Strange they didn't include the text in the story.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/theatre/story/2007/04/21/shakespeare-new-poem.html

Maybe Tsaeb can give us an exegesis.

Wow this is really interesting. I haven't had time to look further for information about this.

Here is the poem itself: To the Queen by the Players

quote:

Originally posted by babthrower:
Maybe Tsaeb can give us an exegesis.

Lots of curly letters to work with.

"As the dial hand tells o'er
The same hours it had before
Still beginning in the ending
Circular account still lending,

So, most mighty Queen we pray,
Like the dial day by day
You may lead the seasons on,
Making new when old are gone,
That the babe which now is young
And hath yet no use of tongue

Many a Shrovetide here may bow
To that empress I do now,
That the children of these lords,

May be grave and aged seen
Of her that was their fathers queen
Once I wish this wish again,
Heaven subscribe it with Amen"

My money's on 'no way the bard's'.

Where's the iambic pentameter? Well, okay, that's not critical.
Where's the grace and fluency?
Where's the vigor
Where are the clever punning compliments?

(He really laid it on with a trowel when it came to the queen.)

And since it was a dedication, the queen would have listened carefully.
So he wouldn't have put his shoddiest wares right out front like that.

The conceit of the clock is trite and not a metaphor to thrill the queen.

Here's the real thing:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all to short a date.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or Nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest 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."

or

"When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing;

For we, who now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise."

"To the Queen?" The damn thing doesn't even scan.

I don't know, babs. Seems like this was cobbled together at the last minute for a royal performance. Not sure it's fair to compare it to his sonnets into which he invested more time.

JR, in the dark with the theatre on fire and rats nibbling his toes he could have done better. Heck, if he was in such a hurry, why didn't he plagiarize himself just substituting a few phrases here and there?

Besides, he lived with deadlines all his adult life. He not only wrote sonnets and plays, but as you know he was a partner in owning a theatre. What's this 'last minute' business? Who said he was in a rush? Where's the evidence? He would have omitted the dedication rather than offend the queen. That's why he died in bed instead of on the scaffold.

He was known to assign bits of plays to hack writers. But even so I'm sure he would not have farmed out such an important passage. See, the thing is, it's not the work of a genius in a hurry. It's the work of a dolt.

"If this be error, and on me be proved,
[He] never writ, nor no man ever loved."

But there are lots of examples of great poets writing crap. I'm not that much of Shakespearephile to believe he didn't do the same.

Gimmee one.

I mean technically bad, like "To the Queen".

I don't mean intellectually bad like some of the idea-drivel which people like John Keats or T.S. Eliot could emit at times.

Read Henry VIII.

Henry VIII is not a Shakespeare play.

*** I take that back. I forgot about the 'romances'. And Fletcher co-wrote it. If Sh. wrote any of it (which has not been well supported) then we can blame the 'all is true' bathos on him.

Yes. But it's a piece of propagandistic slop. Read the last scene.

You mean sucking up to the Tudors? "This royal babe ... now promises / Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings..."

I freely admit he sucked up. I deny he sucked. Blame Fletcher.

Yes. Except he put his name on it. For a real suck up read George Peale's Angelorum Feriae.

I don't believe his name was actually on it; it was performed the day the Globe burned in 1613. A contemporary letter said the play was 'All is true', other accounts refer to a play 'of' Henry VIII, and that may mean 'about' Henry VIII. It was included in the 1623 folio. A Victorian critic suggested it was by Sh. and Fletcher collaborating. The final attribution was by internal evidence, so is probable but not certain. Those who believe (based on language and dramatic technique) Sh. had a hand in it attribute only Sc. 1 of Act V.

George Peale's bk. I never heard of it. Is it an Elizabethan book that sucks up? Or a later book about sucking up as practiced in Elizabethna times?

Lots of examples of that. Nicholas Hilliard's portraits, music dedicated to her by Byrd, Tallis, Tudor history plumped up by Holingshed, Spenser's "Gloriana," The Faerie Queene.

It's a long poetic encomium to Elizabeth I.

Descend ye daughters of King Jove,
and Clio sagest of ye sisters nine
conduct thy learned company court,
Eliza's court our Oriana's realm. etc.

Interesting. And, incidentally, Happy Birthday to WS.
RIP.

quote:

Originally posted by juanruiz:
It's a long poetic encomium to Elizabeth I.

Descend ye daughters of King Jove,
and Clio sagest of ye sisters nine
conduct thy learned company court,
Eliza's court our Oriana's realm. etc.

Yeah, well it's a bit fulsome. But it was an accepted genre in the days of absolute monarchy.

In fact there's a tradition going back to Roman times when music, masques, plays, and so forth, were acted, first in praise of God and then in praise of the Monarch and/or Aristocracy.

It helped make people contented with their lot if they believed that god was in his heaven and all was right with the world. So the monarchy was revered, even the aristocrats, in a way that seems absurd to modern ears.

Never mind if they were stupid, ugly or greedy. They were the ruling class. They were our 'betters'. To doubt their sublimity put the whole social fabric in doubt. So deny, deny, deny.

But hey the ceremony before sporting events which praises the bravery of one's own nation serves a similar function. And seems absurd to at least some modern ears.

quote:

Happy Birthday to WS.

But is it really his birthday? It's part of the old trivia question: Cervantes and Shakespeare were born on the same date, but not the same day. Why? England still observed the Julian calendar while Spain the Gregorian calendar.