Dr. Mohanad Abu Sabha
Course Title :Appreciating Poetry
Course Number: Eng 231
Credit Hours; 2
Title :Sound and Sense :An Introduction to Poetry.
Author ; Laurence Perrine and Thomas R.Arp
Date :New York :Harcour,1992
Course Schedule
week
Topics
1 Introduction: What is Poetry?
“’The Eagle,’’ ‘’Winter’’
2 How to Read a Poem ?Poems Patterns
3 Stanza Forms , Imagery: “Meeting at Night”
4 Poetics Sanction: Metre, Iambic: “Virtue”
5
“The Man He Killed’’
6 Denotation and Connotation
7-10 Figurative Language 1, 2: “The Sick Rose’’
11 Figurative Language 3: Overstatement, Understatement, Paradox: “Success is
Counted Sweetest”
12 “The Road Not Taken”
13-14 “To His Coy Mistress”
15 Periods of English Poetry
(John Wain)
"Poetry is the best words in the
best order." (S T Coleridge)
"Poetry is not turning loose of
emotion, but an escape from
emotion; it is not the expression of
personality, but an escape from
personality." ( T.S. Eliot)
What is a poem:
A piece of writing in which
the words are chosen for
their sound and the images
and ideas they suggest, not
just their obvious meaning.
The Eagle
He class the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the Sun in lonely lauds,
Ring'd with the azure World he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath brim crawls
:
He watches from his mountain walls,
And a like thunderbolt he falls.'
The Eagle :
This short poem was first published in
1851.It is a mere fragment of a poem ,
consisting of only six lines .First it
appeared in the seventh edition of
Poems , then it was also included in
Selections of 1885 .In the poem , there
is an imaginative , but minute
description of an eagle .
Paraphrase :
With its twisted claws , the eagle holds the
rugged rock firmly .The bird appears to be
sitting very close to the sun in a lonely part
of some regions , encircled with the blue
sky .Below the rock where the eagle is
sitting is the furrowed sea which appears to
be heaving .The eagle looks upon the sea
from the rocky mountain , and as soon as it
finds some object of prey , it swoops
downward like the flash of lightning .
Critical Appreciation :
The Eagle is a small poem , but rich in
pictorial Quality .The poet describes an
eagle sitting on a high rocky-peak
holding with its twisted claws firmly .It
appears very near to the sun in the blue
sky .Below there is furrowed sea .The
eagle pounces upon its object of prey
from the high rock like a flash of
lightning .
The poem reveals the poet's power
of minute observation and precise
delineation .
For example , there are such
matches expressions as " The
wrinkled sea beneath him crawls " ,
" And like a thunderbolt he falls " ,
etc .
So the texture of the poem is highly
imaginative.
A. Brooke has observed that the
cliff " from which I looked down
on the Atlantic was nine hundred
feet in height . Beside me the
giant slope of Slieve League
plunged down from its summit
for more than eighteenth
hundred feet .
As I gazed on the sea below , which
was calm in the shelter , for the
wind blew off the land , the varying
puffs that eddied in and out among
the hollows and jutting of the cliffs ,
covered the quiet surface with an
infinite network of involved ripples
" . I t was exactly Tennyson's
Wrinkled sea .
Then by huge good fortune an
eagle , which built on one of the
ledges of Slieve League , flew out
of his eyrie and poised , barking
on his wings but in a moment fell
precipitate , as their manner is ,
straight down a thousand feet into
the sea ;
and I could help crying out :
The wrinkled sea beneath him
crawls ;
He watches…….
And like …falls .
Poems Elements:
Poems Elements:
1. Content
2.Form
3. Tone
4. Mood.
5.Poetic Voice
6.Rhyme
7. Rhythm
8.Imagery.
1.Content: In a simple term the content of a poem
is what it is all about, the ideas, themes, and
storyline that it contains. It is about the surface
meaning of the poem.
2.Form: can refer to the way that the poem is
actually written down on the page or to the way
that the lines are organized, grouped, or
structured.
….Poetic
Form:Two Forms:
1-Stichic poetry: is the kind of poetry where
the lines follow on one from another
continuously without breaks, such as in
Wordsworth's The Prelude, Milton's Paradise
Lost.
2-Strophic poetry: is the kind of poetry where
the lines are arranged in groups which are
some times called verses, but are more
correctly refered to as stanzas. Keats uses
this form in The Eve of St. Agyes, as does
Blake in The Tyge
Stanza Forms, Imagery
Stanza Forms
1.The Heroic Couplet: consists of two
iambic pentameters ( lines of ten
syllables)
2. The Terza Rima: is a tercet (a
stanza of three lines)
3.The Chaucerian Stanza or Rhyme
Royal: is a stanza of seven lines in iambic
pentameter rhyming ababbcc
4. The Ottava Rima: is a stanza of eight lines in
iambic pentameters.
5. The Spenserian stanza: is a stanza of nine
lines .
6. The Quatrain Stanza:is a stanza of four lines.
It is the most common stanza in English
versification, and is employed with various meters
and rhyme schmes.
7. A Sestet Stanza: is a stanza of six lines
8. Aquintette: five-lines stanza.
9.Septette: sevenlines stanza.
3.Tone: the author's attitude towards the subject
matter. Tone can revealed through literary
elements such as setting, dialogue, conflict,
and plot.
4.Mood: the feeling created in the reader by a
literary work or passage. The mood maybe
suggested by the writer's choice of words, by
events in the work, or by physical setting.
