A Lover's Complaint
Roger Peters Copyright © 2002
The poems and plays considered so far were chosen to demonstrate how
deliberately Shakespeare had based his works on the philosophy published
in the Sonnets of 1609 or Q. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and The Phoenix and
the Turtle, only make sense in the light of the Sonnet logic. Love�s Labour�s
Lost, as the only play with no known source and with a degree of difficulty
that has only recently seen it performed regularly, represents a deliberate
attempt to present the philosophy on stage. The plot of Measure for Measure,
while sourced from previous versions, is adapted to the Sonnet philosophy
and demonstrates its utility for critiquing the inconsistencies in traditional
biblical beliefs and Platonic idealism.
The next work to be considered, A Lover�s Complaint, was specifically
included by Shakespeare in Q as an example of the philosophy in practice.
It provides a link from the philosophy articulated in the Sonnets to its application
in all his other works. While the poem is short by comparison with
the plays, it contains the logical pattern on which they are based.
Volume 1 noted a number of thematic and numerological features of A
Lover�s Complaint that relate it to the Sonnets in Q. The features it shares with
the Sonnets confirm its role as a vehicle for the philosophy. This commentary
will show that the content of A Lover�s Complaint is consistent with the
philosophy. It will correct the misinterpretation and denigration the poem
has suffered at the hands of those who have wished to convert Shakespeare
to illogical biblical or Platonic beliefs.
Analysis of A Lover's Complaint
The first three lines of A Lover�s Complaint establish the logical pre-conditions
for writing mythic poetry. To appreciate the significance of the opening
words it is necessary to remember that in the logic of the Sonnets Nature is
the basis from which sexual division leads to increase and thence to the possibility
of truth and beauty. And the Poet of the Sonnets is the one who appreciates
that poetry is conditional on Nature and increase. So, when the poet
of A Lover�s Complaint begins his tale, the first words he hears, echoing from
off a hill, acknowledge the priority of Nature over language.
From off a hill whose concave womb reworded,
A plaintful story from a sistring vale
My spirits t�attend this double voice accorded, (1-3)
In the logic of the Sonnets, the �hill� represents Nature. The poet calls it
a �concave womb� identifying it with Nature and the source of the female
and male. From the hill or concave womb, with its implied sexual dynamic,
is reflected the �reworded� story. Because the dynamic of truth and beauty
derives logically from the sexual dynamic in Nature, the poet recognises that
his �story�, or any story, is a reflection of the sexual dynamic. The reflection
of the reworded story from the concave womb expresses the erotic logic of
the poet�s verse.
Just as Shakespeare establishes the logical relation of increase to truth and
beauty and thence to writing in the first 19 sonnets, he begins A Lover�s
Complaint by stating the logical conditions for writing poetry. The words that
form the poem are logically related back to their basis in Nature and the
sexual dynamic, rewording or reflecting the reality of Nature. The sexual
dynamic of life gives rise to the erotic expression of the poem. Having
articulated the logical conditions for any mythic expression in the Sonnets,
Shakespeare begins his sample poem by encapsulating those conditions in the
first line.
If the first line provides the logical foundation for the Lover of the title,
the second line addresses the idea of a Complaint. From off the hill/womb
comes the �plaintful story�. The complaint of the maid in A Lover�s Complaint
is a lament that accompanies her transition from adolescent virgin to mature
woman. Shakespeare takes the traditional conceit of a psychological
complaint, typical of poetic �Complaints�written by his contemporaries, and
gives it a philosophic twist. In his hands it becomes a rite of passage away
from the psychology of idealism (whether biblical or Platonic) that notoriously
complains about the natural logic of life. The maid�s realisation, at the
end of the poem, that her sexual experience was not dire, allows her to anticipate
a pleasurable repeat.
To ensure his logical correction of idealistic fatalism is not missed,
Shakespeare has his poet hear the maid�s �plaint� issue from a �sistring� vale.
