Sounding sonnets

Read this, Shakespeare's 138th sonnet:

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

And now watch this amazing exercise of the amazing RSC, captured here in an amazing 1979 programm(e):



The importance of reading sonnets like this aloud probably can't be made any more plain. And I call it "reading aloud" rather than dramatizing, because what's so interesting isn't even the final dramatic product, but the slight modifications needed to vocalize the thing in order to get this dramatic product. Of course, that's what dramatizing is, and it constitutes the case here (and I myself thoroughly stand behind it with Shakespeare) for bringing the plays to the sonnets: these sorts of modifications are possible primarily if we take the cue from the plays. But it's also what any sort of significant struggle to make words audible achieves, if only because that process allows you to dwell with them for a while, weigh them, get some sense of their shape. And so I think this merits opening up what happens here to something like sounding (vocalizing, but also fathoming) the thing in general.

What's probably most dramatic, but at the same time closest to this sort of sounding of the poem, is Trevor Nunn's clever decision (but--and if you've ever seen anything with Nunn directing, you'll agree--when isn't isn't clever? then again, it might be John Barton's decision) to pick out one of the most suppressed words of the sonnet and, expanding it as a vehicle, set up David Suchet's role as a teacher. Certainly more than the most satisfying puns ("lie"), "untutor'd" (coupled with its consequence, "unlearned") is one of those words that is so interesting that you'd miss it--unless you were reading it aloud.

The process of dramatization brings this out by trying to make the speaker's language consistent: you need to bring it out because it is the clearest cue about the sort of situation of the character. But sounding it out alone--something between Suchet's first reading and the later ones, where Nunn is messing with the words, distributing the emphases not unlike a teacher of elocution--makes the strange word hover over the rest of the sonnet, lending significance beyond characterization (although that is not the only aim of dramatization) to the argument in general and (most significantly) its form, and thus to words like "youth" and "young": we see that they are oddly repeated, for the benefit of balancing the notion with "past the best" (unbelievably great use of the body by Suchet), although it actually creates a significant imbalance (with youth stressed twice, and age once, this is not equal on both sides).

This is a point that can be taken up by further reflecting on the speaker as a character, but he is more than merely "insecure" about his age. Such a response to the speaker of a sonnet--the most tiresome kind, repeated over and over again by undergraduates looking (bless them) for "tension"--is not a very deep rendering of the character because it wholly refuses to treat him like the lyrical "I": that more poetic function which merely sounding the poem brings out for us.

In short, the differences then between verse and drama (such as the fact that the speaker of a sonnet has functions more akin to those of the lyric "I" than a dramatic person or character) become strengths when dramatization actually takes over the process of sounding the poem which it has to involve, but which is available to foreclosure by pushing dramatization further. This foreclosure is not necessarily a bad thing, though--for neither (despite what it is fashionable to say) is foreclosure. In many cases, and perhaps nearly always with Shakespeare, this has more benefits than drawbacks. While it often leads to a treatment of verse that has less respect for the line than the sentence (as it were), or (to be precise about one thing at least) more respect for the tone than the rhythm, this might be necessary to reveal something more urgent and fascinating which is properly dramatic and can only be revealed by drama (where words don't just have a sound but a body). Regardless, in cases like the above dramatization, whatever foreclosure may be cancels itself out, and the dramatization opens up something we hear in the words.