How is love represented in Venus and Adonis?
In Shakespeare's representation of love in "Venus and Adonis," distance is an intrinsic part of the experience. To be in love necessitates being in love with something separate from the individual. Shakespeare represents love in this way, where individuals are not content with what is in front of them, but rather set their sights on something far in the distance. Love is thus a horizon that is impossible to attain, but one that seems to make the journey necessary to endure.
The equating of love and distance to one another is evident in the opening lines of the poem. Adonis is described as one who is wedded to the "chase" of hunting. In this light, hunting is Adonis's love. Shakespeare constructs love for Adonis as something that is in the distance, and captures his fancy. He is in love with something that he wishes to have, but is denied to him at the moment. It is for this reason that the idea of love is represented as something afar from the individual. Even though Venus is near him and throwing herself at him, his construction of love does not acknowledge that which is near him:
And now Adonis with a lazy spright,/ And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,/ His louring brows o'erwhelming his fair sight,/ Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,/ Souring his cheeks, cries 'Fie! no more of love./ The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.
In these lines, love is represented in a paradoxical manner. What is in front and within reach is of no use, and yet it is the only thing that can be possessed. What lies outside of us is where our love lies. Adonis embodies this when he rejects the love that Venus offers him, with his complaint of sunburn. It is only when Adonis sees what lies beyond his grasp, almost as a horizon, is love evident. This same analysis can be seen in Venus's characterization in the poem. Adonis lies outside Venus's reach. This helps to accentuate her love of him. Whether or not Venus loves Adonis, or simply is infatuated with his beauty, she pursues him. Even though it is quite clear that he has no interest in her, it is this "chase" that helps to define the love that she displays in the poem. In this light, Shakespeare represents love as something that is not meant to be in the grasp of the individual. Rather, it lies outside their reach. Interestingly enough, Shakespeare shows that animals do not necessarily love in the same manner. Adonis's frustration at what he loves and cannot have is matched by his stallion's embrace of that which is near him precisely so that he can love: "And this I do to captivate the eye/ Of the fair breeder that is standing by." The stallion is able to find happiness through love that is near to him.
The varying degrees of this emotional reality is critical to Shakespeare's representation of love. Along these lines is a sexual dimension to love. Venus's pursuit of Adonis is an example of this. The desire to appropriate that which is separate from the individual is part of the sexual landscape that Shakespeare uses to represent love. It is for this reason that Shakespeare shows love and its extension of sex are pursuits where individuals are willing to do whatever they can to find happiness, only to find a sense of despair awaits. Venus finds herself heartbroken at Adonis's dead body. Adonis has died as a result of seeking to move closer to his love. In the end, love exists outside the individual, compelling them to do whatever is in their agency to merge with it. The result is futility and failure. Pain is the only tangible result of love. In this light, love is represented in a distinctively complex and intricate manner in Shakespeare's poem.
What symbolism is evident in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis?
The most important symbol in William Shakespeare’s poem is the purple-and-white flower that is mentioned in the fourth stanza from the end. This flower stands for Adonis’s blood and skin, as Venus explains. The poem is a retelling of the classical myth that explains the origin of this flower, traditionally considered to be the anemone. Most of the other symbolism is closely related to this specific one. Flowers figure throughout the poem. Color symbolism of white and red or purple is also consistently applied. Birds also appear with symbolic associations, sometimes in conjunction with color; this is especially the case for white doves. Whiteness, in addition to purity, may stand for the pallor of death. The wounds of love are also associated with death.
The final flower association, to which the others lead, is:
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd,
A purple flower sprung up, chequer'd with white,
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.
From the poem’s beginning, Shakespeare clearly establishes the precedent for the symbolism of the purple and white flower, and of the flower and color symbolism more generally. In the first lines, he refers to sunrise as the sun’s purple face, and he mentions Adonis’s rose-colored cheeks. Upon first seeing Adonis, Venus calls him the best flower in the field, saying his complexion is whiter than doves and redder than roses.
Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laugh'd to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him.
'Thrice-fairer than myself,' thus she began,
'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are.
Venus is intent on having Adonis as her lover, but he only wants to hunt. The poet draws a parallel between her pursuit of the youth and his of the boar, but the hunt does not strictly speaking symbolize sex. Both are manifestations of strong passion. In describing Adonis’s appearance as he flees from Venus, the poet again uses the white and red color symbols.
Still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,
'Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy-pale:
Being red, she loves him best; and being white,
Her best is better'd with a more delight.
Venus’s unfulfilled passion is symbolized by the clashing colors in her complexion: white, which is a common symbol of purity, or pale; and red, for passion, here symbolized by fire. His cheek, as she touches it, is white as snow.
