Oxford Trophaed into Stone

[Dennis]

'My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformed to bodies rich and strange.' Ovid?

Well, it seems that Oxford has undergone a rather dispiriting metamorphosis at the Front of the First Folio. All of that beauty, wit and pride turned to a foolish Figure. Troped into the stone of the Monument Shakespeare.
In Cynthia's Revels Jonson makes his case against Oxford, arguing that he disfigured himself - turned himself into something less than a man. And changed others.

Horace, Epistles:

You know about Circe's drink, and the Siren voices
Had Ulysses let himself go and drunk what he wanted
He'd have lost his true shape and from then on lived like a noddy [stultus].

Please look at Alciato's Emblem 69. It explains a lot. Why men get turned into flowers and figures, beasts and monsters.

So, in considering the transformed shape of England's Narcissus I've been wondering how does one go about reversing a metamorphosis? I do not have that skill. But something has become clear (somewhat clear) to me and that is I have been thinking about the problem in the wrong way. You cannot turn monumental stone back into flesh.

So I have decided to 'turn' it forward. To keep it bouncing, so to speak.

Nicole

[Don]

Post by Dennis
'My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformed to bodies rich and strange.' Ovid?

Decypher Shakespeare with an Ovid approach? Okay, that's an
interesting metaphor, but if Oxenford seems statue-like, maybe have to
metamorphose him back and forth to get some juicy alchemy to conjure
with. Maybe bewitch him into a tree or donkey, then distill the
dream?

Post by Dennis
Well, it seems that Oxford has undergone a rather dispiriting metamorphosis at the Front of the First Folio. All of that beauty, wit and pride turned to a foolish Figure. Troped into the stone of the Monument Shakespeare.
In Cynthia's Revels Jonson makes his case against Oxford, arguing that he disfigured himself - turned himself into something less than a man. And changed others.
You know about Circe's drink, and the Siren voices
Had Ulysses let himself go and drunk what he wanted
He'd have lost his true shape and from then on lived like a noddy [stultus].
Please look at Alciato's Emblem 69. It explains a lot. Why men get turned into flowers and figures, beasts and monsters.
So, in considering the transformed shape of England's Narcissus I've been wondering how does one go about reversing a metamorphosis? I do not have that skill. But something has become clear (somewhat clear) to me and that is I have been thinking about the problem in the wrong way. You cannot turn monumental stone back into flesh.

Surely you don't mean that statues don't come alive in mythic fiction.
Okay, put him aboard the Enterprise and let Captain Cousteau project
him into sci-fi so he can talk to us.

Post by Dennis
So I have decided to 'turn' it forward. To keep it bouncing, so to speak.

Sure, let's all collectively dream about Oxford morphing himself for
us. Good luck with that. bookburn

Post by Dennis
Nicole

[Dennis]

Hi bookburn,
No, I think it was most definitely Ben Jonson who metamorphosed Oxford into the Monument (monere) Shakespeare. It is the 'liquid marble' of his lines that still restrains the enchanting cavalier.

In Cynthia's Revels Jonson links Amorphus to Oxford through a line of poetry that had been dedicated to Oxford in which Amorphus vaunts the excellence of his 'invention', preferring it to Imitation. Amorphus' preference for his own invention and fantasy before the example of ancient models earns him the title of the 'discoverer' of the fountain of Self-love. Like Milton's Comus, Amorphous is a Circean figure offering enchanted glasses and bottles of extractions that turn men away from Virtue, causing them to lose their 'manly shapes' and become beasts of sense. The disproportionate Droeshout is not the figure of a man and does not 'conform to God's high figure(s)' (in Jonson's phrase), functioning more like the dead letter room of Oxford's fame. The first Folio also gave Jonson a chance to unbridle his skills with figurative language, proving that he could have been just as mischievous with figurative language as Oxford/Shakespeare if he had permitted himself such liberties. He's buried Oxford under a mountain of rhetorical tricks and trash, having decided that Oxford was not virtuous enough to enjoy an immortal name.

Nicole

[Dennis]

In my opinion, of course!
N.

[Don]

Post by Dennis
Hi bookburn,
No, I think it was most definitely Ben Jonson who metamorphosed Oxford into the Monument (monere) Shakespeare. It is the 'liquid marble' of his lines that still restrains the enchanting cavalier.
In Cynthia's Revels Jonson links Amorphus to Oxford through a line of poetry that had been dedicated to Oxford in which Amorphus vaunts the excellence of his 'invention', preferring it to Imitation. Amorphus' preference for his own invention and fantasy before the example of ancient models earns him the title of the 'discoverer' of the fountain of Self-love. Like Milton's Comus, Amorphous is a Circean figure offering enchanted glasses and bottles of extractions that turn men away from Virtue, causing them to lose their 'manly shapes' and become beasts of sense. The disproportionate Droeshout is not the figure of a man and does not 'conform to God's high figure(s)' (in Jonson's phrase), functioning more like the dead letter room of Oxford's fame. The first Folio also gave Jonson a chance to unbridle his skills with figurative language, proving that he could have been just as mischievous with figurative language as Oxford/Shakespeare if he had permitted himself such liberties. He's
buried Oxford under a mountain of rhetorical tricks and trash, having decided that Oxford was not virtuous enough to enjoy an immortal name.
Nicole

Oh, I thought you were going to let Oxford be the shape shifter who
modeled for the monument, and the Droeshout an artful composite
peeping out. Ben Jonson's witchery.

Maybe you are like Alice, then, following this White Rabbit with an
alchemy of big and little, getting through the doorways? Alice
escapes an arranged marriage, if that's what you think the Shakespeare
authorship has been; and she doesn't know who she is at first, either;
if that supports a hunt for the real Shakespeare, who is trying to
find himself, using his plays as mirrors.