and deceive" (45f.). Chapter 2 of Vanities of the Eye discusses how theories of vision were also crucial for contemporary studies of mental illnesses such as delusions, or the condition of melancholy.
Given the importance of ocularcentrism in its historical context, the elements of visual perception in the poem are not merely ornamental or signs of rhetorical playfulness. On the contrary, they are strong indicators for the speaker's psychological and emotional state.
The antimetabole "And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed" (l. 4) is only one of several instances in this poem in which the boundaries of light and dark (or of day and night) are blurred: it is no longer possible to make a clear distinction between what is bright, dimmed or dark. However, this does not create a gloomy or threatening atmosphere. Innes argues that Sonnet 43 "tries to make the conflation of night and day into something positive" (165): The speaker is not a victim of darkness, but actively provokes it and shapes his own perception in order to be able to see the image he desires. While doing so, he states a clear preference of mental images over those which he sees in the real world during the day. Hunter goes even further in attributing positivity to this line by pointing out that it is "not merely a piece of wordplay but also a triumphant dance of words expressing a lover's delight" (158).
The speaker needs to exclude all other visual impressions so that he can see the mental image of the addressee. However, the brightness of this image does not expel the darkness. Instead, both dark and bright elements remain in the sonnet. Bearing in mind the contemporary ideas about the importance of eyesight and visual perception on the mental condition, the speaker's eyes "in dark directed" (l. 4) can be seen as a reference to melancholy sufferers whose eyes were believed to look into blackness (cf. Clark 59). According to Clark, there was an awareness of the impact of the mind on the process of creating images (cf. 60). Whereas the brightly-shining images of the beloved are a proof of this positive influence and the happiness they bring, at the same time, the dark elements can illustrate the speaker's woe, pensiveness or scepticism. Does Sonnet 43 then portray both the joy of the imagination and the suffering caused by the knowledge that this image is not real? The eyes are directed in darkness, and although this is associated with a "happy show" (l. 6), some doubts remain as to whether it is to be interpreted as exclusively positive, given that there could still be a subtext of melancholy underlying this praise of bright imagery.
The term ‘shadow' in this sonnet cannot be reduced to one single meaning. Literally speaking, a shadow is an "image cast by a body intercepting light" (OED II). Metaphorically, it can refer to a hollow representation, "an unreal appearance; a delusive semblance […]; a vain and unsubstantial object of pursuit" (OED 6a), or to "a spectral form, [a] phantom" (OED 7). In the seventeenth century, ‘shadow' was also another term for "an actor or a play" (OED 6b) and it was often employed by Shakespeare in this sense: see, for example, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player" (Macbeth V.v.24 qtd. in Duncan-Jones 196n5), or Puck's epilogue in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "If we shadows have offended,/ Think but this, and all is mended:/ That you have but slumbered here/ While these visions did appear" (V.i.413-416).
Since Aristotle and all the way through to the early modern period, dreams were thought of as primarily visual (Clark 302) and were closely associated with the faculties of imagination and memory. It was believed that once the eye perceived an actual object, this produced a likeness of itself in the mind – what Aristotle called a ‘species'. Subsequently, the species travelled in the form of a mental impression from the outer to the inner senses in order to be examined by common sense, to be stored in memory and, eventually, to be retrieved by the imagination at will (cf. Clark 15; Rossky 50-51). Dreams were one of those products of imagination; they were defined as "vision[s] presented to the interior senses" (Dupleix qtd. in Clark 302-303) and projected during sleep before the inner eye, similar to a theatrical performance. Since antiquity, dreams were thought to be "caused by traces of the species left behind in the internal senses by the waking perceptions of the external ones, once the latter were no longer active" (Clark 301). The reproduced ‘species' or ‘phantasm' could also be referred to as a ‘shadow' (Clark 15).
Dreams were often considered to disclose what most occupied the mind and to provide an insight into the dreamer's innermost desires. Dreaming about a beloved thus suggested an impassioned – often forlorn – fixation on the object of desire and was a common motif in early modern courtly poetry. It offered a paradoxical fulfilment of an otherwise unrequited love, as the painful absence of the loved one was compensated by the presence of the dream image (cf. Alt 117).
As Wickert in her article "Das Schattenmotiv bei Shakespeare" asserts, the motif of the shadow was often used by Shakespeare and was favoured for its multi-layeredness and its ample associations (cf. 274). In Sonnet 43, the shadow plays a central role and is directly evoked five times in different variations: "shadow" (l. 5), "shadows" (l. 5), "thy shadow's form" (l. 6), "thy shade" (l. 8), "thy fair imperfect shade" (l. 11).
Within the context of eyes emitting light, evoked in l. 4, the first reference to ‘shadow' can be understood literally as the image cast by the addressee's body when exposed to the speaker's radiant gaze. Yet, the conceit is much more complex than that. Taking place in the realm of dreams, the shadow is also the incorporeal mental image of the addressee – the ‘species' – produced before the speaker's inner eye; it is "an unreal appearance; a delusive semblance […]; a vain and unsubstantial object of pursuit" (OED 6a) compared to the real addressee. The shadow can therefore be understood as an actor impersonating the addressee on the stage of dramatic dream action which is created and directed by and for the speaker before his inner eye. Furthermore, in the dreadful darkness of "dead night" (l. 11), the shadow might carry some uncanny implications and remind momentarily of ghosts or spirits, even though this possibility is not pursued any further in this sonnet.
Apart from the other meanings and connotations attached to 'shadow', the word 'shadows', when in plural, also explicitly refers to "the darkness of night" (OED 2a).
This is, at first sight, a paradoxical image as it is impossible for a shadow, typically associated with darkness, to illuminate something. Considering, however, the multiplicity of semantic layers inherent to the term "shadow" (l. 5) – a dark outline, a hollow representation, a ghostly image or an actor – as well as to the phrase "[to] make bright" (l. 5) – to illuminate, to cheer up or to make beautiful, the line gains in complexity and is not to be read solely as a paradoxon.
The meaning one would immediately associate with the phrase "make bright" (l. 5) would be ‘to illuminate' (cf. Duncan-Jones 196n5; Evans 144n5). Nevertheless, it can also be understood figuratively to mean ‘to cheer someone up' (cf. "bright, adj. and n." OED 7a), or, as an archaism, to mean ‘to make beautiful or fair' (cf. OED 3).
This is the third occurrence of the word ‘bright' in the sonnet. In the previous line, the adjective is repeated twice when referring to the eyes of the speaker: "[a]nd darkly bright, are bright in dark directed" (l. 4). In line 5, ‘bright' is repeated once more, this time however, combined with an active verb ("make bright") and referring to the addressee's shadow.
Considering that the phrase "make bright" might also imply that the addressee's shadow has a beautifying impact on "the darkness of [the] night" ("shadow, n." OED 2a), one might argue that line 5 is reminiscent of Shakespeare's Sonnet 27. In 27, the shadow of the addressee is not only bright "like a jewel" (l. 11), but it also has the ability to "[make] black night beauteous" (l. 12), much like in Sonnet 43. The only difference seems to be that the speaker in Sonnet 27 is still awake - his wandering thoughts "keep [his] drooping eyelids open wide" (l. 7) - while the speaker in Sonnet 43 is asleep and dreaming of the addressee.
The image further recalls the radiant ‘shadow' (l. 10) from Sonnet 27 which, "like a jewel hung in ghastly night" (l. 11), has the power to emit light and transform darkness. The motif is also evoked in similar terms in Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet is described as someone who is capable of even "teach[ing] the torches to burn bright. / It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;" (I.V.43-45) and elaborated further in the balcony scene:
"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
[...]
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night" (II.ii.2-22).
Yet, this idea of the image of the beloved shedding light onto the speaker's darkness is not solely reserved to Shakespeare's imagination, but seems to be part of a general tradition. For example, in Sidney's Sonnet 38 from his sequence Astrophil and Stella, "Stella's image" (l. 6; p. 149) perceived in the speaker's dreams appears to be shining (after all, ‘Stella' in Latin means ‘star'). Further, in Spenser's Amoretti, Sonnet 66, the speaker exclaims along the same lines: "For now your light doth more it selfe dilate, / And in my darknesse greater doth appeare" (ll. 11-12; p. 614).
This multi-layered phrase is a brilliant token of how Shakespeare managed to play with different nuances and evoke different images that allowed for different interpretations without necessarily cancelling each other.
At first sight, this is a paradoxical statement, as a shadow, being itself a dark outline, cannot possibly illuminate anything. Nevertheless, the motif of the radiant shadow of the beloved, emanating light into the speaker's inner darkness, seems to have been part of the contemporary love imagery and rhetoric. In the reversed hierarchical relationship common to love sonnets of the time, the wooer fashions himself as dependent and subordinate to the object of pursuit, and the addressee is attributed with the power to bring light into the speaker's life. ‘To make bright' may very well be understood metaphorically as in ‘to enliven' and ‘make one happier', or even ‘to make more beautiful'.
The choice of consecutively repeating the same word "shadow shadows" (l. 5) while essentially referring to two disparate images (the radiant ‘shadow' of the addressee as opposed to the ‘shadows' of the night and the gloominess of the speaker) blurs even more the boundaries between light and darkness in this sonnet. Paradoxically, "it becomes possible to place shadow ad libitum at both sides of the anthithesis" (Wickert 282, my translation).
The phrase "form happy show" can be read as syntactically ambiguous. According to standard English grammar, the subject of a sentence ("thy shadow's form" (l. 6) in this case) has to be principally succeeded by a verb: ‘form (v.) happy (adj.) show (n.)'. In poetic forms, however, the rules of syntax – being not as rigid – could allow for the possibility of a structural inversion: ‘form (n.) happy (adj.) show (v.)' in the sense of ‘show (a) happy form'.
Regardless of whether this is an inversion or not, the placement of ‘form' is deliberate as it results in an aesthetic doubling with "shadow's form" (l. 6). Following conventional syntactical rules, the repetition would be another instance of a ‘polyptoton' as the same word would vary in word class (noun vs. verb).
The term ‘show', either as a verb or a noun, refers to "[t]he action or an act of displaying, exhibiting, or presenting something" (OED "show,n.1" 1a). It is often associated with public ‘spectacle' and "theatrical performance[s]" (OED "show, n.1" 15b,c; cf. OED "show, v." 4b) and, sometimes, it can imply superficiality and intentional deceit: "[a] false, misleading, or illusory appearance of a quality, emotion, etc.; a semblance" (OED "show, n.1" 3b; cf. Booth 204n6). Another, by now obsolete, meaning that might prove relevant to the interpretation of the sonnet would be that of "[a] phantom, a vision, an apparition" (OED "show, n.1" †22). As an example of this use, the OED cites Shakespeare's Cymbeline: "As I slept, me thought Great Iupiter vpon his Eagle back'd Appear'd to me, with other sprightly shewes Of mine owne Kindred" (V.vi.429 qtd. in OED "show, n.1" 22).
Since the Middle Ages, it was common to think of the human mind in spatial and architectural terms. The Italian philosopher Giulio Camillo, in his work L'Idea del Teatro, was the first to establish a connection between the mental space occupied by memory and the theatre. Shakespeare's contemporaries Robert Fludd and John Willis adopted Camillo's model and were probably inspired by actual "public theatres of early modern London" (Wilder 1). In fact, Frances Yates, in The Art of Memory, goes as far as to argue that the Globe Theatre may have served as a model for Fludd's memory theatre (Wilder 15; Alt 78-79). According to this model, images of memory, imagination and dreams are acted out on a stage before the inner eye:
"Describing Camillo's theatre to Erasmus, Viglius Zuichemus writes that Camillo "called it a theatre because it can be seen with the eyes of the body" – that is, Camillo's memory theatre is a "theatre" not so much because it resembles the structures in which plays were performed as because it literalizes the Greek root of the word "theatre," which mean "seeing." Through the use of physical objects, real or imagined, this "memory theatre" places the mind on display" (Wilder 56).
Thus, in this inner performance, the one remembering, imagining or dreaming is, paradoxically, at once the audience and the actor, the seer and the seen (cf. Bauer and Zirker 8).
Both Duncan-Jones and Evans keep the interpretation of this phrase quite simple: "create a joyful spectacle" (Duncan-Jones 196n6) and "produce a (comparatively) felicitous (‘happy') appearance" (Evans 144n6). Booth's interpretation is indeed similar ("create a joyous spectacle, be a pleasing sight" (204n6)), even though he does briefly inform his readers of the possible negative undertones of ‘show'.
A show may, at times, imply a mere external display and illusion instead of sincerity and reality. Although there is no evidence in the sonnet that the speaker could be criticising the addressee for being dishonest, the choice of ‘show' might momentarily strike a dissonant chord in this otherwise glorifying tribute to the beloved. This uncertainty is enhanced by the potential syntactical ambiguity of the phrase "form happy show" (l. 6) which manages to somewhat blur the boundaries between "the illusoriness of show and the reality of form" (Cormack 253).
Combined with ‘shadow' which used to be a word for ‘actor' at the time, the connection of ‘show' with the theatre is plausible. The image of the addressee invoked in the speaker's dreams, is presented like an actor on a mental stage. In the context of "the clear day" (l. 7), the addressee seems to maintain his role as a performer and one has the impression that the world of dreams penetrates reality.
