Poetry during the 17th century often shared similar themes, narratives, and messages. These topics often revolved around concepts of innocence, romance, loss, temptation, and desire, especially when it came to courtship. Andrew Marvell, a prominent English metaphysical poet and politician, whose "To His Coy Mistress," thought to have been written during the 1650s, explores themes of innocence and temptation, especially in terms of courtship. Moreover, "To His Coy Mistress" can be categorized as a carpe diem poem, as the narrator attempts to convince his mistress to lower her inhibitions and give in to his desires. "To His Coy Mistress" explores the conflict the narrator perceives between innocence and temptation through a detailed use of imagery and metaphors that allow Marvell to elaborate on the narrator's urgency. "To His Coy Mistress" can be classified as a carpe diem poem because of the demands the narrator makes of his mistress. In the poem, the narrator urges and pleads with his mistress to give in to his desires because he does not know what may come in the future and wants to take advantage of the present, in essence, he wants to "seize the day" ("Carpe Diem: Poems for Making the Most of Time"). The poem begins with the narrator stating, "Had we but world enough, and time,/This coyness, lady, were not crime," in which the narrator establishes that if they had all the time in the world, his mistress's behavior and reluctance to give in to his desires would not be as tasking on his patience if he did not believe that they needed to take advantage of the precious little time they have to spend together on this Earth. The narrator uses imagery...
Furthermore, he states that he would spend as much time as possible loving her and conceding to her every wish. Marvell writes, "I would/Love you ten years before the Flood;/And you should, if you please, refuse/till the conversion of the Jews" (line 7-10). The narrator also argues that if he was given time, he would allow his love to flourish and grow for his mistress as she is leading him to believe is a comfortable rate of courtship. He continues to push her to lose her innocence by using metaphors to compare his love to a vegetable that needs to be tended to and cultivated. The narrator contends, "My vegetable love should grow/Vaster than empires, and more slow," slow enough to appreciate everything that she has to offer (line 11-12). The narrator exaggerates the amount of time he would dedicate to cultivating his love as he provides a temporal breakdown. He contends he would spend 100 years praising her eyes and gazing on her forehead; "Two hundred to adore each breast;" and 30,000 years would be dedicated to praising the rest of her, hoping that at the "last age should show [her] heart" (lines 13-18). Paradoxically, the narrator attempts to convey a tone of restraint during this first stanza because is attempting to convince his mistress that she is worthy of the respect she commands. He contends, "For, lady, you deserve this state,/Nor would I love at a lower rate," however, it appears as though his arguments are contradictory in the ensuing stanzas because although he…
John Donne's "The Canonization" begins relatively simply, as a familiar lyrical ode to his mistress. Gradually it deepens in meaning while approaching the final verses, where Donne reveals the true complexity of his vision of love. "The Canonization" is undoubtedly still a love poem; it revels in theatrical descriptions of the love he and his beloved share. But there are also many layers of meaning and irony behind the words
Renaissance Art An Analysis of Love in the Renaissance Art of Sidney, Shakespeare, Hilliard and Holbein If the purpose of art, as Aristotle states in the Poetics, is to imitate an action (whether in poetry or in painting), Renaissance art reflects an obsession with a particular action -- specifically, love and its many manifestations, whether eros, agape or philia. Love as a theme in 16th and 17th century poetry and art
Swammerdam Byatt in the novel Possession succeeds brilliantly in the monumental technical achievement of creating a deeply layered romance in which two twentieth century literary scholars, Roland Michell and Maud Bailey, become themselves romantically involved as they investigate a startling connection between the two Victorian poets of whom they have made specialized study. Byatt's feat is an especially remarkable tour de force as she invents and adroitly interlaces the poetic works
" Ibid. Byrd's work also predated the Lewis and Clarke journals in his information on the natural history of the area. In fact, he wrote about the Native American tribes and the flora and fauna, much still unknown at the time. This, too, was part of the Enlightenment though, a rather Lockean concept of using one's knowledge to both understand and interpret the universe. By attempting definition, Byrd was following the
Shakespeare Journal 9/14 Sonnets (1. I usually have to force myself to read poetry, especially sonnets about romance that seem contrived or sentimentalized. Also, I am not very good at understanding and explaining the various metaphors, hidden meanings and so on. Sonnet 18 is so famous that it has long since turned into a cliche ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") and would simply not go over very well is
Thomas took the ashes and smiled, closed his eyes, and told this story: "I'm going to travel to Spokane Falls one last time and toss these ashes into the water. And your father will rise like a salmon, leap over the bridge, over me, and find his way home. It will be beautiful. His teeth will shine like silver, like a rainbow. He will rise, Victor, he will rise." Victor
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