Venus and Adonis
Roger Peters Copyright © 2001
When Shakespeare published the mythological poem Venus and Adonis in
1593 he was in his late twenties. Up until that time he had written a few
plays and may have experimented with writing sonnets. Yet, as will become
evident as Venus and Adonis is considered in detail, he was already conscious
of the principal elements of his mythic philosophy. The definitive form of
the philosophy, articulated in the 1609 edition of the Sonnets, gives a
coherent and comprehensive expression to the philosophic position he had
arrived at least 20 years earlier.
The commentary then, shows why Shakespeare�s version of Ovid�s The
Story of Venus and Adonis (from the 1567 translation by Arthur Golding) is
a mere precursor to the mythic philosophy of the Sonnets. By applying the
Sonnet logic to Shakespeare�s Venus and Adonis his reasons for deviating from
Ovid�s story become apparent. By 1609 Shakespeare�s mature appreciation
of the logic of myth allowed him to dispense with references to classical or
biblical gods, typical of the works of Ovid and others, and still express a
mythic level of understanding.
In Venus and Adonis Shakespeare takes the example of an inconsistent
expression of myth in Ovid and rectifies it. He purposely uses a familiar
mythological story to demonstrate the consistency of his mythic philosophy.
He recovers the natural logic of the mythic level of expression corrupted
by the idealist expectations in biblical and Platonic thought.
Generations of editors have analyzed the differences between the
Ovidian and Shakespearean versions of Venus and Adonis. While they have
noted the modifications, they have failed to appreciate the natural logic that
makes Shakespeare�s version so distinctive. The commentary that follows will
conclude by showing how the logic of the Sonnets corrects the defective
logic of Ovid, and explain why critics have felt so frustrated when they have
sought correspondences between Venus and Adonis and the Platonic/biblical
paradigm.
Shakespeare�s appreciation of mythic logic ensures he never forgets that
a poem is a poem, just as in the plays he never forgets that a play is a play.
No poem or play has priority over Nature and no story can substitute for
the logical requirement to increase, as all myth is erotic or a product of the
mind. So in Shakespeare�s version of Ovid�s story, the logical interrelationship
between Venus and Adonis remains singularly erotic, or void of sexual
consummation.
Throughout Venus and Adonis the sexual dynamic in Nature is a given
for the multiplicity of words and phrases whose logic accommodates the
descriptive within the erotic. As a consequence Shakespeare is never vicariously
bawdy or lewd but rather is pre-eminently aware of the logical basis
of language. His use of pun, for instance, recovers, for his consistent mythic
purpose, the eroticism proscribed by orthodox belief in the biblical myths
of Genesis and the Gospels.
By adhering to the erotic basis of myth, Shakespeare�s verse has an
unequalled veracity. It appeals to readers who have begun to recover aspects
of the natural logic of their lives, but it infuriates pedants who wish the
writing conformed to their hybrid expectations out of the inadequate apologetic
paradigm.
A consistent application of the Sonnet logic is the only way to appreciate
the long poems (and all the plays). The Sonnets were organised into a
coherent set expressly to articulate Shakespeare�s lifelong philosophy � the
philosophy behind his plays and poems.
Analysis of Venus and Adonis
The first two stanzas of Venus and Adonis distinguish Shakespeare�s poem from
other versions of the myth.
Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face,
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn, (1-2)
Venus approaches Adonis in the morning, or when the day is still young
or immature. The association of Adonis with the �weeping morn� anticipates
the end of the poem where his truculent immaturity is addressed in
graphic terms. The boar kills him because he cannot reconcile his adolescent
idealism to the natural logic of life. The characterisation of Adonis as an
immature male has its equivalent in the Sonnets where the Master Mistress
is an adolescent youth or �boy�.
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laugh�d to scorn.
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold fac�d suitor �gins to woo him. (3-6)
Adonis, the immature youth who is �rose-cheeked� like the breaking day,
�loved� to hunt but scorns the pursuit of love. He �laughed� at the �bold faced�
suit of Venus who is made �sick-thoughted�by his immaturity. As the female
who appreciates that love and thought have their logical basis in the increase
dynamic in Nature, Venus is about to assert her priority as a female.
Consistent with the introduction of the logic of beauty and truth in the
Mistress sequence of the Sonnets, and in keeping with her priority over the
male, Venus speaks first. For 28 stanzas Venus introduces the increase
argument, and only then (in line 185) is Adonis permitted to respond.
�Thrice fairer than myself �, (thus she began)
�The field�s chief flower, sweet above compare;
Stain to all Nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white, and red than doves, or roses are:
Nature that made thee with her self at strife,
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life�. (7-12)
Venus immediately identifies Adonis as more than a male or �man�.
Because his feminine traits are evidence of his derivation from the priority
of the female in �Nature�, he is �thrice fairer� than herself.
Shakespeare�s Venus and Adonis are archetypes for the human female and
male. His argument for the logic of their existence is an argument basic to
all human beings. By writing a poem about the logic of the relationship of
a �goddess� and a �god�, he generalises his argument. He went further in the
Sonnets when he replaced mythological beings with logically determined
characters.
Shakespeare introduces �Nature� in the second stanza of Venus� opening
speech. Nature provides the logical basis for the philosophy of the whole
poem. It is the determining element in Shakespeare�s philosophy. Even a god
such as Adonis is subject to Nature�s audit: �Nature�saith that the world
hath ending with thy life�. When the female and male were divided in Nature
(which is logically feminine), a �strife� was engendered that could only be
resolved either with the death of the male, Adonis, or, as argued in lines
157-174, through increase.
The same argument is presented to the idealistic youth in the Master
Mistress sequence of the Sonnets. In sonnets 14 and 126, he is warned that
the �world�, and human posterity, ends if his life comes to an unfruitful end.
He will be reabsorbed into Nature and his destiny will be to push up
�flowers�. Venus ironically calls Adonis a �flower� in line 8.
Venus the goddess of love, true to Shakespeare�s natural logic, acknowledges
Nature as the determiner of �life�. As the representative of the human
female, Venus also takes the role of the protagonist for Shakespeare�s philosophic
position. As the poem continues, she presents the increase argument
and the logical relation of truth and beauty, as does the Poet in the Sonnets.
Adonis, the immature male, does not stand a chance if he seeks �love� only
in the thrill of the hunt.
So, Nature apart, Venus and Adonis has only two protagonists compared
with the three protagonists of the Sonnets in the Mistress, the Master Mistress,
and the Poet. The Poet of the Sonnets, as the one who appreciates and
expresses the natural mythic logic of the female/male relationship, argues
with the youth on behalf of the Mistress. By the time Shakespeare wrote
the Sonnets, he had deepened his appreciation of the logic of myth and was
able to move beyond the mythological language of Ovid and the Bible.
Also, in the second stanza, Venus alludes to the logic of truth and beauty.
The distinction between the �red� and the �white� and the image of the �rose�,
with its thorns is symptomatic, as it is in the plays and the Sonnets, of the
dynamic of language. The conflict of the red and white roses in 1 Henry VI
symbolises the inability of Somerset and York to negotiate a concord. And
throughout the Sonnets the �Rose� is a symbol for the logic of beauty and
indirectly of truth.
So Venus, with her first words, introduces the major elements of the
Sonnet philosophy.
...continued in Volume 3, William Shakespeare's Sonnet Philosophy
Back to Top
Roger Peters Copyright © 2001
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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