Finally, an interesting possibility is that ‘show' is meant in the sense of ‘ghost', as it reminds of the uncanny, yet unspoken, subtext of shadow.
The repetition of the adjective ‘clear' in its comparative form ‘clearer' in this line is again an example of a polyptoton, as the repeated word varies in terms of inflection ("Polyptoton" 1086).
The expression "clear day" (l. 7) is an archaic idiom meaning a "fully light, bright" day as "opposed to dusk or twilight" (OED 2a).
In combination with ‘light', the adjective ‘clear' underlines "the vividness or intensity" of the light's brightness (OED 1a). When opposed to a blurry, "imperfect" (l. 10) shadow (ll. 5, 6, 10), the "much clearer light" (l. 7) could also mean more "sharp", distinctly delineated (OED 6), or even "more perfect, more complete" (Booth 204n7; cf. OED 17). In the context of this sonnet, the second instance of ‘clear' could additionally stand for "cheerful" (OED 2d) – which would link back to "form happy show" (l. 6); "beautiful" (OED 4c) – which would link back to one plausible interpretation of "make bright" (l. 5); and "innocent" (OED 15a) – which could maybe allude to a moral dimension otherwise not openly addressed.
The unequivocal brightness of "the clear day" and the "much clearer light" (l. 7) of the addressee in this line are set in sharp contrast to the ambiguous interplay of darkness and light in the preceding lines of the sonnet. It is clearly no longer night and we are no longer in the realm of dreams. This means that the "clear day" (l. 7) refers to reality and the "much clearer light" (l. 7) refers to the real addressee.
The structure of this clause is ambiguous as far as the comparative is concerned. On the one hand, the use of the same adjective (clear-clearer) seems to underline the relationship between the light of the day and the metaphorical light of the beloved and to encourage a comparison between the two (see, for example, this line from Sidney's Arcadia: "Thy [i.e. Phoebus's = the sun's] beames I like, but her cleare rayes I love" (qtd. in Evans 144n7)). On the other hand, a more likely comparison would be between the dream image and its pendant in real life.
The addressee's "shadow" (l. 5) in the speaker's dreams has the ability to illuminate the darkness. In reality, then, the addressee's light must be much brighter and much sharper, or metaphorically, much more cheerful, beautiful or innocent than the dream image. A ‘clearer light,' in the sense of "more perfect, more complete" (Booth 204n7), could refer to the Platonic form in the sense of an ideal archetype.
This phrase contains several indicators of contradiction. First of all, the capacity of the eyes to see is negated by the adjective "unseeing", and yet the iambic pentameter in this line stresses -see- in "unseeing", and "eyes". Furthermore, the "shade" that "shines" is an oxymoron, as shade normally implies the absence of light and therefore cannot shine.
Another element to be noted is the emphasis on "shade shines" by the alliteration repeating the initial /ʃ/ sound. Although it is not stressed in the iambic pentameter pattern, this sound repetition draws the readers' attention to "shines".
"Unseeing eyes" (l. 8) which perceive someone's shade are contradictory upon first sight. However, as paradoxical as this expression might seem, it makes sense in the logic of the sonnet and especially in connection to line 1: the "unseeing eyes" are the ones that "wink" (l. 1). The prerequisite for perceiving the ‘shade' of the beloved is this shift from seeing normally to blindness: by closing them, the speaker's eyes become ‘unseeing', and only then can the image of the beloved ‘shine' in his imagination – this is how he "best see[s[]" (l. 1).
Although the phrase includes this paradox of seeing and not seeing as well as an emphasis on seeing and shining, it also indicates that the image seen by the poet is not perfect. The connotation of a ‘shade' in this sense is that it is an image of something in the world, but an unreal and fleeting one. Although it ‘shines', the ‘shade' of the beloved is not the same as the real person and can therefore not be an ideal substitute for the absence of the latter. On the other hand, there is brightness assigned to this image ("shines" (l. 8)) and the syntactic unit of lines 6-8 suggests that looking at it would make the poet "happy" (l. 6).
Considering these aspects, this phrase in the middle part of the sonnet seems to oscillate between positive and negative, with sight and brightness on one, and blindness and darker qualities on the other end. As some elements become brighter whereas other become darker, it could be argued that this part of the poem indicates the alternation of the speaker's feelings: they sometimes have a tendency towards sadness, sometimes towards happiness. This in-between stage is also pointed out by Vendler in her illustration of how the sonnet "gets darker" (223): the unseeing eyes are a first indicator of a deteriorating eyesight, as the eyes change from being ‘see'ing (l. 1) to ‘unseeing' (l. 8) and, finally, to ‘sightless' (l. 12).
However, the lines themselves tend to get brighter towards their end, which again results in a blurring of darkness and light which makes it hard for readers to decide which one of them is the predominant one. This can be seen as a continuation of l. 4, which has already raised the question of which one of the two emotions appears more strongly.
The word ‘shade' is repeated in the poem with the same root but with different flexions in ll. 5, 6, 8, which creates a polyptoton stretching across these four lines.
The adjective ‘imperfect' can be defined as "wanting some quality or attribute necessary to […] ideal character" or something "defective and faulty" (OED 2), especially opposed to the earlier ‘clear' and ‘clearer' (l. 7) visions of the addressee in the poem.
The word ‘shade' can have the same meaning as ‘shadow' in l. 5: "an unreal appearance; a delusive semblance or image; a vain and unsubstantial object of pursuit" (OED 6a), especially contrasted with substance, i.e. the actual object that casts the shadow. Moreover, with a possible play on ‘ghost' one can argue that shade has the meaning of "a spectre, [or] phantom" (OED 6b).
The poem is often interpreted in the context of a sequence with the failings of the friend, which occurs in Shakespeare's Sonnet 33. These two poems might refer to the same addressee.
The paradoxical representation of a ‘fair', yet ‘imperfect', image of the addressee implies the suggestion of seeing in a dream in which one cannot always see things as detailed as when being awake. When saying "imperfect shade" the speaker means the dream image "which is deficient, [and] less-than-whole because unreal" (Paterson 130). While dreaming, one might perceive the images "as only the shadow of the reality" (Evans 144). Thus, it is an imperfect – in the sense of blurred or incomplete – representation of the addressee's image in the speaker's dream, and not a physical actuality (Hammond: "because not substantial like the Boy's body" (194n11); Vendler: "its radical imperfection as a substitute for real presence is admitted" (224)). The speaker's imagination is reproducing only a likeness of reality.
Considering a possible intertextual connection with Sonnet 33, another interpretation of the phrase can be suggested. "[I]mperfect shade" can here also refer to a recollection of the allusions to the young man's moral defects in 33.5 and, according to Duncan-Jones, can be interpreted as "the image of you, beautiful despite your moral imperfection" (196). This representation of "imperfect shade" seems to stand out from the previous interpretation, because it excludes the speaker's dreaming the image of the addressee.
The word ‘sightless' means "unable to see; destitute of the power of sight" or can refer to blindness (OED 1a).
A similar image occurs in Sonnet 27 "Presents thy shadow to my sightless view" (l. 10). The sonnets both revolve around the haunting ‘shadow' during the night-time, which evokes rueful feelings in the addressee's absence. In Sonnet 43, the eyes are ‘sightless' because the speaker is sleeping, whereas in Sonnet 27 the eyes seem to be blind due to the surrounding darkness.
The speaker is able to see the addressee (at least his "imperfect shade"(l. 11)), despite being in a deep sleep and, thus, being physically ‘sightless'. Vendler argues that "the poem […] gets darker as the seeing eyes become unseeing and then sightless, and as the shade darkens from shin[ing] brightness to imperfect[ion]" (223). Indeed, throughout the poem the speaker slowly falls asleep (‘wink'), and gradually, he starts dreaming of the addressee.
The phrase ‘bright day' refers to daytime, esp. "in terms of its clarity, purity, brightness, etc.; a light like that of day" (OED 21).
The main dispute in this line is caused by the word order of "do show thee me". The sense here should be "show thee to me" but the rhythm (a stress on me) and the idiom ordinarily dictate "show me to thee" (Booth 205). Duncan-Jones also suggests that the possible need for a rhyme prompted this syntactical ambiguity ("show me to you" and "show you to me"), which has "the odd effect of leaving the final stress on me rather than thee" (Duncan-Jones 196).
The line juxtaposes the nights and bright days to emphasize that the speaker sees the addressee when dreaming (in night) as clear as in daytime (bright days). By using metaphorical images, the speaker conveys his happiness to see the addressee's image; his days are like nights because he is sad because he does not see the addressee. The dream acts as a medium to evoke the addressee's image, thus, the phrase can be interpreted as "I am dependent on dreams to show you to me" (Vendler 224).
The whole poem is considered to be a work of "elaborate wordplay" (Vendler 39): brightness and darkness (l. 4), shadow and form (ll. 5, 6), day and night (ll. 7, 10, 11, 13, 14). They are emphasised by using words of the same roots, repeating similar words in different meanings and playing with the oxymorons. This play with contrasting images and concepts underpins the general impression of paradox between dreams and reality. Booth suggests that "the recurring themes of this sonnet – things that are the opposite of what they would normally be expected to be, and the distinction between images or shadows of objects and the objects themselves – are played out stylistically in an intense display of antithesis and a range of rhetorical devices of repetition that make the language of the poem suggest mirror images" (203).
Edmund Burke, who had published a treatise on aesthetics in 1757, has written on the idea of the aesthetic concept of the Beautiful: "Beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses." (Burke, Part III, xii).
Throughout the poem, from its to title to its very last lines – "[a]nd this green pastoral landscape, were to me/ More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!" (v.162) –, nature is being revered. Its beauty is exciting pleasure on a physical and intellectual level, and this very beauty of nature should inspire love, even affection, in the observer and reader.
In the year 1798, when the poem was written, the region Wordsworth describes, was, in fact, an industrial one. However, he decides to disregard this fact throughout the poem, for the sake of his art and the particular poetics he pursued: according to Wu, the poet writes in the Preface of Lyrical Ballads that "[l]ow and rustic life was generally chosen because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language" (Wu 507).
The poem takes the stance that humanity can coexist with nature and need not interfere with it in any significant way. Signs of human habitation, such as "cottage-ground" (v.11), seem to blend in with the landscape which is portrayed as unaffected by human presence. Wu summarizes this stance as follows: "Wordsworth thought his work engaged fully with life as it was lived" (Wu 23).
In this line – along with line 7: "Thoughts of more deep seclusion" –, an element of the Sublime makes its appearance as the description of nature evokes strong feelings of awe, and even terror. Edmund Burke, in his treatise on aesthetics in 1757, defines the Sublime as follows: "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant with terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotions which the mind is capable of feeling" (Burke 39).
Cliffs can be said to be among the most staggering parts of nature, their precipices impress into the landscape the power that nature holds. The mere sight of them can be said to take the observers (i.e. readers) into "thoughts of more deep seclusion" (v.7), inspired by the greatness and awe the cliffs represent. This very seclusion could also refer to the separation the cliffs provide. It is not just the vastness of cliffs that is so impressive but also the notion of dividing one thing from another, which may formerly have belonged together that leads to that feeling of "seclusion".
The aesthetic concept of the Sublime is mentioned again in the poem, when the speaker comments that "[t]o them [he] may have owed another gift, /Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood" (v. 37-38) and further down "[a] presence that disturbs me with the joy / Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime / Of something far more deeply interfused" (v. 96-98).
These four lines contain enjambments, which means "the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line to the next without a major juncture or pause" (Brogan et al. 435-436).
Enjambments are one of the main elements of conversation poems.
Here, enjambments may be used to highlight the excitement and pleasure of the speaker at seeing the natural scenery again, which cannot be expressed within one line. The content of the next line reinforces the feelings indicated in the previous one: "with the length / Of five long winters!" The word "long" shows that the speaker thinks five years quite a long time, and thus enhances his excitement at being here again after all this time. The gap in the middle of the sentence caused by the link break may also hint at the gap between the first time the speaker saw the scenery and the present time. "These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs / With a sweet inland murmur": the enjambment in these two lines also emphasizes the speaker's pleasure at hearing the waters, which does not stop at the end of the first line but becomes more vivid in the next one, just like the waters roll from their spring, the words roll from line to line (the enjambment accordingly contributes to iconicity, the correspondence of form and content). Moreover, although the speaker's excitement and pleasure are already very clear in the previous lines: the use of "sweet inland murmur" is unexpected, and the continuation of the description here not only makes the scene more specific but potentially also contributes to the reader's immersion into the scene.
"Hermit" refers to a person who lives a solitary life, with or without religious motives ("hermit, n. 1").
In the third edition of Lyrical Ballads (1802), the word "hermit" is capitalized, but it is not in the first (1798) and second (1800) edition.
The image of the hermit indicates a comparison between the speaker and the hermit. The speaker lives in human society, while the hermit does not fit into human society; nature provides some kind of escape from every-day life for the speaker, while for the hermit nature is every-day life. Accordingly, the natural scenery perceived by the speaker is combined with his personal experience and thoughts, while the hermit "has actual nature at his disposal" (Kelly).
