~59 & The Cycle of Life~
In The Six Thatchers, John receives 59 texts from Mary, who has gone into labor. But he missed them. Why 59?
If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd, Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss The second burthen of a former child! O, that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done! That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame; Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they, Or whether revolution be the same. O! sure I am, the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
"Sonnet 59 dwells on the paradox that what is new is always expressed in terms of what already is known."
Thomas Foster asserts that "pure originality is impossible. Human beings are fascinated by life in space and time, so when we write about "ourselves" and "what it means to be human", we are really just writing the story of life. Quotes:
"If you look at any literary period between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, you'll be amazed by the dominance of the Bard. He's everywhere, in every literary form you can think of. And he's never the same: every age and every writer reinvents its own Shakespeare."
With each rewriting of this "story of life" the author is influenced by changes in attitudes and cultures between the original and current era of creation. Each author alters the message to fit their own views while the audience is a variable agency in the making of an interpretation. All of these same old factors help create a new story. The fear expressed in line 1–2, "If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled", is remedied by the strength of Shakespeare's own "invention" and its ability to influence future ages.
(see dennis-oneil-sherlock-and-theseuss-paradox)
"Substantiation of beauty was a result of the Renaissance. This accomplishment was rendered by "the revelation of man to himself, and he discovered that he had a body of which he could be as proud as of his mind, and which was just as essential to his being."
Mind and body, form and feeling, flesh and thought
...in the book The Body Emblazoned, by Jonathon Sawday, Shakespeare's sonnets are used to exhibit the idea of confrontation between the physical and the psychological human being. The conflict for early Renaissance writers involved the interaction between the "material reality" and the "abstract idea" of the body. The conceptual framework of the period was starting to dissect the material from the immaterial; the subject from the object. This idea is commonly referred to as the body and soul or mind and body conflict. Shakespeare is not exempt from this cultural ideology. In fact, his writing reflects a bodily interiority that was changing with new discoveries in science and art...The outside world of the physical body is a part of the language in use by Shakespeare and his peers to portray the inward world of emotion and thought. Characters are the "vehicles" for meaning much as the body is the "vehicle" for the mind.
"In the pilot's restaurant scene, it is implied that Sherlock hasn't eaten in a while. John asks if he's going to eat, Sherlock asks for the date and then states that he's "okay for a bit." John is alarmed by Sherlock's treatment of his body as "transport" for his mind and little else." The Unaired Pilot
"Since mind at first in character was done Yet, Shakespeare blurs the threshold between the two concepts of body and mind. "Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss The second burden of a former child!".
*The process of creation in the mind becomes the physical process of labor.*
Birth and pregnancy
Pauline Kieman makes a very good case that the first quatrain in Sonnet 59 is dealing primarily with the theme of biological birth and pregnancy. She makes many claims supporting this idea, but the main points are as follows: 1. Invention becomes an image of pregnancy, and imaginative creation is now the dominating sense of invention so that we are made to picture to ourselves an embryo growing in the womb. 2. At line 4 the sense of the pain of a heavily pregnant womb is doubled by the word "second". 3. The poet tries to bring something into being for the first time, but before it can get born it is crushed under the weight of previous creations. e.g. "which for labouring invention bear amiss."
Joel Fineman also subscribes to the theory of pregnancy and birth being a theme of the Sonnet, particularly the first quatrain, but he takes a different approach in his final analysis of this theme. He suggests that this rebirth is not a biological rebirth, but rather a rebirth of subjectivity, particularly within the Late Renaissance. So, in other words, the rebirth is not literal, as stated by Kieman, but rather the rebirth is symbolic of the sentiments and intellectual themes of the Late Renaissance. There is still a theme of birth, pregnancy, or rebirth, it is just concluded in different terms.
The young man
Russell Fraser suggests that Shakespeare's "if" clause which occurs in "if there be nothing new..." actually is referring to something new beneath the sun, namely, the young man. He also states that Shakespeare reverses his claim, but his main purpose is inclusiveness, wherein lies power.
Biblical allusions
Much of the sonnet seems to be focused on a debate as to whether the old style or the new is superior. In fact, the opening lines stating that "If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before…" call to mind a similar passage that would have far outdated Shakespeare, but that would have been familiar to most learned men of his day. In the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, verse 9, it is written that "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."
The speaker asks whether the Fair Youth has surpassed his ancient equivalents, or whether he has fallen short of their legacy...Ultimately, the speaker decides that even if the Youth has not out-shined his predecessors, he is still certainly more beautiful than at least some who came before him, as the speaker states in lines 13 and 14:
"O, sure I am, the wits of former days / To subjects worse have given admiring praise." X