SOURCE: "Shakespeare's Dead Phoenix," in English Language Notes, Vol. VII, No. 1, September, 1969, pp. 25-32.

In the following essay, Schwartz argues that The Phoenix and Turtle is a funeral elegy for two dead lovers, rather than a metaphysical or philosophical poem.

Two recent essays—by Robert Ellrodt and Murray Copland—have rightly emphasized the fact that Shakespeare's Phoenix, unlike everyone else's, is not reborn out of its own ashes.¹ This departure from the primary feature of the Phoenix myth, which would have startled the contemporary reader, has important ramifications for the overall meaning of "The Phoenix and the Turtle." I should like to point out some of these ramifications which have not, I think, been sufficiently taken into account in interpreting the poem.

But first let me clear away several minor points. Though the poem "celebrates" the love of the Phoenix and the Turtle, it is ostensibly a funeral...