Why is the word "hermit" capitalized in the third edition of Lyrical Ballads (1802), while it is not in the first (1798) and second (1800) edition? Does this change have a different effect?
Interfuse means "to pour in", to infuse one thing into another ("interfuse, v. 2").
According to W. J. B. Owen, this part is related to "Aeneid VI, 724-7: ‘caelum ac terram camposque liquentes / Lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra / Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus / Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet; (‘an inner spirit sustains the sky and the earth and the watery plains, the bright globe of the moon, the sun and the stars, and mind activates the whole frame, pervading all its members, and blends with the great body')" (qtd. in Owen 212).
In the later 18th and early 19th centuries, Pantheism was widely spread, which is the belief that Nature is identical with God (Hoque 47); it includes the doctrine that "God is everything and everything is God" ("pantheism, n. 1"), and is usually accompanied by "worship or […] love of nature" ("pantheism, n. 1"). Wordsworth believed in Pantheism, and this belief is also expressed in "Tintern Abbey", especially in lines 99-106. To him, Nature and God are one, which "appears in different names like spirit, life beyond physical world, […] a living principle, an undistinguishable motion, […] etc." (Hoque 48-49).
Both "Tintern Abbey" and the passage in the Aeneid quoted in L1 - Context are about the relationship between nature, the human mind and spirit. The elements of nature that they refer to are similar as well. Moreover, both passages argue that nature and the mind have a common core that makes them exist and work; in other words, there is an inherent community between them.
The speaker realizes that, to perceive nature, not only nature itself is needed but also one's experiences and thoughts about nature - nature and mind are blended. Meanwhile, the past and the present are blended as well: the past does not end, it becomes an important part of life, and the nature in the speaker's memory is now mingled with the nature in front of him (Kelly).
This part can be related to John of Gaunt's speech in Richard II: "This land [England] of such dear souls, this dear dear land – / Dear for her reputation through the world-" (Shakespeare 2.1.40-68), a reading which may be based upon the repetitive "dear" (see Weinfield 269).
A second possibility is that the passage refers to the Song of Songs, near to the end of which "the younger, virginal sister" is also abruptly mentioned. In the Song of Songs, this expression appears in the context of the female lover wishing that she were her beloved's sister, because a brother-sister relationship allows them to kiss in public without being looked down upon (Pearson 210).
The possible intertextual reference to John of Gaunt's speech indicates that the emphasis of "Tintern Abbey" has changed from nature, which is described in the first verse paragraph of the poem, to what is "dear" to the speaker. The reason why the landscape is important is not the place itself, but that it "evokes feelings of love […] and reflections on our capacity to love" (Weinfield 269-270).
In the Song of Songs, after a declaration about love, the character of a sexually immature sister is described who is far from ready for marriage. Similarly, in "Tintern Abbey", Wordsworth likens his sister to his younger self, who is close to the innocence of childhood and away from the sexual consciousness of adulthood; he thus also underlines her role as a "dear sister", a "non-sexual role" (Pearson 211), rather than that of a lover (Pearson 210-211). Thus, being her brother, as Pamela Woof explains in Towards "Tintern Abbey", Wordsworth could share "mind, heart and spirit" but not "body" (49).
In addition, the speaker thinks that his sister "sees what [his] younger [self] once saw, and feels what he felt", and this is the validation of the younger speaker's perceptions (Smith 315).
The word "nature" appears six times in this poem, and here it is capitalized for the first time.
These lines have been related to Coleridge's "This Lime-Tree Bower" (see Magnuson 153-54):
Henceforth I shall know
That nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
‘Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share. (61-69)
In these lines, "Nature" is personified, which may be related to Wordsworth's worship of nature and is also indicated in lines 156-157: "and that I, so long / A worshipper of Nature" (William and Coleridge 210). Combining lines 138-139: "Our cheerful faith that all which we behold / Is full of blessings" (William and Coleridge 209), which suggest that he and his sister believe that nature is full of blessings (Napierkowski and Ruby), nature now is associated with religion. Furthermore, both Wordsworth's and Coleridge's texts express that despite "vacancy or loss", as long as they are still the lovers of nature, they are able to transmit joy (Magnuson 154).
"Your memory" is ambiguous here. It can either mean
(1) ‘people's remembrance of you'
or(2) ‘your own memory of something/someone (i.e. of the speaker)'.
The two meanings of "your memory" correspond to the first lines of the poem:
(1) If the speaker survives to make the addressee's epitaph (l. 1), "your memory" means ‘people's remembrance of you'.
(2) If the addressee survives the speaker (l. 2), "your memory" means ‘your own memory of something/someone (i.e. of the speaker)'. In this case, the addressee's memory of the speaker will not end with the speaker's death, because the addressee still has the poems to remind him of their writer.
Only as late as line five it becomes clear that the first meaning is the most probable ("your name" will be remembered).
In this context, "or...or" means "whether…or" (cf. "or, conj.1." Def. 3b).
The meaning "whether…or" for "or…or" has been obsolete since the eighteenth century but was not unusual in Shakespeare's time (cf. "or, conj.1." Def. 3b). For an explanation why the meaning "whether… or" is more likely in this context than "either… or" see Level 2.
The first two lines of sonnet 81 can be paraphrased as ‘it does not matter whether I live longer than you or you live longer than me'.
The meaning "either…or" for "or…or", which is common today, was also used in Shakespeare's time, for example in his Comedy of Errors 1.1.136 (cf. "or, conj.1." Def. 3a). However, this reading is unlikely in the context of sonnet 81. It would mean that the speaker is stating the obvious, namely that either he will die before the addressee or the addressee before him. Thus, the meaning ‘no matter who of us dies first, your memory will survive' ("whether…or") is much more probable than ‘either I die first or you, but your memory will survive' ("either…or").
The "Or" makes the beginning of sonnet 81 seem very sudden and one could describe it as an 'in medias res' ("into the middle of things") start (cf. Hardison and Hornsby 707). This is a recurring feature of Shakespeare's sonnets and creates the impression that "the reader is being taken immediately into the ongoing thought process of the poetic voice" (Edmondson and Wells 58). In the case of sonnet 81, one might also be induced to believe that one is overhearing a conversation rather than a thought, which could be connected to the overall impression of sonnet 81 as spoken rather than written/read silently.
All the world can be understood as all of humankind or even all living beings. (cf. OED „world n." III.13).
The verb go can have the meaning of "[being] alive and active" and evokes the image of "walking upon the earth", while the past tense of the phrase in this line states that the action is over, i.e. the speaker is dead. (OED „go v." 1c)
The speaker plays around the meanings of "dying". To him, ‘dying' seems to be a process with different levels. Once gone, once his body is no longer living he will still die to the world. The "I" now does not just refer to his body, but to his intellectual work and memories other people have of him. Thus he is undergoing a second death at which end there is truly nothing left of him.
The line can also offer the following reading: "the world is no longer relevant to me", thus then describing the disentanglement of the speaker from the world.
The parallel structure of the two lines is striking, as both feature organs of future people (eyes and tongues, both used as synecdoches for complete persons), an object connected to the addressee (Which, referring to your monument, l. 9; and your being), and a verb implying its reception (o'er-read and rehearse, thus alluding to two different ‘styles' of reception: reading in private and for oneself or rehearsing it and thus reading it out loud). Booth also prompted to "[n]ote the partial but urgent parallelism between lines 10 and 11" (279) and illustrates the "twin" (279) relation between the respective elements within the lines.
This noticeable formal connection also creates a strong link in the meaning of the lines. For one, the poet's verse and thus the addressee's existence is passed on in written text and orally, passively and actively, to many people. Lines 10 and 11 thus emphasize that the memory and survival are based on more than ‘just' the solitary act of reading. Another effect of this parallelism is pointed out by Booth who argues that the twin structure evokes the idea of its elements being interchangeable. To him, this syntactic property has a direct influence on the meaning of the lines, allowing for an equation of my gentle verse with your being because they have become, according to him, "interchangeable entities so much alike that having one is just as good as having the other" (279).
cf. OED Def. I.1.a: "To give an account or description of; to relate, report, narrate, tell; to describe at length" and 1.4a: "To recite (a poem, prayer, or other piece of writing), esp. before an audience; to read alound or declaim from memory."
In addition to the act of reciting or describing something, the Definitions I.4.a and b include the notion of an audience being present. It thus transcends the solitary act of reading. This is supported by "tongue", which refers not only to the speech organ, but also to the idea of "Spoken as distinct from written or other communication; by tongue, by word of mouth." (OED Def. 5.) The idea of someone's existence being passed on in written verse is expanded by actively performing in front of a certain number of people.
"[R]ehearse" makes the process of passing on the memory more active, and it thus seems more alive. It is also a clear contrast to the realm of burial and death in lines 1-8. Moreover, it breaks the previously described motif of being ‘locked up' (like the body in the tomb or the memory in verse) by including this active aspect. An important addition to the reading of "rehearse" can be found in Bauer and Zirker: Arguing that the process of "reading the epitaph leads to an actual "in-hearsing" of the addressee in the eyes of the reader" (28), line 11 illustrates a change from "in-hearsing" to "re-hearsing" by means of a pun.
The noun here means "existence" (Def. 2.) or "life" (Def. 2c.).
In addition to the material, physical existence (cf. Def. 2a, 2c), "being" can also mean the "existence viewed as a property possessed by anything; substance, constitution, nature" (Def. 3a.). Thus, "existence" is not meant merely physical, but also has a more spiritual dimension.
"to be" and "being": The play with different forms of "to be" emphasizes the aspect of ‘life': Instead of referring to death and burial as he did in the previous part of the sonnet, Shakespeare now creates a strong impression of someone ‘being' alive, focusing on living creatures. As "being" syntactically and logically ‘belongs' to his contemporary addressee, and "to be" refers to future generations, the idea of life being expanded over time and generations is evoked.
Lines 13-14 of this sonnet bear a strong resemblance to the last lines of Sonnet 18: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee".
The numbering of the sonnets contributes to the close relation between the two sonnets. In Thorpe's 1609 Quarto, which supposedly reflects Shakespeare's own numbering of the sonnets, both are numbered 18 and 81 (cf. Graziani). Many of the more recent editions of Shakespeare's Sonnets (cf. New Cambridge, Arden Shakespeare and editions by Hammond, Vendler, West, Booth) also maintain the numbering of the sonnets.
The link between "Sonnet 81" and "Sonnet 18" is established particularly on the level of content. "Sonnet 81" as well as "Sonnet 18" deal with death, transience, and the speaker's ability to grant "immortal life" ("Sonnet 81", l. 5) by making the addressee the subject-matter of his poetry and thus, the lover's literary immortality. Both sonnets imply that the speaker's "eternal lines" ("Sonnet 18", l. 12) create a "monument" ("Sonnet 81", l. 9) that will preserve the lover's memory "so long as men can breathe or eyes can see" ("Sonnet 18", l. 13).
"Sonnet 18", however, suggests a more jocular approach to the rather sombre subject of man's immortality. The speaker compares the addressee's beauty to the equally fleeting charms of a "summer's day" ("Sonnet 18", l. 1), but later discards this comparison as inadequate. The image of the beloved's fading beauty is opposed by the speaker's optimistic promise of an "eternal summer" due to the preservation of the addresse's loveliness in the speaker's immortal poetry ("Sonnet 18", l. 9).
"Sonnet 81" is more urgent in its claim: the focus shifts towards the inevitability of the speaker's as well as the lover's death. Paradoxically, the sonnet suggests that it is the lover who will be remembered rather than the author of the sonnet (cf. Arden Shakespeare) (see also "grave", l. 7 ).
The numbering of the sonnets makes the link between the two sonnets even stronger: 18 and 81 are considered climacteric numbers as 81 is the square of 9 and 18 the double of nine (cf. Paterson 231). 7 and 9 were considered mystic numbers and great importance has been "attributed to those years marked by their special multiples" (Cummin 70). The origin of this belief is found in Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates (cf. Bennett), but were also advocated by Plato and Cicero. The OED Online lists the earliest mention of the climacteric years in Hammond's translation of The History of the World, commonly called the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius published in 1601:
"That the fewer sort of men live any long time; for that the greatest number by farre, have their nativitie incident and liable to the dangerous houres and times either of the moones occurrence (as in her Quadrature, Opposinition, and Sextile aspect) or of daies according to the number of seven or nine (which are daily and nightly marked and observed:) wherupon ensueth the rule of the dangerous graduall years, called Climactericke." (Plinius VII.xliv)
In Elizabethan England the climacteric numbers 9 and 7 were therefore "considered unlucky numbers, unusually dangerous to human life" (Fort 19).
Shakespeare's knowledge of the climacteric numbers gets obvious in the beginning monologue of Act II of As You Like It (II.VII), which resembles Hippocrates’ division of man’s life into seven ages: infancy, boyhood, puberty, youth, manhood, senescence, and decrepitude (cf. Cummin 70). In As You Like It Jacques similarly delineates the seven stages of a man's life, reflecting that “man in his time plays many parts, / His acts being seven ages”: “infant … schoolboy … lover … soldier … justice … pantaloon” and lastly, old age, which he describes as a “second childishness” (II.VII.140-68). The oppressing theme of a perpetual ageing process that is only interrupted by death is enforced by the numbering of the two sonnets.
