This exchange just gets more and more delightful as it goes on. Max Beerbohm writes a letter to the editor in regards to a recent edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. A Shakespeare expert, Mr. Thomas Tyler replies, sending his own letter to the editor, in regards to Beerbohm’s letter, and Max Beerbohm replies again. It is masterful. So so witty. It’s the last sentence of Beerbohm’s last letter that is the “button” of the comedy. The “ching” to the other two letters “ba-dum”. The details. The fervent urgency in Tyler’s letter. Yet also the overwhelming formality and respect they give to one another (rather than today’s perhaps more honest yet incivil and humorless name-calling that passes for “debate” on political sites. Its worst sin, in my mind, is that it represents terrible writing, not to mention cloudy blinkered thinking. If the thought is limited, so too is the language – and vice versa). The letters below show what it means to be passionate about one’s scholarly topic, in a fearless nerdy way. It is also indicative of the near-psychosis this Shakespeare chap can engender. Conscience does make cowards of us all? I would say that Shakespeare does make manic nerds of us all. The exchange also goes to show you that Google and Wikipedia may be awesome and they are, but people who have needed to find shit out through history will do so, come hell or high water.
Enjoy. This is rollicking awesome stuff. To say more would be to give away the joke of it.
[Max Beerbohm to the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette]:
5 May 1898
48 Upper Berkeley Street
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Dear Sir,
Your reviewer complains that in Mr. George Wyndham’s edition of the sonnets there is no note upon that much-debated line:
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth.
Various editors have sought to elucidate this line in various ways, but so far as I know, none has hit upon the following explanation, which seems to me to be the only one that is quite plausible. In all ancient books of heraldry one finds that the chief escutcheons bear on either side certain wing-like appendages, which are technically called “flourishes”. Each of these appendages signified “a noble Place or Poste under the Crowne”. The tenure of a Royal seal or charter, for example, or admission to the Privy Council, entitled a nobleman to add one of these flourishes to his arms. But if for any misdemeanour he forfeited his privilege the heralds caused a line to be drawn through his flourish, which was thenceforth described by them as a “flourish transfix”. Thus in Hort’s Compleat Booke of Antient Heraldrie and the Devices, published in 1653, one finds that the arms of the Earl of Forde had as many as nine flourishes, two of which were crossed–one “transfix in the yeare 1540 for Rebellion”. All flourishes were abolished by Charles II, soon after the Restoration, when it was found that many noblemen had contrived to embellish their arms with flourishes to which they had no right.
I am your obedient servant,
Max Beerbohm
[Thomas Tyler to the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette]
May 1898
5 Thornhill Square, N
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Sir, A letter signed “Max Beerbohm” in the Pall Mall Gazette for May 7 has come under my notice. The letter mentions a line in Shakespeare’s sixtieth sonnet which certainly presents some difficulty:
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
According to Mr Beerbohm the line contains a metaphor borrowed from heraldic usage. “Flourishes” were appendages to coats-of-arms indicating honours attained. Misconduct might be punished by a line “transfixing” the flourish. An alleged case in point is that of “the Earl of Forde”, for information concerning which we are referred to “Hort’s Compleat Booke of Antient Heraldrie and the Devices, published in 1653”. Mr Beerbohm’s suggestion would have been not without value if verification had been possible. Unfortunately this is not the case. No such work as that mentioned is to be found in the British Museum catalogue, or in that of the Bodleian or of the Huth Library, or in Moule’s Bibliotheca Heraldica, or in other well-known lists. Dr Furnivall, who has taken a good deal of trouble in the matter, wrote to a friend of his, a distinguished member of the Heralds’ College; but this gentleman knew nothing of “the Earl of Forde”, and did not believe in “transfixed flourishes”. I do not like to come to the conclusion that Mr Beerbohm’s letter was a practical joke; but if so, it can scarcely be regarded as other than very objectionable. Appearing in a journal so well known and so influential as the Pall Mall Gazette, it may, as Dr. Furnivall points out, crop up again fifty years hence; and even now it may lead astray German or American students, who are unable to consult the great libraries of this country.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant
Thomas Tyler
[Max Beerbohm to the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette]
30 May 1898
48 Upper Berkeley Street
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Dear Sir, I am sorry that serious men have been taking me seriously as a commentator on Shakespeare, and I hasten to admit that my theory of the heraldic metaphor was but an essay in fantastic erudition, or, as Mr Tyler rather crudely conjectures, “a practical joke”. To Dr Furnivall I have already confessed, receiving a genial absolution. To the others I apologise also. But have I really wasted anyone’s time? The true scholar loves research for its own sake. The exhilaration is in the chase itself rather than in the “kill”. That is a metaphor drawn from fox-hunting. It can be verified in the Badminton Library.
