VENUS AND ADONIS –SIZZLINGLY HOT!

Most people today think of Shakespeare as a dramatist –the dramatist, and just about everyone knows something about his plays, even if they have never seen them. But relatively few people outside of us ”Shakspeareholics” know that at heart he was perhaps first and foremost a poet –and it was as a poet he really gained his reputation in his own time. Ok, perhaps (hopefully) you know he wrote sonnets –154 of them according to my collected edition– and that these are some of the finest, most beautiful love poems ever written, each 14 lines long. But he also wrote much longer poems – almost works of drama in themselves. The first of these is Venus and Adonis –and I’ll bet only a handful of you have ever read it. Yet, it was enormously popular in Shakespeare’s day, with at least ten reprints in his lifetime alone; in fact it was the most frequently printed of all Shakespeare’s works while he lived. Nowadays, you probably find it stuffed at the back of a ”Collected Works” where it is left unread by all but the most dedicated of readers –and admittedly, I too had never encountered it before, knowing it only by name, and assuming its obscurity meant that it was difficult and possibly not very interesting. How wrong I was!

For Venus and Adonis is a delight! And I want you all to go away and read it through, right now, aloud! It will take less than an afternoon, but it will fill you with the same experience as seeing a Shakespeare play, for this is drama –a drama poem– that is both simple and wide-ranging, comic and tragic, and oozing with lust, desire, eroticism and life! It has some of the most explicit sexual language in all of Shakespeare (which may partly explain why it has been pushed to the back of the collected editions ever since Victorian times), and some of the juiciest reflections on everything to do with ”love” that is found anywhere in literature. And its language is brilliant –this is Shakespeare discovering and cherishing his love of sounds, words, ideas vocalized and sheer poetry. This is why I urge anyone who reads this to read it aloud; so much of what makes this piece delightful is in the rhythm of the lines, and one is constantly astounded by the sheer creativity and sharpness of thought at work.

The story itself comes from Ovid –Shakespeare’s favourite writer, it would seem– and is a simple enough ”two hander” without the intricacies of plot that we find in the plays; yet it is easy to see this being performed as a stage drama –much of it is in dialogue, and there is something very theatrical about it. Apparently it was written during a time when the theatres in London were closed due to the plague, so there was no outlet for the young Shakespeare’s dramatic works –and thus he wrote a pair of dramatic poems that people could read for themselves (the other being The Rape of Lucrece). I would love to see it presented on stage in some way today.

Interestingly, there are echoes of the play that preceded it –Richard III– in the central role played by a boar in the poem, and the theme of a determined woman lusting for a young, beautiful man is something that clearly appeals to Shakespeare because the comedies that follow use similar elements of desire, sometimes to great comic effect –such as the poor Dromio in The Comedy of Errors being ”cornered” by the determined kitchen wench. But Venus and Adonis has some great comic moments too, that made me laugh out loud and whoop!

So for richness of language, incredibly creative imagery, and sheer delight, Venus and Adonis deserves to be FAR better known that it is. Though I said it could be read in an afternoon, I myself spread the reading of it over a couple of days. It is not difficult to tackle, once you grasp the ”tune” or ”metre”, but it needs a bit of concentration and plenty of time to savour each verse, for this is a meal with many delicious courses. Enjoy!

Favourite lines:

Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast.
Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.