An epitaph is an inscription upon a tombstone or "a brief composition characterizing a deceased person, and expressed as if intended to be inscribed on his tombstone" ("epitaph, n." Def. 1a).
It does not become clear whether "epitaph" here refers to an actual inscription upon a tombstone or a piece of writing whose content resembles such an inscription. It is possible that the verses in Shakespeare's sonnet sequence themselves will serve as the addressee's epitaphs in case the speaker dies before him (cf. Dawson Ellison 141). For example, in line nine, the speaker asserts that his "gentle verse" shall be the addressee's "monument". The term "monument" suggests an epigraph in stone, even though the sonnets were, of course, written with a "pen" and printed (13). Thus, Shakespeare might have brought together the two meanings of "epitaph" in this sonnet.
If we see the whole sonnet sequence as the addressee's epitaph, it is a rather unusual one, as epitaphs usually praise the deceased, whereas many sonnets criticize the young man, e.g. 33-36, 40-41, 94-95. For more information on Shakespeare and epitaphs see Kerrigan.
Jonathan Burrow argues that "Shakespeare's Sonnets are his greatest attempt to create a native rhyming version of the classical epitaph, and to grasp those great Horatian and Ovidian themes of the relationship between poetry, civilization, and permanence" (Burrow 113). (For more information on Shakespeare's use of Horace and Ovid see the context note for l. 5.)
"Make" is here most likely used in the sense of "[t]o compose, write as the author" (Def. I.4a). One might, however, also read it in the sense of "to constitute; to be made or converted into; to serve for" ("make, v.1." Def. I.22a).
One might also combine these two possible meanings of "make": In this case, the speaker does not only create the epitaph (first meaning) but he also is the epitaph himself (second meaning) by serving as a living reminder of the youth (e.g. by writing and talking about him).
In this sonnet, one can find many terms related to the semantic field of burial. In line one, the "epitaph" is mentioned, which can be an inscription upon a tombstone. The speaker also asserts that he will rot in the earth (cf. 2) and that he will only get a "common grave" (7). The addressee, however, will be "entombed in men's eyes" (8) and the speaker's writings will be his monument (9).
Throughout the sonnet, the speaker contrasts his own final resting place with that of the addressee: He will rot in a "common grave" (7), implying that nothing will remain of him and that he will be utterly forgotten (as common graves were often unmarked. In contrast, the addressee will have a grave of honour in the speaker's verses: They will be his monument (for the different meanings of "monument" in Shakespeare's time see the note on "monument", l. 9), suggesting that they display his name or even his effigy. Thus, the memory of the addressee will be preserved.
The speaker seems to neglect the fact that those who read the "monument" will not only remember the person it commemorates (the addressee) but also its creator (the speaker). It is ironic that the "monument", i.e. the sonnet sequence, has only Shakespeare's name on its title page while the young man's name cannot be ascertained (cf. Rippl 429n36). (For an overview over different theories regarding the identity of the mysterious Mr. W.H. to whom the sequence is dedicated see Duncan-Jones 51-69). Hence, in reality it is the speaker's name (if we choose to identify the speaker as Shakespeare) that has "immortal life" (5) rather than the addressee's.
In this line, "hence" most likely means "from this place" ("hence, adv." Def. I.1a). However, it could also be used in a temporal rather than a spatial sense and mean "[f]rom this time onward" ("hence, adv." Def. II.4a).
If we read "hence" as "from this place", it does not become clear what ‘this place' refers to. There are three possibilities:
(1) The place could be the sonnet/ sonnet sequence. In this case, a paraphrase could be: ‘Your memory will from now on forever be connected with this sonnet/sonnet sequence; death cannot separate your name from it'.
(2) The place could also be the world/ society/ humanity (cf. "hence, adv." Def. I.3a): In this case, a paraphrase could be: ‘Because my verses have made your memory immortal, your death will not make the world forget you'.
(3) The two readings can also be connected: ‘Your memory will forever be connected with this sonnet / sonnet sequence, and as long as the world reads it, your name will not be forgotten by society'. This interpretation is closely related to the ending couplet of sonnet 18: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." For more connections between the sonnets 18 and 81 see the note on the poem's title.
One might also detect the implication that ‘From hence your memory death cannot take, but something else can (e.g. the world's refusal to read the sonnets)'. This emphasises that the immortality of the addressee depends on future readers and cannot be seen as ensured.
The assertion that literature will bestow immortal life on the writer or on someone who is mentioned in the literary work "is a striking constant in European literature. It is one of the most popular of topoi" (Murphy 14-15). It was especially prevalent during Greek and Roman antiquity, as well as during the Renaissance and the Early Modern period (cf. Dawson Ellison 5-6; 12). In Petrarca's famous sonnet sequence, however, there are only very few passages in which he claims immortality for either himself or Laura (cf. Leishman 44; 52).
In Shakespeare's time, authors that were preoccupied with this topos included the poets of the French Pléiade (e.g. Pierre de Ronsard), as well as the English poets Edmund Spenser, Samuel Daniel, and Michael Drayton (cf. Leishman 38; Duncan-Jones 33).
Bestowing immortality through art is a prominent topic in Shakespeare's sonnets. It also appears in 18, 19, 38, 55, 60, 63, 65, 74, 100, 101, and 107.
Here are the relevant passages from other sonnets by Shakespeare in which the notion of immortality through literature appears:
Sonnet 18: „Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, / 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" (l. 10-14).
Sonnet 19: „Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, / My love shall in my verse ever live young" (l. 13-14).
Sonnet 38: „Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth / Than those old nine which rhymers invocate; / And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth / Eternal numbers to outlive long date" (l. 9-12).
Sonnet 55: The whole sonnet is concerned with this topos. In this poem, the Horatian "exegi monumentum" [link to L3 –Context] is most directly addressed.
Sonnet 60:"And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, / Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand" (l. 13-14).
Sonnet 63: „His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, / And they shall live, and he in them still green" (l. 13-14)
Sonnet 65: The whole sonnet, but esp.: „That in black ink my love may still shine bright" (l. 14)
Sonnet 74: The whole sonnet is concerned with this topos.
Sonnet 100: When addressing the Muse: „Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life; / So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife" (l. 13-14).
Sonnet 101: „Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee / To make him much outlive a gilded tomb / And to be praised of ages yet to be. / Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how / To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now." (l. 10-14).
Sonnet 107: „My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, / Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, / While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:/ And thou in this shalt find thy monument, / When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent" (l. 10-14).
The hope to gain immortality in literature is not prominent in Wyatt, Surrey, Gascoigne or Sidney (cf. Elton 42). The notion only gains importance in Spenser's writings, e.g. in sonnet 27, sonnet 75, sonnet 82, and in „The Ruins of Time" (esp. 253ff.) (cf. Elton 43-45). Shakespeare's contemporaries Michael Drayton and Samuel Daniel were also very occupied with this topic (see Drayton's sonnet 6, sonnet 44, sonnet 47, and Daniel‘s sonnet 37, sonnet 38, sonnet 39, sonnet 50, sonnet 53). Furthermore, the topos was also often used in Renaissance emblem literature (cf. Clements).
These examples show that the ‘immortality through literature' topos was "a central ingredient and commonplace of Renaissance poetry" (Rippl 420n8). There are several reasons for the immense popularity of the topos during this time. Firstly, Renaissance culture saw itself as "the rebirth of a former culture […], memory and cultural memory are therefore at its very centre of interest" (Rippl 419). This rebirth entailed the renewed interest in Roman literature and Early Modern authors referred to Horace more often than to any other poet when writing about the immortalising power of art (cf. Dawson Ellison 7; see e.g. Shakespeare's Sonnet 55).
Secondly, Rippl argues that during this period "faith and religion no longer provide[d] adequate answers to man's confrontation with contingency", so art was seen as the only means of "ensur[ing] transcendence and duration" (Rippl 419).
Thirdly, Sarah Dawson Ellison asserts that during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the certainty that one's memory (either in literary works or other monuments) would survive was threatened:
[W]ith the highly visible destruction of books, monuments, and cultural systems of memory in England's long Reformation, the questions of lasting fame and memory of the dead became pressing unsolved problems. (Dawson Ellison 20; for more information see 40-50)
As a consequence, this time was a "period of anxiety about permanence and memory" and many English poets were concerned with "how, if at all, a poem might carry memory or even participate in immortality" (Dawson Ellison 27).
For more information on this topos in Shakespeare's age see the context note on level 3.
What is remarkable about sonnet 81 is that it lays great stress on the oral and performative aspects of the addressee's immortalisation through literature (cf. Watson 352). The speaker promises that the addressee "shall live [...] / [...] in the mouths of men" (13-14), which means that his name has to be uttered rather than read silently. "Rehearse" also indicates that there is an audience present. For a more thorough analysis of the term "rehearse" see "rehearse", l. 11. This oral aspect is combined with the more conventional notion of perpetual fame ensured by print writings or carvings in stone (i.e. the "epitaph" and "monument" perused by "eyes").
The performative dimension emphasises how much the addressee's immortality depends on the future readers who have to "rehearse" him. Immortality is (paradoxically) presented as something temporal, because it is only ensured as long as someone actively revives the addressee by reading the sonnets (preferably aloud and to an audience). Hence, the sonnets have to be read again and again ("o'er-read", l. 10), and are not inherently able to bestow immortality. This condition is also stressed in the final couplet of sonnet 18: Only "[s]o long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee". For more connections between the sonnets 81 and 18, see the note on the title.
When reading Shakespeare's sonnets about immortality through literature, it is us who temporarily ensure the addressee's immortality: We "read about ourselves, the ‘posterity' whose reading eyes, breath, and tongues the poems foresee. Thus the experience of reading Shakespeare's Sonnets is one of finding a prophecy being fulfilled" (Dawson Ellison 106).
In Antiquity, it was often argued that even heroic martial deeds (e.g. those of Achilles and Hector) would be utterly forgotten without poetry about them (cf. Dawson Ellison 8-10). In ancient Greek poetry, the ‘immortality through literature' topos was used, for example by Sappho, Theognis of Megara, Pindar and Theocritus (cf. Dawson Ellison 5-6: cf. Leishman 27-28; cf. Murphy 15).
In Roman literature, the theme appears most prominently in the 30th poem of Horace's third book of Odes, which contains the famous line "Exegi monumentum aere perennius" (‘I have created a monument more lasting than bronze'). Something similar is asserted at the end of Ovid's Metamorphoses (cf. Dawson Ellison 11; see the last paragraph on this page).
Philip Martin contrasts Shakespeare's treatment of the ‘immortality through literature' topos with that of the Romans. According to him, they say: "Because of my poem I will never die. Shakespeare says: Because of my poem you will never die" (Martin 158). This is, however, too much of a simplification. The same goes for Leishman's assertion that in Antiquity the topos was mostly restricted to the commemoration of public figures and their achievements (cf. Leishman 29). For example, in Ovid's poetry speaker and lover are often immortalised together (see e.g. Tristia, in which the author immortalises his wife, and the end of the third elegy in book one of the Amores) (cf. Bate 95; 95n18).
Colin Burrow argues that due to Shakespeare's concerns about immortality in them, the sonnets constitute his "deepest meditations on the classical tradition" (Burrow 113). This statement is insofar remarkable as Shakespeare wrote many texts that are much more directly connected to Antiquity, e.g. The Rape of Lucrece, Venus and Adonis, or Julius Caesar.
In the Middle Ages, gaining eternal life in heaven (through God) was much more relevant than gaining immortality in literature (through humanity, which might one day cease to exist) (cf. Elton 27; 30). One should not strive for fame but for a virtuous life (cf. Elton 31-32). Hence, the topos of immortality through literature was not as prevalent in medieval writing as in the literature of other periods. However, Ernst Curtius quotes several medieval texts in which the topos is used nevertheless, most of them from around 1100 (cf. Curtius 476-77).
During Renaissance the belief that "the great poet achieves renown and immortality through his works" and that "the Muse saves poets from ignominy and death" was widespread (Clements 672). It was during this era that the works of ancient Greece and Rome were re-popularised and,
[a]s far as Renaissance readers were concerned, the claims of immortal fame made by classical writers were like fulfilled prophecies: the ancient poets had not only said that their poems would outlast stony monuments, but the poems had observably done so; as one read […] them, one became oneself the promised reader-in-posterity, participating, as it were, in the passing of living fame per ora, through the mouths of posterity. (Dawson Ellison 14)
Even though immortality through literature is not a prominent topic in Petrarca's sonnets, it is very prevalent in his other writings (cf. Elton 33-34). Elton even argues that "Petrach, then, more than any other writer, stands at the modern source of these characteristic conceptions of fame, which persist, in one form or another, constantly streaking literature perhaps for three centuries" (37).