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
How white and red each other did destroy!
But now her cheek was pale, and by and by
It flash'd forth fire, as lightning from the sky.
Now was she just before him as he sat,
And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:
His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print,
As apt as new-fall'n snow takes any dint.
His association with virginity or lack of sexual desire is emphasized by repeated use of white as different shades and manifestations: lily, snow, ivory, alabaster, and the closely associated silver. The flower association is present in calling him a lily. Here the birds are doves or love birds.
Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band;
So white a friend engirts so white a foe:
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
Show'd like two silver doves that sit a-billing.
When she tempts him to love, he disdains it and compares it to death.
“My love to love is love but to disgrace it;
For I have heard it is a life in death,
That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.”
As he continues resistant and is determined to hunt, she warns him that it will prove fatal. Indeed it does; the “angry chafing boar” kills him. The color and flower associations, including the white lily, appear in describing his dead body and blood after the boar gores him. Her eyes “threw . . . light,” or saw
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench'd
In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white
With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench'd:
No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed,
But stole his blood and seem'd with him to bleed.
These also prefigure the final mention of the white and purple flower, quoted above. She picks the newly sprung flower and swears to kiss it every day, thinking of him. They she flies off with her silver doves, now symbolizing the dead youth’s spirit.
Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd.
Further Reading
How is Venus's passion for Adonis shown in Venus and Adonis?
This is a poem that explores and questions the very nature of love as Venus is faced with scorn and disregard in response to the offers of love she gives him. From the very beginning, it is clear that the desire she has for Adonis is based on physical attraction and appearances. Note how she addresses him:
"Thrice fairer than myself," thus she began,
"The fields' chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are--"
It is clear that what attracts the Goddess of Love to Adonis is nothing to do with his character or his qualities. It is his physical beauty alone that sparks her interest and her desire in him, and it is this on which her passion for him is based. Note the metaphor she uses to describe him as "The fields' chief flower," and she goes on to state that he goes beyond the normal metaphors that are used to describe beauty, such as the redness of roses and the whiteness of doves. Later in the poem, Adonis admonishes Venus about the narrow, superficial nature of such love, arguing that their is a massive difference between love based on lust alone, as she demonstrates, and more divine love.
How is the nature of love presented in Venus and Adonis?
It is the nature of love that is perhaps the most important and powerful theme of this poem. Venus, through her infatuation and lust, is driven to pursue Adonis beyond the realms of what is acceptable, and it is Adonis who has to argue with Venus about the nature of love and what love actually means. In his opinion, what Venus is expressing towards him is definitely not love:
Call it not love, for love to heaven is fled
Since sweating lust on earth usurped its name,
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame...
Note how Adoins personifies "sweating lust" as some kind of usurping king who has forced real love to vanish to heaven. The big problem with love, according to Adonis, is the fact that now the "simple semblance" of love has been consumed by lust so that now lust has overtaken love and love cannot be found. In the next stanza, Adonis goes on to compare true love and lust, and lust is definitely found to be wanting:
Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain,
But lust's effect is tempest after sun.
Adonis therefore in this poem is given the position of arguing with Venus that the supposed "love" she feels for him is not actually "love" at all, but rather lust.
In Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, what is the poet emphasizing?
In Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare takes a classic mythological tale and uses it to comment on the nature of love. The original story of Venus and Adonis, like many mythological tragedies, is filled with vivid images of human passions.
In Shakespeare's portrayal of powerful deities as possessing human emotions, they are humanized. This makes the interaction between gods/goddesses and mortals a lot more believable. Unlike other religions and mythologies, Greek and Roman myths portray the division between gods and mortals as being thin. While there is a hierarchy—like those found in the Abrahamic faiths—the deities and the mortals easily interact with each other, and on some occasions, they seem like equals.
In fact, there are many instances in the poem specifically, and in the mythology canon in general, where the mortals are more virtuous than the powerful gods and goddesses. In this poem, Shakespeare points out that deities can be as temperamental and as obsessed with worldly pleasures as the mortals—sometimes even more so.
The poem is also written in the style of a pastoral, and Shakespeare uses this type of poetic writing to make observations about nature. In the poem, nature is the realm in which both gods and demigods dwell. This is quite possibly William Shakespeare's first publication, and it was popular during his time to use ancient mythologies as poetry topics. The poem is essentially an interpretation of the Greek myth by Shakespeare, which is a technique he would later use as a playwright.
Like in some of his most famous plays, particularly Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare comments on the complexity of love and relationship dynamics in this poem. He shows the dark side of passion and the dangers of losing one's ability to think logically. However, like in the Greek tragedies that were written before Shakespeare's time, there is no logic to love in this poem.
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Further Reading