The Odd Spark, The Odd Flame

'I did not regret my ignorance...I thought I would stand a better chance of effecting this [attempting a play and avoiding the appearance of plagiary] from being in a walk which I had not frequented, and where consequently the progress of invention was less likely to be interrupted by starts of recollection: for on subjects on which the mind has been informed, invention is slow of exerting itself. Faded ideas float in the fancy like half-forgotten dreams; and the imagination in its fullest enjoyments becomes suspicious of its offspring, and doubts whether it had created or adopted.'
Invention is, to summarise Richard Brinsley Sheridan's above justification for The Rivals failings and subsequent revision of, also a learning process, as had he had more, rather than less, fore-knowledge of his subject it would in all likelihood have changed his manner and method of execution, or he may not have seriously attempted it at all, and given it up at the first hurdle.
Invention, it is true, can be hampered by too much knowledge. I have frequently found this to be so if I research a topic too thoroughly. That which I'm attempting gets bogged down as the mind grows too swelled with details and consumed by the responsibility to make the article factually correct. It loses whatever style or creativity it might have had in its making, and I too lose interest when it proves too difficult to recapture what I had originally intended. I now know too much and can only see the flaws in my design or execution, whereas before the notion seemed inspired. I only push through to the bitter end if my research came at a point when it was almost there, since I hate to leave anything unfinished or to have to start again if the end is closer. I may not be entirely satisfied with the outcome, but sometimes some things can't be done over or improved upon. The moment has gone. If however an article's been interrupted before it's begun I will dismiss it and not start over, or perhaps, if it still seems favourable, approach it from a different angle.
So, in the act of inventing, all is lost, or not lost, or lost only sometimes.
Sheridan exercised his inventive skill when writing the role of Mrs Malaprop, a character who is described in The Rivals by a fellow player as someone whose words are 'ingeniously misapplied without being mispronounced', delivered as they are with the unshakeable confidence that she is 'a great mistress of language...the queen of the dictionary'. This method is not new – examples can be found in Shakespeare – but Sheridan appears to take it to a new level of absurdity. Few gentlemen, for instance, 'know how to value the ineffectual qualities in a woman!' And Captain Absolute 'is the very pineapple of politeness!' What makes it even more effective is that those sharing the scene with her don't often remark upon her use of language either deliberately in her hearing or in any subsequent speech put to her, and yet appear to, whatever term she's misappropriated, comprehend her meaning. Nor is there in the script any stage direction to the other players to facially act (for the benefit of the audience), yet surely there must have been some visible response on the stage to engage the audience further; unless perhaps her character taken in all seriousness and humoured proved the funnier. She is, after all, what she is; and thereafter is not remembered for her role as a she-dragon (the chief protector of her niece) but for her hilarious and inappropriate use of terms.
Sheridan in his first attempt at playwrighting achieves a creative dottiness that others since have succeeded or failed to surpass.

Picture credit: Portrait of a Gentleman, traditionally identified as Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Hoppner (source: Wikipedia).

See The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Developed from journal entries, February 2021 .

