Dialogic

Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Dialogic Podcast, the Changing the Conversation series.

If you want to follow along, you can find the sonnets for free online at the Folger Shakespeare Library's online edition.

This sequence starts with the second poem using a horse as a metaphor for leaving a love. It is a slow horse and the poet suggests that if the beloved were to return his feeling, his desire would rush back and he would return to the relationship faster than any horse could run.

The next sonnet compares the love to a treasure kept in a chest, that the poet will only indulge in once in awhile. This is strategic, so as to preserve the effect, to savor the experience. 

The next sonnet continues to praise the beloved. It suggests that they are the living example of human beauty that even the Greeks couldn't reproduce in their art. Beyond all worldly compare, Spring is merely a hint of the beauty possessed by the beloved.

From the agrarian metaphors of Spring, the poet moves on to add another dimension of value to the beloved. Beyond being beautiful, the truthfulness of their value is revealed in their scent. While other beauties can sometimes be a fraudulent representation and really have some flaw, some rot at their core, this beauty is true.

This sequence finishes with the idea that the poetry in honor of the beloved's beauty will outlive wars and plagues and famines. Though it is made out of words written in ink, it is more durable than marble. This is because people will continue to read it. A poet's boast.

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This cycle of sonnets begins with an image of the poet at war with himself. Heart and Eye are conflicted about the beloved. The eye is cautious, the heart demands connection and argues for the case. The conflict is staged as a kind of court case and the jury is made up of thoughts. 

There is a moment of harmony, as the heart and the eyes find a way to cooperate in this affair. The poet is afflicted with feelings of love, and this is one of the rare moments when he is happy.

This happiness is fleeting, however, as the poet remembers his lower status, his lack of resources, and the inevitability that his famous beloved will not be able to resist temptation.

The poet aware of his own impossible situation prepares for the time when his beloved will begin to judge him as others have.

Forlorn and dejected, he heavily leaves the love affair. 

The poems take a dark turn as the poet wrestles with news of his beloved's infidelity. Understanding that his beloved is sleeping with a former lover, the poet is left to grapple with the emotions left behind. Depression results from their disconnection and is remedied by news of their beloved, which then turns quickly again to sadness. 

The darkness of the unrequited love makes the task of overcoming the emotion that much more impressive, and creates the incredible contrast of feeling the poems contain. 

In this sequence of poems, the persona addresses the infidelity of his beloved. He manages to always find a way to negate anything negative about their relations through the power of imaginative transformation. By claiming that they are united by the bond of love, the persona of the poems is able to enjoy what would otherwise be torturous. That's the overarching theme that ties all of them together so far: what cannot be won in life can be won in letters.

Important to this rhetorical move is the idea that some love is true and some love is false. Romantic love is common and easily found, but true love is rare and overcomes all obstacles. This laborious undressing of his feelings creates a vulnerable voice. It is easy to feel sympathy or at least to empathize with this forlorn lover. 

The idea of authenticity is central to the value that the persona offers. In order for flattery to be effective, it has to be convincing. Shakespeare writes: "Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all. What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call; all mine was thine before thou hadst this more." 

The image of the unbothered and generous lover is a positive version of the cuckold. Not only is he not threatened by the rivals, he enjoys seeing his beloved receiving affection from his own former lovers. Is the persona a cuck? Absolutely, but this is maybe the best case for cuckoldry ever. Instead of reacting with negative emotion to his beloved's promiscuous sexual nature, he enjoys it.

References to sex abound in Shakespeare's sonnets. The persona of the poems is in love with a youth. It is mostly framed as an unrequited love  story, due in part to Shakespeare's lower status. However, there are references that suggest they have shared the same lovers. 

More interesting than the admission of promiscuity is the way the persona handles their feelings of jealousy. Blocked from his love, their shared loves serve as a kind of energetic conduit. Instead of dwelling in the agony of jealousy, the persona transforms that into proof of love, and then further processes it until it becomes another form of love.

It is interesting that love is the saving grace for the poet, but it isn't a wholesome ordained love. No, it is an illicit love that must stay in the shadows. This love lives in a balance between that which must be repressed and that which must be expressed. Without the outlet of poetry to give shape to his feelings, one imagines the poet would be in much worse shape. It is through a transformation of that energy into poetry that it makes possible the appearance of these feelings of love.

What feels worse than unrequited love? Being slighted by your beloved. At least the persona of the poems seems to think so in this cycle of sonnets. Still, he finds a way to forgive his beloved and to justify their actions.

