The poetry of the Renaissance

Analyse stylistic devices and figures of speech of the following poems.

Sir PHILIP SIDNEY

From “ASTROPHIL and STELLA”

 

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she (dear she) might take some pleasure of my pain:

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:

Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay,

Invention, nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,

And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

Thus great with child to speak and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,

'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write'.

 

1. Mark in the rhyme scheme. What do you notice?

2. Why does the poet want to write? (lines 1-2)

3. Where does the poet first look for inspiration? (lines 5-8)

4. What is the result of this?

5. What is the message of the last line? What is Sidney saying about the nature of inspiration?

Edmund SPENCER

SONNET 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand

But came the waves and wash'd it away;

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

'Vain man', said she, 'that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalise,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wip'd out likewise'.

'Not so', quod1, 'let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;

My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,

And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where whenas'death shall all the world subdue.

Our love shall live, and later life renew'.

 

1. Was Spenser's reaction what you expected? How was it different?

2. Write down the rhyme scheme of the poem.

3. The poem is a dialogue between...

4. Paraphrase in simple prose the first part of the dialogue. (Lines 5-8)

5. How does the poet disagree with this?

6. What do you consider to be the message of the poem?

7. Do you think this message is still valid today? Are poems eternal? Discuss.

 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Find different translations of the given sonnets and analyse them.

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough¹ winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd,

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'sf in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou gow'st;

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

1. Read the poem and mark in the stresses and the rhyme scheme.

2. This form is known as the Shakespearean sonnet. What do you think is the effect of this formal choice on the type of logical argument used and the content of the poem?

3. Make a chart contrasting the characteristics of summer and of Shakespeare's mistress.

A summer’s day	Shakespeare's mistress

 

4. What do you think is Shakespeare's message? Look especially at the last two lines.

 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 130

 

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun –

Coral is far more red than her lips' red –

If snow be white why then her breasts are dun –

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks,

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet by heav'n I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

 

1. What is your first reaction upon reading the poem? Is Shakespeare being cruel, realistic, ironical, tender? Discuss.

2. What creates the effect of an expanding and developing argument

3. Fill in the chart and analyse the appearance of the woman in the sonnet.

Feature	Classical simile/metaphor	Shakespeare’s image
Eyes Lips Breasts Hair Cheeks Breath Speech Way of walking

 

What is Shakespeare's message? Do people still use the classical images to talk about their loved one?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

1. How does this sonnet attempt to define love? In the 1^st, 2^nd and 3d quatrains?

2. Explain the metaphoric explanation of love in the 2^nd quatrain.

1. Does love change with hours and weeks?
2. Analyse the imagery or metaphoric range of the sonnet.

 

 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 60

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

 

1. How does this sonnet attempt to explain the nature of time as it passes, and as it acts on human life?

2. What is the structure of this poem?

3. Analyse metaphorical description of time's passage in human lifein each quatrain.

4. How do these images develop from one another?

 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 147

 

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desp'rate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure am I, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

BEN JOHNSON

POEM

I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!

My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room:

Thou art a monument, without a tomb,

And art alive still, while thy book doth live,

And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;

For, if I thought my judgement were of years,

I should commit thee surely with thy peers,

And tell, how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,

Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,

From thence to honour thee, I would not seek

For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,

Euripides and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage: or when thy socks were on,

Leave thee alone, for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

Triumph my Britain, thou hast one to show

To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

He was not of an age, but for all time!

 

1. What complimentary titles does Jonson give Shakespeare in the poem? Make a list.

2. What does this indicate about his attitude?

3. In what sense is Shakespeare still alive?

4. Which other Elizabethan dramatists is he compared with? Is this comparison favourable or unfavourable?

5. Which classical authors are called forth to testify to Shakespeare's greatness?

6. What references are there to Shakespeare's acting career?

JOHN DONNE
HOLY SONNET X

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou thinkst, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.

 

1. Describe, in your own words, Donne's opening proposition (lines 1-2).

2. How is Death deceived in lines 3 and 4?

3. Rest and sleep are pleasant for men; how does Donne use this argument to make Death seem pleasant?

4. How do you interpret "soonest our best men" in line 7?

5. What bad company is Death forced to keep? Why?

6. Which sedatives are better than Death?

7. What is Donne's elegant final paradox, linking the ideas of Death and Eternal Life?

8. What elements in the poem give it its surprising force? Think about rhythm and imagery.

INDIVIDUAL WORK

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MODULE 2

LECTURE # 8