The Peculiar Power of Poetry

Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer’s Night Dream. There are few high school students who manage to graduate without encountering at least one of Shakespeare’s famous plays. Today, Shakespeare is unquestionably better remembered for his dramatic works than for his poems. His plays survived the passage of centuries and immortalized their author. However, there is evidence in the texts of several of Shakespeare’s sonnets that suggest he believed it was poetry, not plays, that had the greater capacity to immortalize.

According to the Norton Anthology’s introduction to William Shakespeare, he had “apparently no interest in preserving for posterity the sum of his writings… He wrote plays for performance by his company, and his scripts existed in his own handwritten manuscripts… None of these manuscript versions has survived.” The sonnets, by contrast were written down carefully, with patronage money in mind. The difference between an art form meant for performance and one meant to be read was tremendous. Plays may never be performed again and would certainly not be performed in quite the same way, and surprisingly Shakespeare didn’t seem to put much effort into ensuring the plays survived. Written poems were bound to survive longer simply because they were written down and published with care.

That Shakespeare believed poetry possessed a certain everlasting quality, unique compared to other art forms, is evidenced by the narrators claim in “Sonnet 55,” that “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.” Whereas sculpture was bound to fade, poetry would last forever. It isn’t too much of a stretch to think that Shakespeare may have been including drama in the category of art that will not last, as many of his early plays were indeed monuments of sorts to past royal figures (think Richard II and the Henry plays).

Shakespeare also seems to place drama in the category of things that will not last, that time will destroy, in “Sonnet 15.” Here, Shakespeare spends three quatrains lamenting the decay of all things before the onslaught of time. Amidst this is set the line, “That this huge stage presenteth nothing but shows.” Shows and indeed the very stage are both, by their position in the poem made to be as temporary as a growing flower or a man’s youth. It is only in the poem’s volta that Shakespeare makes his claim that poetry alone has the power to “ingraft you new.”

Another allusion to stage performance is made at the beginning of “Sonnet 23,” and here again it demonstrates the inability of drama to do what poetry can. The sonnet is about a lover who is unable to express his feelings verbally, but is able to do so through poetry. Although, not necessarily a critique of stage performance the sonnet begins with a metaphor that compares the tongue-tied man to an “unperfect actor on the stage/ Who with his fear is put besides his part.” Shakespeare’s reference to a single actor’s inability harkens to the larger inability of drama to immortalize.

Given the way we perceive Shakespeare today as mainly a playwright, it is interesting to question what he saw as the unique benefits of poetry and drama.