75 October 18
If he is going to drop him, the embattled poet would prefer his friend to get on with it.
When Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets were published in 1609, they were very cleverly arranged in such a way as to form a continuous narrative, like a novel. They did not have this when they were written. We do not know who made this arrangement, or whether Shakespeare was involved in the publication of his sonnets at all. Consequently, the Sonnets do not have to be read in accordance the narrative given to them by the publisher.
That said, in the collection as it stands, the implied author, the narrator as we are asked to imagine him, is a lonely, middle-aged Poet who is insecure both in love and in art, and who takes a ‘fair youth’ for the Muse of his love poetry. This rather worthless young man, about twenty, is one of those pretty boys who but for a sudden caprice of Nature (says Shakespeare) might have been a girl, and is popular, a head-turner, promiscuous and self-centred. At first, the Poet urges him to settle down and marry, but he refuses. The two unequal friends are slowly driven apart by the Youth’s vanity, betrayals (he steals the Poet’s girlfriends) and neglect. The Poet finally shakes him off in Sonnet 126, and finds a nice girl for himself in the final two poems; but in Sonnet 90 he is still not master of his own will, and is more concerned that the fair youth is thinking of dropping him.
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76 October 16
What is the best way to read these sentences out aloud?
James Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson, who had a poor opinion of the way actors declaimed their lines, challenged celebrity actor-manager David Garrick to recite the Ninth Commandment,
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,
and pronounced with glee that Garrick had read it improperly, by failing to stress the two words ‘not’ and ‘false’. Johnson’s biographer Sir John Hawkins (in whose recollection the example sentence was the Seventh, concerning adultery) said that Garrick put the stress on ‘shalt’.
How would you read it? And how would you read the following?
1 Behold, the half was not told me. [1 Kings 10:7]
When the Queen of Sheba came to see the glory of Solomon’s court.
2 There shall no deceitful person dwell in my house; he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. [Psalm 101:10]
David promises to be more discriminating.
3 Thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. [Luke 15:27]
He was offended because his father had just ordered the fatted calf, no less, to be served in honour of his wastrel brother.
Exercises (19)
77 October 15
Make as many words as you can using the letters of one nine-letter word. Can you beat our score?
I have added a new Polyword to the collection.
Make as many words as you can using only the nine letters you are given below. Your words should all be four letters or more in length, and they should all contain the letter highlighted in the centre of the grid. You may not use the same letter twice. There is one nine-letter word to find.
Polywords (10)
78 October 15
We all want our politicians to be clever men, but being cunning isn’t the same as being wise.
I recently added this post, Ministerial Myopia.
The passage is taken from The Idea of a Patriot King, written by Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, for the benefit of Frederick, Prince of Wales, heir apparent of George II. Bolingbroke contrasts two kinds of politician, the wise and the merely cunning, likening them to the man with sound eyesight and the man who is helplessly short-sighted.
The passage was included in Clay’s Advanced English Exercises (1939). He invited pupils to comment on the merits and defects of calling it ‘The Differences Between Wisdom and Cunning’ and ‘A Wise Minister’. What do you think of these titles, and what title would you give it?
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79 October 15
Choose one of these words and use it metaphorically, not literally.
A metaphor is a figure of speech, such as ‘I smell at rat’, ‘he’s just a paper tiger’, ‘the club is swimming in debts’, ‘he’s toast!’ or ‘Westminster is the mother of Parliaments’. As a rule, when we say such things we don’t mean them literally. We say them because they create a powerful mental image that is much more effective than the literal truth. The Bible is full of metaphors: I am the door, the Lord is my rock and my fortress, hide me under the shadow of thy wings, etc..
A related figure of speech is the simile. ‘My son is as brave as a lion’ is a simile. ‘My son is a lion’ is a metaphor. ‘She’s like a breath of fresh air’ is a simile. ‘She’s a breath of fresh air’ is a metaphor. With a simile, there’s always a tell-tale ‘as...as’ or ‘like’. Metaphors simply do without them. In creating metaphor, it can be helpful to start with a simile.
Use each word below in a metaphor. Try to create sentences that show clearly why the word has been chosen.
IShield. IILadder. IIIProp. IVRoad. VBurn. VIBlow. VIIHeart.
Exercises (19)
80 October 13
The best holidays are the ones that make us long for home.
I recently added this post, A Most Successful Holiday.
The author, Alfred George Gardiner, was a columnist for the long-running evening newspaper the Star (which was later absorbed into the Daily Mail) during and after the Great War. Gardiner wrote about matters which appealed to ordinary people in a manner that was light, yet treated his readers with respect. This extract, from the start of a piece entitled “On Coming Home”, is just such an essay. He explores that paradox that a holiday can be too enjoyable: if its effect is to send us home still wanting to be away, it has not done its job.
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