Fourteen Lines

A promise is a promise, made, in my case, not to be broken but to be kept. I promised myself I would attempt a slim volume of Shakespeare's Sonnets – all 154 of them and just them alone i.e. with no explanatory notes or commentary – and so I did, though I can't say I made much much headway. I reaped their beauty in part and not in full, as of course like everything I read, no matter what it is, i.e. in which particular field it might be classified, I read as it if these were a novel or an epic poem with a narrative thread running through, when naturally these sonnets have no such link, other than being arranged, so I understood from the preface, according to some system the author proscribed i.e. not in the order they were written, which to his mind formed a natural following on.
Why I persist in treating all reading material in such a manner is a separate question to which I do not have a complete answer, only that I cannot pick up and put down a book and pick up another. One must be read and finished with, and another picked up when the other is still being digested. I cannot, I will not share my focus or attention with more than one, so if slim or of less content my pace might naturally quicken. Plays and verse really do come worse off in this regard, for what benefit do I hope to gain from them when I cannot seem to take my time? There is some, but the little I gather will in time be forgotten. However, a habit is a habit and reading ones, long practised, are hard to undo or trick. The heart or the eye won't be deceived, and together refuse to let the mind be made a conquest of. The heart will encourage the eye to speed - read on!
So, I read and reap what I can.
The preface by Katherine Duncan-Jones had also explained what I was to expect from these sonnets of Shakespeare, for it appears, like Lucan with epic poetry, here, he parted from tradition, in that his sonnets concern not just love but reflections on time and the ageing process, and not all are addressed to a lady but to a young man, probably of high rank. (Ahhhh, now I begin to appreciate Daphne's du Maurier's interest, as well as her thesis that the Bacon brothers may have been involved in their composition. Indeed, men in that age seem to have, and often profess, great feeling for their fellows, so much so that to our eyes now they almost seem gender-fluid.) Shakespeare's Sonnets for this reason were not as praised, as they are in our age, as they were considered damaging to his reputation. The opinion for a long time holding that surely he cannot have wanted his heart to have been so unlocked.
Was it however his heart he was unlocking, or was it his skills of observation? Was he merely trying to show same-sex love exists? And that love is in the eye of the beholder i.e. beauty or grace or faithfulness is not a prerequisite to the condition? And that love too is disappointment and betrayal, and that Time and Age also play their part? Lovers, whatever the circumstances of their love, have doubts. They are either a slave to it or at war with it; praising it or decrying its nature. Time and Age can decay; Youth, the remembrance of, inspires or consoles. And Desire is a Fool's glutton, because one look, or the hope of, (from the object of his admiration) will make him happy. Love, in these instances, is not fixed i.e. guaranteed to be returned or if reciprocated to last. Wasn't Shakespeare then a student of Truism? This is how Love is. This is how Time and Age can be proof of constant or inconstant love.
Many since – poets and writers - in different forms have dressed these old words in new, though there is no need to, for Shakespeare has, in succinct terms, said it all.

Picture credit: Two Cupids with Red Drapery, Honore Daumier (source: WikiArt).

Developed from a journal entry, February 2021.

Drawn

Drawn from life, from myth. From historical annals, from epic poetry. From Livy, Plutarch, Suetonius, Cicero, and Julius Caesar himself. From Homer, Virgil and Ovid. From satirists. From Pliny the Elder. From philosophers and kings. From celebrated playwrights and lauded translators (often poets in their own right or experts in classical languages and literature) of ancient texts. From art itself, the visual and the spoken.
That which we are drawn to, we draw from. That which has expression, we view as a source of inspiration. Perhaps to plunder for our own, perhaps to disseminate in a contemporary version to feed the mob: the arts obsessed public whose thirst is never quenched.
In the words of Lucan, taken out of context for I do not propose to speak of battles, 'all will stand [or sit] rapt, enthralled'. The fates of those they read of or look at bearing down upon them from ages so far away they can only picture them vaguely, if at all. And yet the enjoyment they feel is intense, and their abandonment to it persuasive. Something new can come from old. The old can be reborn and brought to later nations where fame alone will carry them. Their feats or achievements, their downfalls broadcast throughout the world; renewed and lived through and identified with.
That which we are drawn to and then draw from, we also compare to and with. Hearts tremble with hope and fear. Blood boils with rage. Eyes look away from the page or scene when death looms, pricked with sorrow. Throats refuse to swallow when we too feel the guilt of the guilty. And mouths cheer when the outcome is as it should be, as we knew it would be. We ask of ourselves, if it's unclear, the motives of characters, and whether we too would have acted the same had we been in their position, had we lived in their times. We are disappointed or surprised by the choices people make, when choosing whatever they did would not to us have occurred. The same two questions recur: Would I...? Could I...? for these can be applied to almost any situation, any person. Or we reverse them and ask: Would they...? Could they...? i.e. what would they do if they were stood here right now in my shoes?
We strip History bare as we compare and rewrite and retell, and rob it of its gleaming fruits. Some, it seems, gleam more than others, for they are plucked many times over, and grant to the mortals they symbolise eternal life. Their story, however it's told, with truth or myth, never gets old or tired. It's fruit not forbidden by any gods, but given again and again to eat freely of.
Names that were great remain great, perhaps becoming greater than they were; names that weren't are discovered and become so. The Great can fall, just as less great mortals can commence to shine. Their life not valued for its longevity but what they did with it. For who they were. The actual (person) intertwined with the fictionalised, or their experiences imbued with, and viewed, through a mythological or contemporary lens. The mob wants, and often wants more of, only what they can understand. The Great, whomever they were, must be made relevant. If their persons cannot lend themselves to relevance they cease to exist. Their gleam diminishes.
But Fate and Fame may beckon some time in future, and rescue the long forgotten or the long lost; pluck them from the highest branch or from where they've lain on the ground, in slow decay, and through diligent labour – the poets, the writers etc. - once again bring some profit to great names.