I am your obedient servant
Max Beerbohm
-from Letters of Max Beerbohm, 1892-1956 / edited by Rupert Hart-Davis
I have nothing to say about the Shakespeare issues; I’m a novice in that regard. However, this passage caught my eye:
Its worst sin, in my mind, is that it represents terrible writing, not to mention cloudy blinkered thinking. If the thought is limited, so too is the language – and vice versa).
I’ve long held that writer’s block is basically not knowing what happens in your story. Muddled thinking makes muddled writing which discourages the writer.
I like that you pointed this out.
Loved this! I have to ask Sheila, have you read Shakespeare By Another Name by Mark Anderson? About Edward de Vere the Earl of Oxford? Are you an Oxfordian Sheila? I would love to hear your take on this book.
This is great. Where did you find it?
Kerry – I have a copy of the letters of Max Beerbohm – bought it at the Strand, I believe??
Cara – You really can feel when people don’t have the words – literally – They may have the emotion, but in terms of communication, it’s nothing without the words. I think the TONE of vicious arguments online especially in regards to politics (although I have seen it elsewhere too – even on my own site) obviously comes from the freedom in being anonymous – but also because the THINKING in general is muddy.
Come to think of it, your comment makes me think that this is probably true in all art. If the thought itself is not specific, neither then will be the work. Whether it’s a ballet dancer doing an arabesque (another kind of language, I suppose) – or a painter working on a portrait.
Specificity is the key to communication, which is why the free-for-all, mainly inarticulate with name-calling and awfully written phrases such as, “You may be sincere but I find you laughably unserious” – as though it’s some Gothic melodrama – really doesn’t interest me. I can’t read stuff like that because I can’t feel any THOUGHT behind it.
I could read a disagreement like the one between Beerbohm and Tyler all day long. Now THEY are worthy foes.
Kate – I haven’t read that, although I have heard of it and of the theory. I am most definitely NOT an Oxfordian!
Sheila,
How much better, Beerbohmâs âfantastic eruditionâ than the things Iâve been accused of, for doing no more.
As for the Shakespeare theories, theyâre all buncome. This, on the other hand is history:
William Shakespeare was in reality an itinerant minstrel whose identity was assumed, for a remittance from the Royal treasury to him for his agreement and silence on the matter, by the Royal agent Christopher Marlowe who was charged to write, under that assumed guise (William Shakespeare), cryptically Catholic plays to ferret out Catholic sympathizers and plotters in Elizabethâs Court. Having been suspected and eventually found out to be an atheist, something not quite so bad as Catholic, but still egregious, he was arrested but not brought to trial for fear of embarrassment brought to Court. He was ordered assassinated. The work of âWilliam Shakespeareâ was to go on, however, this time by having the charge assumed by one Edward De Vere. In 1586, Queen Elizabeth I granted the Earl an annuity of £1,000 because of his personal financial difficulties. This sum was secretly quintupled when De Vere assumed the guise of Shakespeare and the work of Marlowe. It wasnât until nearly decade later when it was discovered that DeVere had secretly crossed the Tiber and had arrived in Rome â if you know what I mean (Source: The Catholic Martyrs of England Vol C-D (Campion â DeVere). He suddenly died mysteriously. At this point the Court of King James enlisted Francis Bacon to continue the ruse of Edward De Vere, that was the charge of Christopher Marlowe, that was the guise of William Shakespeare. To make a too long comment no shorter, Bacon was suspected of being a homosexual and furthermore, the Courtâs Royal Reviewers reported to HRH, âBacon could not write a sonnet so lovely as Marlowe or a play so surreptitiously Catholic as convert DeVereâ.
I hope this will put an end to the cottage industry built on the identity of William Shakespeare.
Ah, how I love all this stuff. Nicely done, George!!
In the end, the play’s the thing, right, but all of this stuff is awesome.
George – you HAVE to read The Shakespeare Wars!! (if you haven’t already, I mean – and once you have read all of Ron Chernow’s works.)
:)
Sheila,
I don’t mind being put on a schedule as I am one of those who most need one but you must promise to ease up on bringing all these great books to my attention – please.
I will do my best.
For more fearless nerdiness, visit the Shakespeare Oxford Society News Online at:
http://shakespeareoxfordsociety.wordpress.com/