Elton also compares the use of the topos by Drayton, Daniel, Spenser, Shakespeare with that of du Bellay and Petrarca. He concludes that the former group thinks "only of themselves and the person they love", while the latter two are much more concerned with the ancient tradition they inherited; they are "full of poetical reading and overpowered by the thought of Rome" (Elton 45). Hence, "the spirit of the humanist is now [i.e. by Shakespeare et al.] superseded by that of the lover or friend" (Elton 45).
For a collection of literary quotes from various periods that make use of the ‚immortality through literature‘ topos see Part II of William Gerber's Love, Poetry, and Immortality.
Earth is ambiguous here. On the one hand, it refers to the „the ground considered as a place for burying the dead" (cf. "earth, n." 4). On the other hand, it can describe all the inhabitants of the world (cf. OED "earth, n." Def. 9b.).
In this context "yield" means "to reward, recompense, requite" (cf. "yield, v." 6).
The verb to yield has often been used with dative of person (cf. "yield, v." 6).
In line 7 the same construct is used. "Me" is the dative case of the personal pronoun, which suggests that this nowadays unfamiliar sounding construct, was rather common. This construct has been obsolete since the nineteenth century (cf. "yield, v." 6).
Common here means simple, ordinary, "of no special quality" or undistinguished (cf. OED "common, adj." 11 a+b); i.e. “an ordinary grave, a grave shared with others” (Duncan Jones 272n7).
The ordinary grave is contrasted with the monument in line 9. The speaker is only awarded a common grave, but the sonnet stands as a monument to the addressee. Even though his writing can make the addressee immortal the speaker assumes that his writing will not bring him enough acclaim, so that he will not be remembered.
"entombed in men's eyes" is a paradox. The speaker suggests that the place where the addressee will be buried is visible to all men. This takes up the opposition between the speaker's common grave (l. 7) and the addressee's monument (l. 9) but also indicates that, because everyone can see it, being entombed in men's eyes is even more common than the common grave.
Lie can be ambiguous here.
On the one hand, lie means to lie down or to rest (cf. "lie, v."). In this sense it can also mean to be buried and to be dead. (cf. "lie, v. " 1d). On the other hand, it is often suggested that lying in this sonnet can als be understood in the sense of a false memory men have of the addressee (cf. Arden). This however is not confirmed by the context.
"Monument" has several meanings, many of which apply to the sonnet.
The noun monument derives from Latin moneo, which means "warn; advise; presage" (cf. Pocket Latin Dictionary "moneo, v."). This implies a didactic function. It also means a statue […] erected to commemorate a famous or notable person or event" (cf. "monument, n." Def. 2), or simply a "tomb" (cf. "monument, n." Def. 1). An alternative meaning is "written document" (cf. "monument, n." Def 3.), in all cases "its survival […] distinguishes a person […]" (cf. "monument, n." Def. 4).
The speaker presents the sonnet as a monument for the addressee. The use of the noun monument combines the above mentioned meanings. The "gentle verse" of the speaker functions as an everlasting memory of the addressee. The addressee is worthy of a monument, which emphasises the importance and high standing of the addressee but at the same time it is the sonnet which elevates the addressee.
Gentle means "honourable, distinguished by descent or position" (cf. "gentle, adj." Def. 2).
Until the 18th century it was used synonymously with noble (cf. "gentle, adj." Def. 1).
It can also mean „mild in disposition or behaviour; kind, tender" (cf. "gentle, adj." Def. A8).
Gentle can also be a transferred epithet, i.e. not the verse is gentle but its subject, i.e. the addressee.
Here again the theme of the poet distinguished and elevated by his work is recurring. Gentle, in the sense of noble, is set in contrast with "common" (l. 7) and verse with "grave" (l.7). Gentle understood as the description of kind behaviour can also function as a transferred epithet. It is not only the verse that is gentle but also its subject, i.e. the addressee.
The adjective gentle was also attributed to Shakespeare by his contemporaries. In the preface to the First Folio Ben Jonson ascribes the adjective gentle to Shakespeare calling him "Gentle Shakespeare" in his poem for the engraving and "my gentle Shakespeare" in his eulogy to Shakespeare. He also describes Shakespeare as "indeed, honest and of an open and free nature, with an excellent phantasy, brave notions and gentle expressions." (Jonson)
In their address to the readers John Heminges and Henry Condell, the editors of the First Folio, call Shakespeare "a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it".
This expression refers to (eyes of) people who are not yet born; people in the future.
To read (over), in the sense of "to read through again; to reread" (Def. 2.)
Given that "over-read" also implies a notion of repetition, the process of the verse being read frequently and by many people is stressed.
(Tongues of) people who are not yet born; people in the future.
"He who, or that which, breathes; one who lives, a living being, creature, animal." (OED, Def. 1.), which means that "all the breathers" is simply everyone and everything alive.
"Breathers of this world" (12) are then all the people living at the time, all contemporaries.
In combination with eyes and tongues (also, line 14: mouths), breath supports the focus of the previous lines on the different parts of the face. As the face is what makes people distinct from others, it is usually the aspect which is most prominent in the memory of those remembering a deceased person. The final sestet thus supports the notion that the memory of distinct qualities of the person addressed will survive in the future by the poet's verse and its reception. The importance of poetry surviving in living and breathing people in contrast to the physical decay of the body is also prominent in the final lines, and as West puts it, "‘Breathers' in [line] 12 leads into the climax of the last line" (252), where there is no more consideration of death and decay as in the previous lines, but instead, it is where "breath most breathes" (l. 14), indicating that immortality through poetry can finally be achieved.
In contrast to "all the world", referred to in line 6 of the sonnet, which includes every living being in general, "this world" in line 12 is now restricted in its meaning to the people living at present, that is, to the poet's contemporaries.
Although the 1609 Quarto suggests printing a comma, the Arden edition has a full stop at the end of line 12. A comparison of several editions of Shakespeare's sonnets shows that some of them do feature different punctuations. Booth explains this by the need to make a decision for modern editions and thus discusses other punctuation variants (cf. 279).
The options in question are, on the one hand, the one found in the Arden edition:
Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 9
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read, 10
Ant tongues to be your being shall rehearse, 11
When all the breathers of this world are dead. 12
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen, 13
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. 14
The full stop in the Arden edition establishes the syntactic entity of lines 9-12, implying that people in the future will still speak about the addressee even when the people of "this world", the poet's and the addressee's contemporaries, are dead. The emphasis on survival in line 13, then, is a new syntactic unit and thus has its own coherence of meaning. The New Cambridge edition loosens this separation of syntactic units by using a semicolon after line 12:
[…] When all the breathers of this world are dead; 12
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen, […] 13
As Booth argues that this decision for a full stop after line 12 "would diminish the poem" (279), his edition features a comma between lines 12 and 13. Although it is true that there is a slight shift in meaning when the punctuation is altered, the scope of its effect can be discussed. The idea that the memory of a person is passed on and survives by virtue of the poet's verse, even after this person's physical death, remains.
Amulets are usually jewellery "worn about the person as a charm or preventive against evil, mischief, disease, witchcraft, etc." ("amulet, n." 1.). Here, the significance of "amulets" is the same, however, it is used in a metaphorical sense.
The amulets are made from human tears [hyperlink to "tears"] by God ("He assigns / All thy tears over, like pure crystallines, / For younger fellow-workers of the soil / To wear for amulets." 6-9) and bear the characteristics of "pure crystallines" [hyperlink to "crystallines"] [hyperlink to "pure"].
This passage refers to two verses of the Bible: firstly, Revelation 21:4: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (King James Version). Secondly, a few verses below these in Revelation 21:11: "Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal."
In Rev 21:11 it is the crystal-clear light in which Jerusalem appears having descended directly "out of heaven from God" (King James Version Rev. 21:10). However, the connection between the crystal [hyperlink to "crystalline"] and God´s grace may be established similarly in the poem: With his grace, God transforms the [hyperlink to "tears"] into [hyperlink to "amulets"] protecting those who wear it, the "fellow-workers of the soil" (8), from evil so that there is "neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain" (Rev 21:4) among those who dutifully do their [hyperlink to "work"].
The archaic verb to "assoil" somebody from or of something means to "release, deliver, set free; to discharge ("assoil, v." 5.).
The inversion in this line could be paraphrased as "And Death´s wild curfew shall assoil (you) from work".
For an interpretation in connection to "Death´s wild curfew" see here.
The simile of the "tears […], like pure crystallines" (7) suggests that the characteristic of crystallines is applied to the watery tears and indicates their being "clear or transparent" ("crystalline, adj. and n." A.2.a.) as opposed to the usually solid connotation of a crystal stone ("crystalline, adj. and n."A.2.b.) which is later taken up again when tears are made into solid [hyperlink to "amulets"] by God.
Etymologically, "curfew" comes from "Anglo-Norman coeverfu", which developed into "Old French cuevre-fu, quevre-feu, covre-feu" and denominates the "cover for a fire" ("curfew, n." Etymology).
It was a custom in medieval Europe to ring a bell at a certain hour in the evening, usually to signal the people to cover or extinguish their fires. This custom of ringing the bell was later used for municipal or communal restrictions, such as regulations of movement concerning the people living in a certain area for a certain amount of time, and it is nowadays still a tradition in many towns to ring the evening bell. However, it has lost its original purpose. symbolically ("curfew, n." 1.a., b.).
The curfew might be interpreted not only as the end of work or the day but, considering the possible meanings of "day" on a metaphorical level also the end of one´s life.
Apart from the "active part of the day" ("day, n." 5.), the "day" might also indicate the period of the day "allotted by law or convention to a specific activity, esp. work or learning" ("day, n." 6.).
The day with its temporal delimitation is intratextually connected to the "curfew", since they both determine a certain time span. The parallel, metaphoric meaning of the two concepts of "day" and "curfew" is, in turn, that of a certain point in life and the immanence of death that marks the end of life.
In the context of this poem, "day" may be interpreted in several ways. On the one hand, the day can be understood as the active time spent working in the fields or in the vineyard ("day, n." 5.) and could be connected to the hour "allotted by law or convention" ("day, n." 6.) which is, in this case, the curfew delimiting the work hours. On the other hand, "day" can be a metaphor for "life" that ends with the sunset at night.
The phrase "heat of the day", which is connected to "tending of the vines" through an intertextual reference, also appears in Matthew 20:12: "Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day."
Additionally to the most widespread definition of "heat " ("heat, n." 1.a.)., the OED also suggests "[t]he intense or violent stage of any action; greatest vehemence or intensity; height, stress (e.g. of conflict, debate, etc.)" ("heat, n." 12.a.).
Heat can be seen as an additional burden when working manually outside in the fields or the vineyards and, thus, might be considered another reason for quitting work. This is also taken up in Matthew 20:12: "Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day" (King James Version). The parable, however, makes clear that heat or any other complication of work, such as duration, do not affect the wage because each worker is payed equally.
The "o´" in "o´ the day" is a contraction of the preposition "of".
The contraction serves to maintain the iambic rhythm.
The combination of "pure" and "crystallines" is a pleonasm which means the repetition of a certain meaning like, in this case, transparency and purity [hyperlink to "pure"] [hyperlink to crystallines].
In addition to the transparency of the crystal [hyperlink to "crystallines"], "pure" also carries the sense of moral innocence ("pure, adj. and n." III.4.a.).
Tears are "the visible feature of weeping" and, hence, the symbol of "grief or sorrow" ("tear, n.1" 1.b.).
The tears that are as pure, transparent, and innocent as the [hyperlink to "pure"] [hyperlink to "crystallines"] are the symbol of honest "toil[ing]" (1) and suffering during the mortal life [hyperlink to "tears" language 1]. For the different interpretations of work see here [hyperlink to "work"].
For further information on the tear in literature you may consult chapter III.2. "Das Motiv des lebendigen Wassers in der Bibel und religiösen Texten", especially „Exkurs: Wasser- und Tränenpoesie in weltlicher Dichtung" as well as „Interpretation: The Weeper" (chapter III.4) in Heilig öffentlich Geheimnis by Inge Leimberg (1996).
"Work" may have several meanings in this context. For one, that of "regular occupation or employment" but also of "physical or mental effort […] undertaken in order to achieve a result, esp. as a means of making one's living or earning money" (OED "work, n." I.4.a.).
The "tears" (7) evoke another meaning of "work", namely that within the field of "suffering, pain; distress, affliction", which is obsolete nowadays but still used in the 19th century (OED "work, n." III. 24).
There is also the theological connotation of "work", which is a "good or moral act or deed considered in relation to justification before God" (OED "work, n." I.1.c).
The OED links its theological entry for "work" ("work, n." I.1.c) to that of "good work" which is defined as follows: "A morally commendable or virtuous act; an act of kindness, good will, or charity; esp. (in religious and theological contexts) an act of piety, regarded as carried out in obedience to the commandments, or as the product of faith or grace" ("good work, n.").
"Work" in general is exemplified in this poem with the work in the vineyard (cf. "tending of the vines").
The fact that human work is "[f]requently contrasted with faith or grace" ("work, n." I.1.c) also applies in this case as work is assigned to humankind, which is awarded by God´s grace protecting those "fellow-workers of the soil" (8) from evil who were inspired by other workers to work equally ("So others shall / Take patience, labour, to their heart and hand, / from thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer" (9-11).