Picture credit: The Garden of the Hesperides, 1892, Frederic Leighton (source: WikiArt).

Written February 2021.

Marcia's Motive

Marcia, a female given name, from a Latin word meaning “war-like.”
Marcia, a partner for war, for 'trials and concerns', though trials and concerns this Marcia has had of her own, for being Woman. Her womb is spent and her second husband is dead, she returns to reclaim her first: Cato, the better husband, who after their third child gave her fruitful womb to enrich another home. Marcia does not want 'to be passed to yet another man' or to be left behind in safety. Like the meaning of her name she (I presume) wants to be not just closer again to Cato but closer to war. If Cornelia can follow Pompey, why can't she Cato? Though the times are strange for re-marriage she 'sways her man'. The renewal of their vows is however 'without the empty pomp'; there are no festive garlands, no customary torches, no flowing togas, or any jewels to adorn bare necks or arms. The groom is sober and unshaven, and 'no relatives, no neighbours gather to share their union. They unite in silence'. Cato believes in procreation and that having already been achieved does not believe in renewing their 'wedded love'. Marcia has retied herself to a man who knows how to conquer his hunger, who is seemingly all for asceticism.
I beg to question: what is Marcia hungry for? Security or war? The first she can be certain of – through remarrying, but the second only ever brings uncertainty, and what guarantee does she have that Cato won't be wounded, perhaps fatally, by his own hand or another's? Is security a home or a man, or is it neither, because with or without war it seems (for women) both cannot be had? Woman are at the mercy of, and dependent upon, men, all men – fathers, husbands, adult sons. What choice do they have but to agree to a new joining of houses i.e. marriage, or to throw themselves at former husbands when one has perished?
Marcia is moved to action, prompted I imagined by her second husband Hortenius' death, or possibly compelled by some other inner urge or contemplated result or physiological need. Her reason to act as she does however could be unconscious, or be as unclear to her as it is to me. Why return to a former husband? Particularly one that sent you to another, though perhaps this was common practice in Roman times?
What is Lucan, the author of the epic, trying to portray? The Roman ideal of marriage and a wife unfailing in her duty? Marcia has done what was asked of her – 'bore the children of different husbands' – but now she is tired and wishes to renew their unbroken bonds. She still then considers herself bonded to Cato, and possibly during the alliance with Hortenius always did. She felt on loan. But was she actually on loan? And is it rest she now craves or adventure? Is it war she's looking for, or is she only war-like in nature, that is to say she will fight on, even when spent?
I had entertained a notion that Lucan had deliberately settled upon her name for its meaning, but the little detail given on her (in the notes) points to her existence: she was, like the other characters, some of whom (by name) we know so well, drawn from life. What they do not divulge, or solve, is the why return? why remarry? and so I continue to ruminate upon, developing more conjectures. There is no end to this puzzle, not when Julia's motive (Caesar's daughter and Pompey's dead wife) is so obvious: jealousy. She refuses to recognise Pompey's new wife, Cornelia, and when visiting Pompey in a dream refers to her as “mistress”. She is her father's daughter and will not release her grip. She says to him: “...my shades, my ghosts, will never allow you not to be his [Caesar's] son-in-law. You hack away our wedding vows with the sword in vain. Civil war shall make you mine.” In other words he will die; he is threatened with disaster on all sides: from gods and ghosts. Caesar will own his days and Julia his nights, and Fortune, his mind is certain, will not save him.
And yet, still I cry: But what of Marcia?
Such small parts for women, and yet so affecting.

Picture credit: Marcia, 1513, Domenico Beccafumi (source: WikiArt).

Developed from journal entries on reading Lucan's Civil War (Penguin Classics, translated by Matthew Fox), January 2021.