Let's look now in some detail at Ben Jonson's poetic tribute to Shakespeare -
the opening poem of the four poems in the Folio -
the most prominent and the longest going over two pages.
In this lecture we'll look at the first sixteen lines.
Have a paper copy in front of you, if you can, so you can make notes on it.
This is how Jonson begins:
"TO draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame:
While I confesse thy writings to be such, As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men suffrage. But these wayes
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise:
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho's right;
Or blind Affection, which doeth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance;
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise, And thinke to ruine, where it seem'd to raise.
These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore,
Should praise a Matron.
What could hurt her more?
But thou art proofe against them, and indeed Above th'ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin. Soule of the Age!
The applause! delight!
the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise..."
"I therefore will begin," says Jonson,
launching into the poem proper, it seems, at his now famous declaration,
'Soule of the Age!'
So what is this first section about?
This is not an easy poem,
but let's pick through the opening as best we can.
It seems to be all about Jonson's reasons
for writing this poem, and writing it the way he does -
the heavy praise that is about to follow.
He is not doing this, Jonson says,
to make people envious of Shakespeare -
to 'draw envy' as he puts it, on Shakespeare's name.
The next two and a half lines admit -
confess says Jonson - that Shakespeare's works are hugely praiseworthy,
they cannot be praised too much, even by the Muse,
one of the Greek goddesses of inspiration.
'Suffrage', which you may have heard of in relation to voting and the Suffragettes,
here probably means 'an opinion in favour of a person or thing'.
Jonson had used the word in that sense in his play The Alchemist.
But no doubt he is also aware of the echo of 'suffering' -
so while Shakespeare's brilliance is 'all men's opinion',
that is also something to be suffered, just a little bit.
Jonson didn't necessarily think that appealing to the masses was a good thing,
and he certainly avoided it himself!
"But these are not the paths I meant to take to praise you," Ben Jonson says.
"This was not how I wanted to approach this,
because seeliest ignorance on these may light".
What is Jonson referring to with the word 'these'?
These words perhaps?
Jonson's words, the words of this poem? Or these poems,
the ones in the preface?
Or Shakespeare's words, the words contained in the rest of the Folio?
Jonson makes this beautifully muddy -
he doesn't allow us to know one way or the other.
What about 'seeliest Ignorance'?
Again, we need to be aware that poets often make use
of double meanings, and associations with other words,
and Jonson more than many.
'Seeliest', on one level,
is a form of 'silliest'.
At this time, it could be spelt either way.
'Seely' had a number of definitions at this time,
and one of the more recent was 'foolish, simple, silly'.
Jonson's former tutor William Camden had used it in this sense in his work Remaines:
"The fellow seemed but a seely soul."
Folio contributor James Mabbe, in his translation of The Rogue
published the year before the Folio, also used it in this sense:
"Poore seely fooles, that want wit".
The spelling with a double-E
allows us to associate it with the verb 'to seel'
S-E-E-L, which means, in practical terms,
to close the eyes of (a hawk or other bird) by stitching up the eyelids,
used as part of the taming process in falconry.
Which was used figuratively in the sense of 'closing someone's eyes to something,
to prevent them from seeing, to hoodwink them'.
Shakespeare used 'seel'
in this sense in Othello:
"She that so young could give out such a Seeming To seel her Fathers eyes up."
So when Jonson says
"seeliest Ignorance on these may light" he may
be hinting not only that some readers of Shakespeare may be ignorant,
but that they may have been hoodwinked in some way.
"The seeliest Ignorance [in these people], when it sounds at best, but eccho's right".
This is a tough line, and not helped in
the original Folio poem by that apostrophe in 'eccho's',
which would make 'eccho' a noun.
Grammatically, the line begs to be corrected so that 'eccho' becomes a verb,
and that's what modern editors do,
make 'eccho' a verb: spelling it E-C-H-O-E-S.
The line can then be understood roughly to mean that
people who don't know what's good, will echo the praise of people who do know.
But did Jonson mean this or was that 'eccho' meant to be a noun?
Key nouns in the poem are usually capitalized, which suggests not,
but would the ultra-finickity Jonson really make so basic an error as
a wrongly-placed apostrophe in this important, rather grandiose poem?
Or was it a deliberate hint that 'eccho' should be read as a noun?
In Greek mythology, Echo was cursed so that she couldn't speak for herself;
she could only repeat the words of others.
Can we make sense of that sentence with 'eccho's' as a noun with a possessive apostrophe?
Echo's right, Echo's privilege, advantage or authority?
Echo's moral or legal entitlement to have or do something?
Or might the apostrophe indicate the contraction of the phrase 'Echo is right'?
The natural flow of the grammar does suggest that Jonson just made a mistake here,
but don't be closed to other possibilities.
Jonson continues with problems he detects
in those who might approach Shakespeare's words.
They might be afflicted by 'blind Affection' -
which never advances the truth, according to Jonson, but
gropes, as if in the dark, and "urges all by chance".
What Jonson seems to be saying here is that blind affection for the author
leads people to think that great works like this come about by chance or Fate -
the myth of the natural genius -
a myth which undoubtedly afflicts the way Shakespeare is routinely represented.
Next he talks about 'crafty Malice',
and now it becomes clear that he has taken on
this encomium because he felt it couldn't be trusted to others -
not to someone who may have been hoodwinked and just echo received opinion.
Not to someone star-struck
who would represent Shakespeare's talent as natural genius,
and not to someone who would "pretend this praise" and
by insincerity harm Shakespeare's reputation.
Using the metaphor of an infamous baud praising a matron,
Jonson expresses his fears that a lesser writer
would hurt Shakespeare just by association.
Thus he, Ben Jonson,
has accepted the responsibility - and so, as we'll see in the next lecture,
his litany of praise will begin.
Jonson's cumbersome writing style leaves plenty of room
for people with different beliefs to come to their own conclusions.
But whatever he is saying,
one should note that Jonson's opening focus is on the Shakespeare NAME.
Make sure you've read the rest of the poem before the next lecture.
If you can, read it aloud.
It will help you to understand it better.
Ros BarberDr