The speaker´s initial question seeks to find the purpose of life, and the poem suggests many connections to the semantic field of work: "to toil" (1), "work" (title, 4), "to wrestle" (6), "fellow-workers of the soil" (8), and "labour" (10). Especially given that "Work" is the title of the poem, it might contain t the answer to the question in the first line ("WHAT are we set on earth for?"). The principal characteristic of the addressed collective "we" (1) is identified as being "workers of the soil" (8), which can be deduced from the contrast to the "fellow-workers of the soil" (8). Hence, work may be presented as the purpose in life in order to live a good, i.e. Christian life. Considering the different connotations of work taken from the OED, this work might consist of literally having a job in service of others which would then take up the notion of solidarity mentioned in the last lines of the poem: "The least flower with a brimming cup may stand, / And share its dewdrop with another near." (13-14). The same objective can be seen in the theological definition of the "good work" that encompasses all kinds of moral actions and good deeds one can do. The third possibility concerns the struggle in life and the reward for persevering, regardless of the various impediments in life. This struggle is exemplified by the "heat" that makes working in the vineyard harder to bear [hyperlink to "heat"]. The parable of the vineyard in Matthew 21:12 adds equal reward for everyone who is willing to work and warns against jealousy or comparing to others. This notion of being rewarded by God for the hard work done and not giving in to obstacles in life, therefore, may be interpreted as motivation and encouragement for optimism as well as solidarity in life, and, accordingly refer to the poem as a whole.
The usage of "nor" after "an affirmative clause, or in continuing narration" is "chiefly poetic" and does not negate the previous clause ("nor, conj. 1 (and adv.)" II.5.a), i.e. the answer to the question in the first line ("WHAT are we set on earth for?") would be that one should toil and not stop the tending of the vines.
Since "nor" is primarily "used before the second or further of two or more alternatives, normally to negate each other", one has to consider this meaning as well ("nor, conj. 1 (and adv.)" I.). The OED gives examples in which this is the case although there is no "immediately preceding (negative) correlative (such as neither)" ("nor, conj. 1 (and adv.) I.2). Even if no other negative is expressed, as in Byron's Bride Abydos, "A heart his words nor deeds can daunt" (366), "nor" still negatives both alternatives ("nor, conj. 1 (and adv.) I.2.b). This would suggest that neither "toil[ing]" (1) nor the "seek[ing] to leave [the] tending of the vines" (2) are mankind's purpose in life. However, the fact that "to toil" (1) is followed by a semicolon, which indicates a clear separation between the first and the second line, as well as the overall context of the poem render this reading unlikely (see here).
In her annotation to this line, Donaldson refers to the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16 ( https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Matthew-Chapter-20/ ). The parable, in which all workers receive the same payment at the end of the day, even though some of them worked longer than others, argues that "rewards […] are not earned, nor are they proportionate to human effort" (France 748).
The reference to Matthew 20:1-16 ( https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Matthew-Chapter-20/ ), in which the labourers have to bear "the heat of the day" (12), allows for the intratextual reference to "the heat o' the day" in line 3 of the poem.
Keener points out that "vineyards were common and hence provided a natural setting for parables without a consistent meaning" (481), which challenges Donaldson's unequivocal reference to Matthew 20:1-16 ( https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Matthew-Chapter-20/ ) alone. According to the "Bible Concordance" of The Kings Bible ( http://www.thekingsbible.com/Concordance ), there are more than a hundred biblical references to vines and vineyards. Therefore, references which give different meanings to the line in the poem must also be considered. In John 15:1-8 ( https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/John-Chapter-15/ ), for example, Jesus is the "true vine" (1) and his people are branches who must "abide in [him]" (4). Jesus states that nobody can bring "forth much fruit" if they do not "remain, stay" ("abide, v." II.) in him.
Donaldson introduces the poem by opposing it with John Milton's sonnet "On His Blindness" ( https://www.bartleby.com/101/318.html ), arguing that "Work" is a "rejoinder to ‘they also serve who only stand and wait'" (Milton quoted in Donaldson XX), the last line in Milton's sonnet. Moreover, she claims that Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet "echoes the many passages and contexts in which Carlyle […] urged the sacredness of work" (for an interpretation see here).
Since Elizabeth Barrett Browning supposedly rejects Milton's view on work [hyperlink to this annotation's context level 3], one can assume that the "tending of the vines" does not explicitly refer to Jesus' instruction to remain in him, but rather to Matthew 15:1-16 ( https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Matthew-Chapter-20/ ), in which "rewards […] are not earned, nor are the proportionate to human effort" (France 748), yet work is necessary in order to "[receive] […] a penny" (Mt 15:10). Hence, if the reference is Matthew 15:1-16, the "tending of the vines" stands for the continual work which is necessary for reward, albeit not determining it.
The intransitive use of the verb "toil" means "to struggle towards an aim or for a living; to engage intensively in hard or prolonged labour or exertion" ("toil, v." II.4.a.).
Here, "Death" can be read as a personification being capable of imposing a curfew.
"Death's wild curfew" can be read as personified Death discharging the mortal being from work (cf. "assoil") by terminating the hours assigned to work [hyperlink to "curfew"]. The further analysis of [hyperlink to "curfew"], however, also suggests the reading of the end of life itself. Death ends the mortals´ life by ringing the curfew bell which is the only cause for quitting to work in life. This might be another answer to the question in line 1 ("What are we set on earth for?"): The main purpose in life seems to be to work and one should not rest from work until death discharges from work and, thereby, ends one´s life [hyperlink to "tending of the vines"].
‘To play' here means to pretend to be, "to act the part of [and] perform the duties or characteristic actions of" a certain person (OED 28a), in this case of a painter.
The sonnet begins with a personification of the speaker's eye, which is presented as being capable of taking on the role or task of a painter. "Mine eye" (l. 1) may stand synecdochically for both eyes and it was often used by Shakespeare in the singular (cf. sonnet 46 ll. 1, 3, 4; sonnet 47 ll. 1, 3, 5, 7, 14; sonnet 113 l. 1; sonnet 114 ll. 3, 11, 14).
In having his eye(s) undertake the role of a painter, the speaker of the sonnet evokes the pictorial nature of cognition. In the Renaissance, theories of cognition were still largely founded on Aristotelian ideas, according to which the object of perception sent off a likeness of itself – a so-called ‘species' – that impressed itself on the beholder's eye (Clark 15). This impression – represented in unequivocally pictorial terms such as a ‘mental picture', a ‘phantasm' or a "sort of eikōn" (Carruthers 18-19) – was thought to make its way through the outer sense of vision to the inner senses, namely the common sense, imagination and memory (Rossky 50-51). "In De Memoria, when exploring the difference between a mental impression and the ‘objective thing' from which it derived, Aristotle compare[s] it to a ‘picture painted on a panel[…]'" (qtd. in Clark 15).
The speaker adopts the metaphor of painting in order to explain the workings of vision, imagination and memory. The process of falling in love with the image of the addressee and of beholding the memory of "[t]hy beauty's form" (l. 2) is described as a highly "aesthetic, or rather an artistic process" (Bondroit 51). The visual representation of the addressee secured in the recesses of the speaker's mind is depicted as an accurate portrait of the former hanging in the latter's "bosom's shop" (l. 7).
The verb ‘to play' introduces a new dimension to the sonnet as it invites the reader to consider "the poem through the lens of drama" (Mead 237). Although not much attention has been paid to this aspect, it is arguably no coincidence when evoked by one of the greatest playwrights of all times. The purportedly deliberate use of this verb seems to imply that though the ‘I' of the speaker is that of a poet, his ‘eye' attempts to play the part of a painter.
Following sonnet 23 where the speaker likens himself to "an unperfect actor on the stage" (l. 1), sonnet 24 opens again with an actor that attempts to explore in a dramatic fashion the relationship between painting and poetry (Mead 237). The poem's first line seems to evoke the famous apophthegm ‘ut pictura poesis' attributed to Horace (although a similar formulation is traced back to Simonides of Ceos), which has, over the centuries, inflamed numerous debates over which craft should be considered as superior. Even though the speaker of sonnet 24 seems at first to extol the art of painting, in the last couplet he suddenly breaks character and comes to the conclusion that even the most faithful drawing can never capture a person's essence of being.
Katherine Duncan-Jones, though not supported by the OED, explains the verb ‘to steel' as "form[ing] a permanent image as if fashioned with or [engraved] in steel" (158n1). Ingram and Redpath make the legitimate suggestion that ‘to steel' could be one of Shakespeare's many neologisms to mean ‘to style' in the sense of inscribing with a stylus (61-62n1). This argument could be supported, on the one hand, by the flexible spelling of the noun ‘style' as it "could, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, be spelt ‘steele'" (Ingram and Redpath 61n1) (see OED example from J. Higgins translating the entry ‘Graphium' in Junius' Nomenclator 7/2 (1585) with "a writing wyer, or a steele wherewith to write or note" ("style, n." OED 1a)). On the other hand, Ingram and Redpath remark that although the verb in this possible meaning would be a new coinage by Shakespeare, a comparable image is to be found in Titus Andronicus (IV.i.103-104): "I will go get a leaf of brass/ And with a gad of steel will write" (qtd. in 61n1). Furthermore, in this wide-ranging context of "reflection and vision" (Booth 173n1) in the sonnet, the verb ‘to steel' could also imply a link to mirrors (cf. OED 1b: "To back (a mirror) with steel").
Capell's emendation from "steeld" to "stell'd" (1609 Quarto version reprinted in Vendler 141) is largely accepted amongst editors, although both variants have been extensively defended (see primarily the extensive discussion in Ingram and Redpath 60-62n1, but also Booth 172-173n1, Evans 137n1 and Duncan-Jones 158n1). According to the OED, ‘to stell' used to mean "to portray [or] delineate" (3), giving this very sonnet as an example.
In the evoked context of painting, Capell's amendment (1609 Quarto version reprinted in Vendler 141) seems justified and is supported by Shakespeare's use of the term in a similar frame of reference:
"To this well-painted piece is LUCRECE come,
To find a face where all distress is stelled" [spelt "steld" in the 1594 Quarto]
(The Rape of Lucrece ll. 1443-1444).
Apart from that, the rhyming scheme of the sonnet ("stell'd" (l. 1) – "held" (l. 3)) seems to rather confirm Capell's choice.
However, there is indeed evidence that "held" in early modern English could have been pronounced in a way that it would rhyme with "steeled" (l. 1). Take, for example, sonnet 2 where it is paired with "field" (l. 2) and in "The Rape of Lucrece" where it is even spelled as "hild" in the 1594 Quarto (l. 1257) in order to rhyme with "kild" (l. 1255) and "fulfild" (l. 1258) (Ingram and Redpath 60n1). To follow Capell's suggestion would consequently obliterate the connotations of permanency connected to steel and supported by a possible play with "still" in l. 7 (Duncan-Jones 158n1). Additionally, both the association with mirrors (Duncan-Jones 158n1) and with writing (Ingram and Redpath 61-62n1) would thereby be lost. At the end of their long discussion weighing equally plausible arguments for both ‘steel' and ‘stell', Ingram and Redpath arrive to the logical conclusion that since both readings make sense, it would be "correct policy to preserve the original reading" (62n1).
It would indeed make sense that the eye of the speaker, being a painter, simply delineates or portrays the image of the addressee (cf. "Mine eyes have drawn thy shape" (l. 10)). Yet to unquestioningly accept Capell's emendation from "steeld" to "stell'd" (1609 Quarto version reprinted in Vendler 141), automatically eliminates a variety of underlying connotations that enrich the imagery of the sonnet.
When something is ‘engraved' in steel or with a steel object (such as a writing stylus), it is plastically imprinted on the working surface. Ingram and Redpath argue that the link to painting still persists insomuch as, since Chaucer, ‘to engrave' and ‘to paint' were used "to some degree interchangeably" (60n1). Besides, to engrave or carve something on one's mind (Crane qtd. in Watson 353) or in one's heart was a common metaphor for memory and affection. Storing the image of a loved person was imagined as a process physically affecting the ‘room' of memory, as the ‘phantasma' was plastically imprinted on its inner surface. "If the zones of memory are like a mass of wax on which a seal leaves its imprint, lovesickness transforms them into a hard block in which the phantasma of the object is fixed" (Lina Bolzoni qtd. in Watson 346).
Although the link to mirrors is never outspokenly addressed, it still shines through at times in the sonnet. "If the poet's eyes have "steeled" the beloved's form, it means that he has created a mirror wherein the beloved may look upon himself" (Mead 238). The picture thus, like a mirror, reflects the beloved's "true image" (l. 6). The eyes of the addressee, in turn, function as a mirror for the speaker, reflecting the latter's bosom and the picture displayed therein.
Finally, Stephen X. Mead suggests a play with ‘steal' (239) which, though weak at this point in the sonnet, may already subtly point to the potential ambiguity of "lies" in line 6.
‘Form' may concretely refer to the visible shape of the addressee's beauty, that is to the "body considered in respect to its outward […] appearance" (OED 3), or simply to the "image, representation, or likeness" (OED 2) of that beauty. In scholastic philosophy and especially in Aristotle and Plato, a form is the "essential determinant principle of a thing" (OED 4a).