The reference to a �sistring vale�, a page after the erotic evocations of valleys
and wells in sonnets 153 and 154, leaves no doubt that the maid�s voice arises
from a cloistered or virginal condition. The allusion anticipates lines 232-
8, where the maid�s lover recounts the sexual arousal his idealised beauty
induces in a nun. So, consistent with Sonnet logic, the poet first hears the
maid as she emerges from the idealised celibacy analogous to that of a
religious �sister�.
The third line bears this out. The poet�s �spirits�, or his imaginative soul,
attend to the �double voice� from off the �hill�. The �voice� issues both from
the sexual orifice of the sister/maid and, from her mouth. The double nature
of the logical relationship gives language its capacity to represent the world.
So, within the first three lines, Shakespeare presents a scenario that incorporates
the basic elements of his philosophy. The poet�s account in the poem
begins after the physical act of sex between the maid and the youth. In a
poem that expresses a mythic level of understanding, the first three lines
acknowledge the transition from Nature and the sexual dynamic to the erotic
dynamic of voices and words. The poem opens with a statement of the
Sonnet logic that incorporates the function of the 5 poetry and increase
sonnets, 15 to 19.
The poet, having set the scene for the poem by evoking the logical
conditions for poetry, lies down to listen to the �sad tun�d tale� of the maid.
Because he is aware of the natural logic of life and thought, he anticipates the
nature of the maid�s complaint. As he makes himself comfortable, with an air
of resignation, he sights her �fickle� form rounding the hill. Her expressions of
sorrow are equated to the fickleness of the weather, like �wind and rain�.
And down I laid to list the sad tun�d tale,
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale
Tearing of papers breaking rings a twain,
Storming her world with sorrows, wind and rain. (4-7)
Editors, not understanding the philosophy articulated in the 70 pages of
sonnets preceding the Complaint, question the meaning of �fickle� and
remove the comma after �sorrows�. They struggle to find another meaning
for �fickle� other than its usual meaning of �capricious� (as it is used throughout
Shakespeare and OED entries). They are unable to accept the logical
inevitability of the maid�s sexual awakening. When they remove the comma
from line 7, they kill the irony in the poet�s observation of the maid�s
sincerity.
The poet describes the maid as a young woman who exhibits early signs
of aging. She is not adolescent but more like a thirty-something who is aware
of the onset of age. If she was still a virgin before encountering the youth
then, as the poem reveals, she was not unwilling to sacrifice her chastity.
Her �fickle� nature is a consequence of the dogmas imposed on her sexuality
by idealistic constraints or fears
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the Sun.
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of a beauty spent and done,
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven�s fell rage,
Some beauty peeped, through lattice of fear�d age. (8-14)
Consistent with the Sonnet logic, after the allusion to Nature and the
sexual dynamic in the first stanza, the second stanza introduces the dynamic
of truth and beauty. Truth (logically the dynamic of saying or thinking) is
characterised as a process that adds thought to thought consequent on the
sensation of seeing or the logic of beauty. The maid�s youthful beauty is
subject to time�s decay, making the sensation of beauty a less precise gauge
of what is best and worst (sonnet 137). Because her �rage� is generated by
the �heavenly� attitude toward virginity, she does not appear as beautiful as
she might
In the first two stanzas, A Lover�s Complaint unmistakably follows the logic
of the Sonnets. It has been possible, without invention, to observe the
progress from Nature, through the sexual possibility, to the logic of increase
and on to the dynamic of truth and beauty. The two stanzas outline the
structure of the whole set of Sonnets and the 14 increase sonnets. It introduces
the mythic role of the poet and then brings the dynamic of truth and
beauty to bear upon the maid. It should not surprise then that the next two
stanzas focus on the role of the eyes, which are pivotal to the logic of truth
and beauty in sonnet 14.
...continued in Volume 3, William Shakespeare's Sonnet Philosophy
Back to Top
Roger Peters Copyright © 2002
Introduction
Venus and Adonis
Lucrece
Love's Labour's Lost
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Measure for Measure
Macbeth
A Lover's Complaint
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