The Craftsman
The Craftsman - meaning Summary
Imagination Shaped from Life
The poem pictures Shakespeare after a late tavern evening, telling Ben Jonson boisterous stories that compress real-life sights into the characters he creates. Episodes of drunk courtship, gypsy lament, a child's cruelty, and a drowned girl are recounted as raw impressions that feed his art. By dawn he quietly moves from revelry to his work, calmly translating common, seemingly trivial scenes into enduring drama.
Read Complete AnalysesOnce, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid, He to the overbearing Boanerges Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor, Blessed be the vintage!) Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold, He had made sure of his very Cleopatra, Drunk with enormous, salvation-con temning Love for a tinker. How, while he hid from Sir Thomas's keepers, Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet Rail at the dawning. How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens Winced at the business; whereupon his sister-- Lady Macbeth aged seven--thrust 'em under, Sombrely scornful. How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate-- She being known since her birth to the townsfolk-- Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon Dripping Ophelia So, with a thin third finger marrying Drop to wine-drop domed on the table, Shakespeare opened his heart till the sunrise-- Entered to hear him. London wakened and he, imperturbable, Passed from waking to hurry after shadows . . . Busied upon shows of no earthly importance? Yes, but he knew it!
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