Pater Familias

“…BARE RUINED CHOIRS…” Kids, you may know how much of an impression SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY made on me when I was young. Here is a famous example of Empson’s criticism:

“To take a famous example, there is no pun, double syntax, or dubiety of feeling in
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,
but the comparison holds for many reasons; because ruined monastery choirs are places in which to sing, because they involve sitting in a row, because they are made of wood, are carved into knots and so forth, because they used to be surrounded by a sheltering building crystallised out of the likeness of a forest, and coloured with stained glass and painting like flowers and leaves, because they are now abandoned by all but the grey walls coloured like the skies of winter, because the cold and narcissistic charm suggested by choir-boys suits well with Shakespeare’s feeling for the object of the Sonnets, and for various sociological and historical reasons (the protestant destruction of monasteries; fear of puritanism), which it would be hard now to trace out in their proportions….”

I found this quotation at this website devoted to Shakespeare’s sonnets, which has very good explications of each of the sonnets. Here is Sonnet 73 from that site:

1. That time of year thou mayst in me behold
2. When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
3. Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
4. Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
5. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
6. As after sunset fadeth in the west;
7. Which by and by black night doth take away,
8. Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
9. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
10. That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
11. As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
12. Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
13. This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
14. To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

THE AMBIGUITY OF “AH, SOLDIER!” William Empson in SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY says that “The fundamental situation, whether it deserves to be called ambiguous or not, is that a word or a grammatical structure is effective in several ways at once.” The phrase “Ah, Soldier!” presents a special case of ambiguity because it is relatively unconfined by the specific meaning of a word or words or by a grammatical structure. A sigh introduces multiple meanings, implicating all that has gone before.

EXPLICATING “AH, SOLDIER!” I too am moved by the two words “Ah, Soldier!”, but I have no simple explanation for why. Frank Kermode points out that the scene represents ” a critical moment in world history.” He also points out that another word in the Charmain’s final speech makes the effect possible—the word “royal.” Kermode calls it a “splendid redundance.” The redundancy emphasizes that a dynasty is ending. In the comments to the Kermode article, Duncan Bush says: “The extraordinary resonance of Charmian’s expostulation, ‘Ah, soldier!’ lies, surely, in the pause, the single beat, that follows it before Charmian herself dies: an instant in which Cleopatra seems to come back as an echo, while Charmian wordlessly recalls her life, vivacity and nobility of spirit.” I agree that the pause is important. It creates an enormous hush at the end of a play filled with passion, conquest and great poetry.

“AH, SOLDIER!” I noted here that there are 7 Shakespeare plays that I have not yet seen. I have recently finished reading Antony and Cleopatra, which is one of them. So I took a particular interest in an article by Frank Kermode in the London Review of Books (May 13, 2010) which discusses two words in Antony and Cleopatra to which T. S. Eliot gives extraordinary praise. At the end of the play, after Cleopatra’s suicide, a Roman soldier enters and says to Charmian, Cleopatra’s attendant: “What work is here, Charmian? Is this well done?” Charmian says:

“It is well done, and fitting for a princess
Descended of so many royal kings.
Ah, soldier!”

And Charmian dies. Kermode quotes Eliot: ‘”I could not myself … put into words the difference I feel between the passage if these two words “Ah, soldier!” were omitted and with them. But I know there is a difference, and that only Shakespeare could have made it.’” The critic Christopher Ricks agrees with Eliot. I agree that “Ah, soldier!” is wonderful, but why? Eliot says that he can’t explain it and Kermode himself says: “Explanations of Charmian’s words, her sigh, are likely to be complicated, will have to go deep.”

SEAM AND GREASE (COMMENT). I think that Professor Liberman’s association of “unseaming” with “guts” remains valid. My OED gives the usage of “seam” for “fat” or “grease” going back to 1200, with examples from 1483, 1513 and 1541. I think that for an Elizabethan audience, “unseaming” would evoke visions of a butcher at work. I also think that this meaning of “seam” would be evoked by the passage from Troilus and Cressida (II, iii, 183-189) and that this association would be reinforced by the later lines in the speech (lines 194-195):

By going to Achilles.
That were to enlard his fat-already pride….

In both cases, I think the metaphors operate in two different ways at once. I like this conclusion because, as I posted here, I read William Empson’s SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY when I was young and love it.

SEAMS AND SEWING (COMMENT). I posted here on Professor Biberman’s observation that in the phrase “he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops”, Shakespeare’s audience would be familiar with the use of “seam” to refer to “guts.” Trent commented that the sewing analogy is logical when applied to both the phrase from Macbeth and to another passage from Shakespeare. The passage is from Troilus and Cressida, and I am retyping it here because the quotation in the comments was garbled by the software. In the passage (II, iii, 183-189)), Ulysses is speaking about Achilles and his pride:

Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve
And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp’d
Of that we hod an idol more than he?

I like to think of Shakespeare as a glovemaker’s son, so I am happy to have these sewing metaphors. (Note that the idea of unseaming by ripping out stitches and the idea of basting or preliminary sewing fit with the process of making gloves).

“THE SEAMY SIDE” IN SHAKESPEARE. I sent Mary Jane Professor Biberman’s article, and she was reminded of some of Emilia’s lines in Othello. (Mary Jane played Emilia in college). Emilia is protesting to Iago against the accusation that Emilia has slept with Othello: “Some such squire he was/ That turned your wit the seamy side without,/ And made you to suspect me with the Moor.” As the footnote in the Riverside Shakespeare says, “seamy side without” means “wrong side out.” Mary Jane has long thought that it was apt for a glovemaker’s son to use the metaphor.

UNSEAMING IN SHAKESPEARE. Professor Biberman gives the example of the word “unseamed” in Macbeth, in the phrase “he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops.” This is the only appearance of the word “unseamed” in Shakespeare. We saw a very good performance of Macbeth over the weekend at Curtain Call, and the phrase struck me then. as it always does. I did not know what Professor Biberman adds: “Shakespeare’s audience was familiar with the notion that men are made of guts, OR SEAM [my emphasis].” “Nave to th’ chaps” was graphic enough.