Venus and Adonis.

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The purpose of this Paper is to analyze Shakespeare's narrative poem Venus and Adonis. It aims, further, to identify the two main characters of the poem: Venus, the goddess of love, and Adonis, an ordinary young man.

It also intends to deal with its controversial subject matter, which has always been a topic of interest for scholars and critics. Venus and Adonis has been interpreted as everything from a noble love poem to an obscene tale of lust. Its debatable theme has been interpreted as going far beyond the story of how the goddess of love -Venus - fell in love with a young man, Adonis. Scholars often show a particular interest in Venus' attempts to make love and Adonis' refusals. The plot follows as Adonis abandons her and sets off to hunt a boar. When Adonis is finally mutilated by a wild boar, Venus is left alone suffering the bitter loss of her juvenile love.

        We will also try to prove why Venus and Adonis has demonstrated to be one of Shakespeare's most distinguished narrative works, mainly deriving from its dealing with a theme concerning the primarily human subject of sexual love.

Finally, the objective of this investigation is to examine the sources in which Shakespeare inspired to achieve his narrative work and to mention the ways in which the author has depicted one of his magnificent literary achievements.  

Venus and Adonis is a narrative poem that has been written by the greatest dramatist ever, William Shakespeare. The poem tells the story of goddess Venus' passion for Adonis, a young hunter. Venus courts him, and further on, she aims at making love with him. Adonis refuses her, considering her too lustful. Instead, he decides to go hunting, and ends up being killed by a wild boar. Venus finds the dead corpse and laments herself because her beloved has passed away.

The poem begins with a contrasting introduction of the two characters: in the first stanza 'rose cheek'd Adonis' is contrasted to ill-thought Venus:

"Rose cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase..."  (Line 3)

"Sick thoughted Venus makes amain unto him..." (Line 5)

He is presented as an innocent young man, that 'hunting (he) loved, but love he laught to scorn' (line 4). On the contrary, Venus is presented as a perverted female who 'gins to woo him' (line 6).

In this poem, the standard romantic convention, where the lovesick male pursues uninterested women, is reversed, as it is Venus who courts and harasses Adonis. It can also be noticed that Shakespeare takes every opportunity to emphasise this role inversion.

Venus is a parody of a typical male suitor, while Adonis is presented in a traditionally feminine role, and is regarded as a mere sex object.

 "And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,

With blind fold fury she begins to forage;

Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,

And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;

Planting oblivion, beating reason back,

Forgetting shame's pure blush and honour's wrack..."

(lines 553-59)

"He now obeys, and now no more resisteth..." (line 564)

Venus' overbearing seizure of Adonis is a virtual parody of male aggressiveness, emphasising role inversion:

"With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,

The precedent of pith and livelihood,

And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm"

                                                                                  (Lines 25-27)

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Venus draws the attention in the poem due to her many attributes as the great goddess of love, as seen in the following lines:

"Her arrival on earth is sudden and mysterious. She has put on a woman's form, yet she is strangely incorporeal, neither naked nor clothed, neither young nor old, with perennial beauty that 'as the spring doth yearly grow'. The sensuality of her courtship is only apparent: her hand if touched would 'dissolve, or seem to melt'; the primroses she lies on support her 'like sturdy trees'.

                                                (Boyce)

Venus might be the idealisation of beauty and ...

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