Plato's theory of Forms "postulates the existence of a level of reality or "world" inhabited by the ideal or archetypal forms of all things and concepts" (Bruce np). According to Plato, abstract concepts such as virtue or beauty – just like material objects such as a table or a bed – have an ideal form. What we perceive in the real world is a mere shadow of this ideal, and what we represent in art (whether this be painting or poetry) is but a shadow of a shadow (Bruce np). It is only through "true knowledge" achieved by philosophical contemplation that one can "[perceive] the forms directly, with his mind's eye" (Bruce np).
In the early modern period, the Platonic school of thought was enjoying a tremendous revival (Neoplatonism). The ancient texts and ideas were rediscovered and re-interpreted, translated and diffused all over Europe. Marsilio Ficino, for example, advocated that philosophy was not the only way for the soul towards the world of Platonic ideals. Instead, he encouraged the aspirants to "[contemplate] a figure of earthly beauty, often another person of rare beauty, and [let] those thoughts uplift him to the Platonic Ideal Form of Beauty" (Jones 10).
"Thy beauty's form" refers either to the addressee's corporeal manifestation of beauty or to the incorporeal likeness of that beauty that the eye has "steeled" (l. 1) on the speaker's heart. In Neoplatonic terms, the Form of Beauty would denote an ideal manifestation of this quality. Plato, however, would not have approved of the medium, as in his theory a pictorial reproduction, being thrice removed from the archetypal form, will always be condemned to fail in capturing the essence.
Still, the extended conceit developed in this sonnet raises the question of whether "[m]ine eye" (l. 1) refers to the speaker's actual seeing eye or the so-called mind's eye. In the dramatic performance of the painter drawing a picture of the addressee, the eye is certainly the seeing medium that provides the artist with the beloved's image. Yet at the same time, this is all taking place in the speaker's mind and the picture is just a metaphorical depiction of a precious mental imprint. The painting could be thus interpreted simultaneously as the thrice-removed representation of an archetype and as the immaterial ideal that could elevate the speaker to the sphere of forms.
With this specific line as an example, ‘table' is defined in the OED as a "board or other flat surface on which a picture is painted" (3) or indeed as "the picture itself" (3). A table may also be a "writing tablet" (2b).
In All's Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare makes use of a similar phrasing within the context of love, painting and imagination. In act 1 scene 1, Helena laments the absence of her beloved Bertram and evokes the image of drawing his features "in [her] heart's table":
"'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His archèd brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques" (ll. 80-86).
The phrase "in table of my heart" alludes to an established metaphor to be found in numerous biblical as well as secular sources. In the second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul the Apostle writes: "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart" (2 Cor. 3:3 Holy Bible 184; cf. OED table, n. 2c). In the Proverbs, 3:3 reads: "Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart" (Holy Bible 591).
Yet the image in Shakespeare need not be of biblical origin. Already in antiquity, memory was envisioned as a "writing surface" or a "wax tablet ready to receive impressions" (Watson 345). Thus, to inscribe something on the table of one's memory (cf. Hamlet 1.5.98-99: "from the table of my memory/ I'll wipe away all trivial fond records") was no new conception and survives until today. Furthermore, the ‘heart' was through the ages not only considered a "metonym for romantic devotion" (Roychouhdry 112) but was also often used as an equivalent to ‘memory' (see, for example, the phrase ‘to learn something by heart'). The Latin verb for ‘recollect, remember' is indeed ‘recordari', which, according to Varro, is etymologically composed from "revocare "to call back" and cor "heart"" (Carruthers 59). Finally, taking into consideration the last line of this sonnet, the ‘heart' may also stand for "a person's inmost being", one's "soul" (OED 6a) and distilled essence.
Other authors also made use of this trope. See, for example, Samuel Daniel's sonnet 13 in Delia "I figurde on the table of mine hart,/ The fairest forme, that all the world admires" (ll. 6-7 qtd. in Evans 137n2), or Pierre de Ronsard's sonnet vi from his "Sonnets et Madrigals pour Astrée" (published in the collection Les amours): "Il ne fallait, Maîtresse, autres tablettes/ Pour vous graver, que celles de mon cœur" (ll. 1-2) ("There is no need, my mistress, for other tables / To engrave you on, other than those my heart", my translation) (cf. Rollins 70n2).
In the context of painting, the ‘table' would most obviously refer to the wooden panel on which the picture is painted or to the actual tableau. Yet, the image of the writing tablet should not utterly be dismissed considering that "steeled" (l. 1) could possibly mean ‘to engrave with a (writing) stylus' (cf. Ingram and Redpath 61-62n1). The phrase is a common one in Shakespeare's time and can be associated with the permanency of memory and the intimacy of the heart.
In the context of painting already established from line 1, a ‘frame' can refer to the two-dimensional surrounding border of a picture (OED 8, giving this line as an example). Katherine Duncan-Jones suggests that it could mean the "supportive [wooden] structure", or a sort of "framework, such as an easel" whereon the picture is worked upon and displayed (158n3). However, in association with the "body" mentioned in the same line, ‘frame' can also point to the physical "skeletal construct" of a human being (Booth 173n3; cf. OED 4). What is more, a ‘frame' in general conveys the idea of "a structure composed of parts joined together" (OED II) and, in the seventeenth century could specifically refer to a "building" (†3).
Shakespeare has opted for a terminology that ingeniously fits more than one frame of reference. The word ‘frame' can be equally comprised in the semantic fields of painting and of the body, and is ambiguous in a way that one meaning cannot eliminate the other. The speaker conceptualises his body as a perimetric border or a "supportive structure" (Duncan-Jones 158n3) for the picture that his eye has painted and, simultaneously, as a building or a house to be inhabited by (the likeness of) the addressee. The latter image evokes the motif of envisioning the inside of the body in architectural terms (See also sonnet 146 where the body is described as a "fading mansion" (l. 6)) and prepares the way for the speaker's "bosom's shop" (l. 7). When the body is a house, the shop mentioned later on is a room therein.
"Perspective" can have several different meanings. In the seventeenth century, it was a term for the "science of optics" (OED †1) formulated by Euclid. In the context of painting, a ‘perspective' can be "[a] picture drawn or painted according to the rules of perspective" (3b) or, on the contrary, "[a] picture or figure designed to appear distorted or confused except when viewed from a certain position" (2b). Etymologically, it is composed of the latin ‘per' (=through) and ‘specere' (=look at) (Vendler 142; cf. (OED †II)).
This line has been syntactically quite puzzling for the modern reader. The referential ambiguity of "it" can only be resolved if we decide on whether "perspective" is used here as a noun or an adverb. Reading it as a noun, the ‘it' in the sentence would refer back to ‘perspective' and, even though grammatically correct for Elizabethan ears (Mead 241), it would practically be superfluous. Reading it as an adjective (also acceptable in Elizabethan grammar (Booth 173n4)), the ‘it' would refer to the picture of "thy beauty's form" (l. 2).
The mathematician Euclid attempted to explain the mechanics of vision in terms of geometry. He introduced the concept of a "visual pyramid", the apex of which was envisioned in the eye and the base in the perceived object (Gilman 16).
Based on these Euclidean optics, Leon Battista Alberti developed in the fifteenth century a model of "prospectiva pingendi" or "prospectiva artificialis" (Gilman 16f). In his treatise Della Pittura, he presented his idea of applying those same geometrical rules in pictorial representation in order to manipulate the viewer's perception and create the illusion of depth. Painting according to Alberti's rigid laws of perspective came to be known as "costruzione leggitima" (Gilman 17).
The growing interest in the art of linear perspective triggered also an interest in the opposite direction. The unveiling of the mathematics of art offered a range of possibilities and enabled experimentation that drifted away from realistic depiction. An ‘anamorphosis', for example, was a "systematically distorted" image that revealed its realistic proportions only when viewed from a particular point of view (Gilman 36). Shakespeare seems to have been familiar with this kind of anamorphotic art, as this passage from Richard II reveals:
"Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows
Which shows like grief itself but is not so,
For sorrow's eyes, glazèd with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects,
Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon
Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry
Distinguish form" (II.ii.14-20).
The polysemy of the word ‘perspective' and the referential ambiguity of ‘it' in this phrase allow for an array of different interpretations: (1) the knowledge of optics and the art of creating the illusion of depth is a skill needed by the best of painters; (2) drawing a picture (a) according to the laws of linear perspective or (b) in anamorphic perspective is a skill only the best painters possess; (3) when seen ‘perspectively', the picture is the best a painter can make (cf. Booth 173n4; Evans 137n4).
Pictures drawn in linear or in anamorphic perspective both rely on illusion, the latter one maybe more obviously so than the former. Linear perspective makes use of the science of optics and the laws of geometry to create a sense of depth and distance for the viewer standing in front of the two-dimensional surface. Anamorphic perspective demands from the viewer to adjust their point of view in order to make sense of the pictorial composition. To see a thing perspectively or ""in perspective" is to see it from the proper vantage point, at a sufficient distance to make it fully manifest or properly set in its context, to see it clearly, unambiguously, in short, truly" (Gilman 29). The latter possibility would also prepare for the etymological play with perspective – per-specere – see through – "through the painter must you see" (l. 5) (cf. Vendler 142). The painter's ideal skill for the sonnet's speaker is to be able to deceive the eye and make the viewer believe they are looking at the perfect picture from where they are standing at, cunningly distracting from the fact that even the most perfectly executed reproduction will always be falling short from "know[ing] […] the heart" (l. 14).
The complicated conceit of looking into each other's eyes and penetrating the speaker's bosom invites an ambiguity to be traced even in such a seemingly simple sentence such as "through the painter" (l. 5). In this context, seeing "through the painter" could both mean literally looking through his eyes as if they were ‘windows' (l. 8) and metaphorically contemplating the artist's work through his individual point of view
The "true image" (l. 6) seems to be referring back to the Platonic ‘Urbild' alluded to in l. 2 with "thy beauty's form".
In sonnet 45 from Spenser's Amoretti, the speaker invites his mistress to look inside his heart in order to find her "semblant true" (l. 4):
"and in my self, my inward self I mean,
most lively like behold your semblant true.
Within my heart, though hardly it can show
thing so divine to view of earthly eye,
the fair Idea of your celestial hue" (ll. 3-7 qtd. in Krieger 83).
The image of ‘seeing through' the painter picks up the etymological pun on ‘perspective'. "As the painter-lover must employ perspective (his best art), to represent the beloved, so the beloved must employ per-spective to see into the painter to find his own image engraved on the painter's heart" (Vendler 142). The addressee must literally look through the eyes and through the body into the speaker's heart. Another possibility would be that the image must be viewed from the painter's point of view – meaning either the correct angle, such as in front of an anamorposis, or the painter's subjective standpoint – for it to be then "true" (l. 6). The pronoun "his" refers to the eye playing the painter and "you" might either address the beloved directly, or, as Tucker has suggested, it might be used here in a general sense to mean ‘one' (qtd. in Rollins 71n5, 6).
The image may be ‘true' in proportions, hence according to the laws of perspective or ‘true' to life, hence realistic. Moreover, the adjective calls to mind Plato's theory of Forms and to the ideal's essential truth as opposed to its shadow. It is only when viewed "through the painter" that the image of the beloved is elevated in the sphere of forms (Krieger 81f). However, by pairing ‘true' with ‘image', the phrase acquires an oxymoronic touch: an image, no matter how realistic, is always an artificial representation of truth.
Behind the obvious meaning of ‘lies' in the sense of ‘being situated somewhere' lurks a possible pun with ‘lies' in the sense of deception, particularly as it is ironically preceded by the "true image" (l. 6, my emphasis).
The picture representing the so-called "true image" (l. 6) of the addressee is to be spatially located within the speaker's body, that is, in the later specified "bosom's shop" (l. 7) of his. When annotating a related phrase from sonnet 46 ("thou in him dost lie" (l. 5)), Stephen Booth remarks that the image might have its source in the "traditional expression of affection: to lodge someone in one's heart" (209n5).
Nonetheless, a possible pun with ‘lying' cannot be excluded. Painting, in general, is always an artificial rendering of reality, "an imitation at three removes" (Gilman 31) as Plato would dismissingly say. Furthermore, the concept of ‘perspective' introduced in l. 4 already presupposes an underlying "trompe l'œil" principle (Ravassat par. 16) to be traced both in perspectival and anamorphic representations.
Linear perspective is effectively a technique in which the artist attempts to manipulate a viewer's perception and create the illusion of three-dimensional reality (Ravassat par. 17). No matter how faithful the representation, there is always an element of deception involved. In fact, "[t]he more perfect the representation of reality achieved in a perspective picture, the more perfect is the deception practiced on the viewer" (Gilman 31).
Anamorphic perspective, in turn, was specifically conceived to draw attention to the illusory nature of the medium. It was indeed "carefully constructed to deceive, to conceal the optical truth and produce an experience of doubt and readjustment before it reveals itself" (Gilman 38).