One reason I have chosen to read these sonnets, is because they require careful study to figure out what they mean. That is exactly what we need to learn to do with all of the toxic and dishonest communication that fills our days. We jump to conclusions way too fast and are already fully engaged in a fight oftentimes before we even understand what the original document said.

It's similar to the idea Stephen Covey presents in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: seek first to understand and then to be understood. When we stop doing the work of listening we can end up in some pretty painful spots. 

You can't just read or hear a sonnet and know right away what you think about it. It requires some delay for comprehension and in that pause there is a chance for truer understanding to occur.

If we put an emphasis on comprehension and understanding it will elevate our conversations from the yelling matches that all too often take place. 

Reading difficult writing is good for us. It forces us to either admit that we do not immediately understand or else we choose to willfully proceed in ignorance. Only by taking time and asking questions do we come to a place where we have more confidence based in experience about the topic. 

We don't all need to chime in on every thing that the news serves us. If we do, however, it seems that reading critically and slowing down will surely improve the general tone of our public discourse. 

Arguments achieve merit based on their ability to make a persuasive case. They don't have to be true to be effective in a world where people are not thinking critically. When the loudest voice wins, we have no choice but to stage a shouting match. If we want to live in a more civil society, then developing our ability to communicate makes sense.

One glaring example of this shows up in the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard case that is happening. It really is the perfect example of how our society can be bamboozled by spectacle into taking sides. With the court case, however, there is a methodical slowing down of the conversation. It is a fight. 

There is a major disagreement between the parties. In order to parse out the meaning of their recorded exchanges, it requires a whole team of people presenting parts of their exchanges and then interpreting them. This is happening to counter the article that was splashed across media accusing Depp of being abusive. 

By forcing Heard to testify, she has to listen to herself during their fights and try to explain what she was thinking. While she had presented certain click bait items of their arguments to sway the public opinion, her arguments do not hold up under scrutiny. What we learn from listening, is that she is extremely needy and manipulative. Depp doesn't come across as innocent or angelic by any means, but he consistently attempts to diffuse the fights and she keeps throwing gas on the fire.

This court case has been watched by so many people and there is a reason. We are fascinated with the battle between truth and beauty, between the facts of what happened and how we feel about the people involved. There is an inherent tension between our desire to take sides and the dark mystery of their relations.

Truth may not ever be fully accessible, but in an era when people seem to have given up on responsible communication it is refreshing to see that it is possible to get a lot closer to the truth once you take the time to listen and weed out the obvious lies.

This series of sonnets describes something about how the mind works. This meditation on memory in part explains mental illness. The mental impressions of pain are self reinforcing. The only thing that successfully combats that cycle of agony is a counterpart of attraction, the transformative power of love. Love is the cure for depression, the recompense for mental suffering.

The persona of Shakespeare's collection of sonnets obsesses over their beloved. He paints the image of this passion repeatedly and travels beyond the point of exhaustion and into the arena of madness. The frustrated lover reaches a low point of dejection and self loathing. It is only the beloved that can cure him of his depression.

I want to change the conversation. I'm tired of all of the fighting about things that are out of our control. I want to invite you to have a listen to some sonnets, for the sake of something different. 

Even after studying only the first 20 sonnets, there is a noticeable difference in how I read the plays. The sonnets are tightly condensed and require solving like a riddle. The focus it takes to solve the meaning of these poems is a kind of mental training. It makes reading the plays a lot easier, but you also recognize many of the themes being taken up by characters. 

We need a more creative and thoughtful culture. We are still young, but it is time to start growing up. That means taking on some challenges and not always being captured by the daily news. We can be proactive and chart a course for calmer waters, and that's what I am attempting to do with this series.

We should use culture to stage our debates and to settle our disputes. Imagination holds the keys to creative reconciliation. The problem is, imagination requires building and work. I invite you to read along as you listen. You will undoubtedly find some value in the process if you overcome the challenge of not understanding what the poem means at first glance. This alone is a worthwhile experience. To think that we know immediately is a sign of work that needs to be done.

It seems like people have thought it through based on the aggressive tone that you find in public discourse, but there is not a lot of demonstration of the process. We don't get any of the training sequences behind the scenes that lead people to their intellectual positions. Instead, we just get the fights and the fighting is never conducive to learning.

I want to take you behind the scenes of my intellectual development as I read Shakespeare. This is a task designed to grow our imagination's capacity, to strengthen our intellectual discernment, and to have fun while doing both. Thanks for listening! Here is a link to the full text of the sonnets: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/