At a first reading, "lies" poses innocently as a mere topographical marker in the sonnet and cunningly conceals its duplicitous nature from the unsuspecting reader probably up until the abrupt change in tone of the closing couplet.
Although ‘shop' is primarily a building where goods are displayed for sale (OED 2), the emphasis here lies not on the commercial aspect (Evans137fn7; Duncan-Jones 158n7). What is meant is most probably "[a] building or room equipped and used for a particular craft or manufacturing trade; a workshop" (OED 4a). One must nevertheless not forget that the term could also be used figuratively to mean "[a] place where something is produced or elaborated, or where a particular operation is performed; spec. the heart, liver, or other internal bodily organs" (OED 4b, Duncan-Jones 158n7).
During the verbal combat between eye and heart in sonnet 46, the speaker's "heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,/ A closet never pierced with crystal eyes" (ll. 13-14). The heart is represented in spatial terms as a ‘closet' where the addressee (not its picture) lies. However, the closet in 46 is probably windowless and more private having being "never pierced with crystal eyes" (l. 14), whereas in 24, the picture in the translucent "bosom's shop" (l. 7) is meant to be seen.
It can either be understood as a temporal adverb to mean always (OED 3a), after all this time, now as before (4a), or as an adverb of manner to mean motionless (†1a). The latter option would entail a possible play with "steeled" (l. 1) both phonetically (still – to steel) and semantically (to engrave something in sturdy steel).
Since the Middle Ages, the mental images stored in memory were believed to physically "occupy space" in the brain (Carruthers 31). On that account, apart from being symbolised as a writing surface, memory was also visualised in architectural terms as a "storage-room" (Carruthers 37) or a shop for precious things to be "stored and displayed" (Duncan-Jones 158n7).
Duncan-Jones, Booth and Evans, all interpret ‘still' in a temporal sense (158n7; 174n7; 138n7), highlighting thereby the speaker's persistence of memory and his sense of eternal spiritual connection with the addressee. Nevertheless, ‘still' in the sense of ‘motionless' would put an emphasis on the inertia of the addressee forever captured in the lifeless portrait. The image, though "true" (l. 6) in its proportions, it is "also disembodied, abstracted from the life of its source. As the ideal form of that life, this is not active but "pictured": in "hanging still", it "lies" motionless and tells a lie" (Ravassat par. 16).
The shop Shakespeare is having in mind is most probably a workshop or an artist's studio where the picture of the addressee is put on display. Yet this literal meaning is deliberately superimposed by a metaphorical one, supported by the preceding ‘qualifier': "my bosom's shop" (l. 7, my emphasis). Foreshadowed by the idea of the body as an edifice, the reference implies a sense of inner spatiality. It is within the speaker's breast that this room is located, reminding us of the private "closet" (l. 14) in sonnet 46. Yet, contrary to a secluded ‘closet', a ‘shop' suggests a space of a more public character; the image is not to be stored away in a dark vault, but it is meant to be openly displayed.
Katherine Duncan-Jones identifies ‘good turns' as a "familiar phrase" (158n9), yet fails to give a satisfying explanation. She assumes that it has probably something to do with "fashioning images of the beloved" (158n9) and gives as a comparison the first two lines of sonnet 47: "Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,/ And each doth good turns now unto the other" (ll. 1-2). The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary quotes the saying "one good turn deserves another" and interprets it thus: "you should help sb who has helped you" ("turn, n." idiom2 1665). Hence, ‘doing good turns' in this case would mean doing someone a favour or a service.
The possessive pronoun "his" is most probably referring to "my bosom's shop" (l. 7). In early modern English this usage was still unmarked and ‘its' was often replaced by ‘his' (see Booth 259n10). Nevertheless, the choice of ‘his' over ‘its' might be a deliberate one as a way of pointing back to the metonymic use of an edifice for the speaker's body and intimating that the windows of the shop are actually a metaphor for ‘his' – the speaker's – eyes.
The adjective ‘glazed' is used both in the context of windows to mean furnishing with glass ("glaze, v. 1" OED 1), but also in the context of eyes when they are covered with a film (3a). It also bore the meaning ‘to stare' ("glaze, v. 2" OED) at the time, like in Julius Caesar: "Against the Capitoll I met a Lyon, Who glaz'd vpon me, and went surly by" (1.3.21 qtd. in OED). In the context of painting, ‘to glaze' referred to a specialised method of "cover[ing] (a painted surface) with a thin coat of a different transparent colour, so as to modify the tone without mixing" ("glaze, v. 1" OED 4).
In the 1609 Quarto, the phrase is obscurely spelled as "eyes for eies" (reprinted in Vendler 141). Although this may very well be a "printing vagary" (Mead 243), it may also be suggestive of a pun with ‘I'.
The eyes of a person were considered as the "direct channel to [one's] heart" (Ravassat par. 14) and were, therefore, often pictured as windows (cf. "window, n." OED 5a). See, for example, this passage in Love's Labour's Lost: "Beholde the window of my hart, mine eye" (5.2.824 qtd. in OED). Based on this figurative usage, the famous sententia "the eyes are the windows of the soul" survives to our days.
The importance of the eyes for Renaissance lovers can be verified by the popular trope of ‘looking babies' in each other's eyes. The image was that of looking into each other's eyes and discerning therein the miniature reflection of oneself ("baby, n." OED †4; cf. Duncan-Jones 158, Booth 172).
The phrase "eyes for eyes" reminds of an earlier version (†"eye for eye") of the biblical proverb "an eye for an eye (and a tooth for a tooth)". It stands for "the principle of retribution in which the penalty is equivalent to the original crime or injury" ("eye, n." OED P4a).
This phrase follows the tendency to ambiguity already traced in the preceding lines. On the literal level (though the building and the shop are meant metaphorically), the ‘windows' are the transparent glass windows of a building, or specifically the display windows of a shop. However, in this extended metaphor, the windows are also the speaker's eyes through which the addressee can look straight into the speaker's "bosom" (l. 7) (=heart) and marvel at his picture. The implied reciprocity of the gaze between speaker and addressee alludes to the trope of ‘looking babies' into each other's eyes and possibly suggests the consummation of a higher spiritual union.
The phrase "glazed with thine eyes" (l. 8) evokes both the image of the speaker's eyes and of glass window panes reflecting back the eyes of the onlooking addressee. Stephen X. Mead goes even further in arguing that the technique of laying a coat of transparent colour on a piece of art in order to discreetly "modify the tone" ("glaze, v1" OED 4) is alluded to as well. The picture in the sonnet is filtered through the layers of the addressee's and then the speaker's glazed irises (242). This results to a slightly falsified or distorted image.
Finally, against the background of linear perspective, the reference to ‘windows' is ‘glazed' over with another layer. It is reminiscent of Leon Battista Alberti's method description, in which he encourages the painter to regard his drawing surface as an "open window" (Gilman 18) to the world.
The eyes of the addressee and the eyes of the speaker have done each other a favour. The addressee can behold his portrait through the eyes of the speaker, while the speaker can look into the beloved's eyes and find there reflected his own bosom where the portrait lies. There is also a possibility that the line refers to the mechanics of vision and to the belief that the eye "sends out its beams to capture and return an image" (Mead 243). The biblical allusion bestows upon the passage a slightly ironical touch, as an eye for an eye would rather mean doing bad turns to someone. Finally, if the spelling deviation is deliberate, it would visually underline the homophony between ‘eye' and ‘I'. In addition, it would prove a brilliant example of iconicity, pointing back to the imperfect, slightly falsified reflection of the addressee's actual image.
The meaning of ‘to draw' in this context is most obviously "[t]o represent (an object) by a drawing or picture; to delineate, depict" (OED 60b). On closer consideration, it could also entail the notions of extraction (32) or attraction (25 and 26b).
Line 11 echoes the "windows" from l. 8, even though the referents are essentially different.
The phrase "[m]ine eyes have drawn thy shape" repeats the image of the eye as a painter (l. 1) carefully delineating the outline of its perceived subject. ‘Shape' refers to the represented likeness of the addressee, the "picture, [the] image" (OED 1d, giving this line as an example) and puts an emphasis on the outer surface rather than the essence. Moreover, it might be noteworthy that the verb ‘to draw' could carry a certain ambiguity in Shakespeare's time – an ambiguity that is probably hard to detect by a modern reader. According to medieval and early modern theories of vision, the eye was thought to "[send] out [its] visual rays upon the object and [carry] the image back, physically, to [the] body. Hence, "to draw" [would mean] both "to sketch" and "to bring to oneself"" (Mead 240). The speaker's eyes manually paint a picture of "thy shape" (l. 10), but also, in the process of seeing, they extract and attract the image in the form of a ‘species'.
The eyes were often related to the sun. See, for example, "The eye […] is the sunne of this little world [=the body]" (Richard Banister qtd. in Clark 10) and Shakespeare's sonnet 18 "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines" (l. 5).
In line 8, they are the windows of the "bosom's shop" (l. 7) and stand metaphorically for the speaker's eyes, whereas in l. 11, they explicitly pertain to the eyes of the addressee ("thine [eyes] […] [a]re windows" (ll. 10-11)). Though the windows are different, the "breast" in l. 11 is identical to the speaker's "bosom" in l. 7.
The image of ‘looking babies' into each other's eyes suggests a structure of "complementary reciprocity" (Vendler 142). Not only can the addressee look upon his painting through the speaker's eyes but also, one could argue, the speaker can recognise himself through the eyes of the addressee ("and thine [eyes] for me/ Are windows to my breast" (ll. 10-11) – ‘breast' being sometimes used as a metonym for heart (OED 5a)). However, an "asymmetrical" (142) structure, as Helen Vendler infers, seems much more likely in this case. The speaker and the addressee do gaze at each other; yet, the former's eyes are transparent whereas the latter's are opaque (cf. Fineman 10f). The addressee can look through the windows and into the speaker's heart, whereas the speaker can only look at the windows that reflect his own breast and the picture of the beloved. "The lover looks at the beloved, but the beloved, as he looks through the poet, only looks at himself. […] [S]o depicted, [it is] a one-way relationship; it has two subjects but only one object" (Bondroit 53).
The image of sunrays coming in through the windows of the "bosom's shop" (l. 7) coexists with the metaphorical level, where the sun may be paralleled with the eyes of the addressee sending out visual rays and penetrating the speaker's breast. Though quite unlikely, Margaret Healy adds a religious, or rather hermetic, dimension to the line, in that she detects a possible pun with ‘son'. She assumes thus that the line could also hint at "Christ the Son, often symbolized by the Sun, [as] the creative life power, [as] Love stoking the fires of desire" (Healy 163).
‘Yet' marks the unexpected volta of the sonnet and introduces the equally unexpected change of tone of the closing couplet.
The poet has spent 12 lines in elaborating quite a complex visual conceit. The eye "hath played the painter" (l. 1) and has drawn a "true image" (l. 6) of the beloved to be stored safely in the "bosom's shop" (l. 7). The closing couplet introduced with "[y]et" turns the conceit upside down and invites the reader to re-read the poem and reconsider its meaning (cf. Fineman 137). The actor playing the painter has lured us with his dramatic speech enthusiastically exalting the art of painting, only to interrupt his reverie with a startling realisation in the final lines: ultimately, visual art will always be falling short from "know[ing] […] the heart" (l. 14). The abrupt change in tone distances the couplet from the rest of the sonnet and conveys to it a sense of urgency and immediacy.
‘Cunning' in this line can mean "knowledge" (OED 1), "wisdom" (2), "skill" (3) or "insight" (Duncan-Jones 158n13).
Eyes in general, or the eyes of the speaker in particular, still need or lack a specific skill or knowledge that is decisive for perfecting their art.
The quarrel between eye and heart in sonnet 46 ends with the appointed jury deciding that "mine eyes' due is thy outward part,/ And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart" (ll. 13-14). While the eye can only perceive the addressee's outer appearance, the speaker's heart can actually capture the addressee's essence.
Art is an artificial rendering of reality. Similar to Plato, Socrates argues that "[t]he artist's representation is […] a long way removed from truth, and he [=the artist] is able to reproduce everything because he never penetrates beneath the superficial appearance of anything" (qtd. in Gilman 32).
One optimistic interpretation of this final couplet could be the speaker realising that ‘true' art should combine the faculty of the eyes and the knowledge of the heart. However, the abrupt change of tone towards the very end of the sonnet seems to convey a slightly ironic touch to the vigorous panegyric of the art of painting preceding the closing lines. The syntax of this final line clearly places emphasis on the ‘not' and suggests that failing to depict a person's ‘heart' –one's innermost being – is essentially the visual art's ultimate shortcoming.
Like in sonnet 46, one could identify at this point a clash between the "aesthetic and the affective" (Vendler 234). The aesthetic concerns just the outer appearance – what the eye sees – and does not involve emotions of the heart. The last line epigrammatically expresses the sobering realisation that even the most faithful representation of the addressee will always fail to convey the speaker's feelings because, like a perspective painting, it can only create the illusion of liveliness and "inner depth" (Mead 227). What remains unanswered throughout is whether the art of poetry can make up for this shortcoming and whether a "talking picture" (Mead 232) can actually capture the essence of a person's being.
A flail