Poetic Voice: the speaker of the
poem. In many cases the poetic voice
may be the speaker poet's, but it may
be that the words of the poem are
'spoken' through a character that the
poet has created or a narrator figure
other than the poet.
Rhyme: repetition of an identical or
similarly accented sound or sounds in a
work. Or exact repetition of sounds in at
least the final accented syllables of two or
more words.
Rhythm: the arrangement of stressed and
unstressed syllables in speech or writing.
Rhythm or Meter may be regular, ta Dum, ta
Dum, ta Dum, or it may varywithin a line or
work. The four most common meters are
(IAMB) or iambus (-/), Trochee (/ -), Anapest
(-- /), and Dactyl (/ --).
Imagery: Words and phrases that
describe something in a way that creates
pictures, or images, that appeal to the
reader's senses.
Most images tend to be visual, though many
writers will also use words that suggest the way
things sound, smell, taste, or feel to the touch.
Meeting at Night
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand
The Gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp
And blue spurt of a lighted match
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each
The poem:
“Meeting at Night” is a poem about love. It makes, one say, a
number of statements about love: being in love is a sweet and
exciting experience; when one is in love everything seems
beautiful, and the most trivial things become significant; when
one is in love one’s beloved seems the most important thing in
the world. But the poet actually tells us none of these things
directly. He does not even use the word love in his poem. His
business is to communicate experience, not information. He does
this largely in two ways. First, he presents us with specific
situation, in which a lover’s journey so vividly in terms of sense
impressions that the reader virtually sees and hears what the
lover saw and heard and seems to share his anticipation and
excitement.
Every line in the poem contains some image, some appeal to
the senses: the Gray sea, the long black land, the yellow halfmoon, the startled little waves with their fiery ringlets, the blue
spurt of the lighted match- all appeal to our sense of sight and
convey not only shape but also colour and motion. The warm
sea- scented beach appeals to the senses of both smell and
touch. The pushing prow of the boat on the slushy sand, the
tap at the pane, the quick scratch of the match, the low speech
of the lovers, and the sound of their hearts beating- all appeal
to sense of hearing.
In general, the poet will seek concrete or image-bearing words
in preference to abstract or non image- bearing words.
Poetics Sanction: Metre, Iambic: “Virtue”
Scansion: is the process of identifying
the metre.
Example:
* When I\ have fears\ that I\ may cease\
to be . -/,-/,-/,-/,-/
Before\ my pen\ hath gleaned\ my
team\ ing brain.( -/, -/, -/, -/, -/.) (Iambic
pentametre)
1-Is this\ a fast\ to keep\( Iambic Trimetre) (-/, -/, /.)
2-The lard\ er lean (Iambic Dimetre) (-/, -/)
3-And clean? (Iambic Monmetre) (- /)
4-The po\ et to\ the end\ of time, (Iambic
Tetrametre) ( -/, -/, -/,-/)
5- Wak ing\ ech oes (Trochaic Dimetre) ( / -).
Here are the types of feet: -(unstressed); /
(stressed syllable):
Iambic: - /
Trochhe: / Anapest: - - /
Dactyl: / - Spondee: / /
Pyrrhic: - -
Iambic: (of rhythm in poetry)
in which one short or weak
syllable is followed by one
long or strong syllable- in
lines of ten syllables, five are
short and five are long.
Foot: the metrical unit in which a line of
poetry is measured : a foot usually conists
of one stressed and one or two unstressed
syllables.
Metre: is the arrangment of syllables in
such an order to form verse. So a meter of
a poem depends on the number of feet to
the line and the pattern of the stanzas as
well as the kind of feet used.
The number of feet in aline
can vary: Her are the main:
One foot: monometre
Two feet: dimetre
Three feet: trimetre
Four feet: tetrametre
Five feet: pentametre
Six feet: hexametre
Seven feet: heptametre
Eight feet: octametre
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to night,
For though must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and
brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eyes;
The root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and
roses,
And box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtues soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to
coal,
Then chiefly lives.
George Herbert(1593-1633)
Scansion of the poem:
The first step in scanning a poem is to read it normally,
according to its prose meaning, listening to where the accents
fall naturally, and perhaps beating time with the hand.
In “Virtue” lines 3, 10, and 14 clearly fall into this category, as
do the short lines 4, 8, and 12. Lines 3, 10, and 14 may be
marked as follows.
The dew| shall weep |thy fall |to night,|
| - / | - / | - / |- / |- /|
A box |where sweets| com-pact|-ed lie;|
| - / | - / | - / |- / |- /|
Like sea|-sound tim|-ber, nev|-er gives|
| - / | - / | - / |- / |- /|
Lines 4, 8, and 12 are so identical that we may use line 4 to
represent all three.
For thou| must die|.
|-/|-/|
( - ): unstressed ; (/ ) streesed.
Poetical Types:
1-The Lyric
2-The Ode
3-The Sonnet
4-The Elegy
5-The Idyil
6-The Epic
7-The Balled
8-The Satire
“The
Man He Killed”
“The Man He Killed”
(Thomas Hardy 18401928)
The Man He Killed
Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin ! °
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
He thought he'd 'list,. perhaps,
Off-hand-like-just as 1
Was out of work-had sold his traps-O
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928
“The Man He Killed”
The Poem:
In "The Man He Killed" the speaker is a soldier,
the occasionis his having been in battle and
killed a man- obviously for the first time in his
life. We can tell a good deal about him.
He is not a career soldier: he enlisted only
because he was out of work. He is a
workingman: he speaks a simple and colloquial
language ("nipperkin," "list," "off-hand-like,"
"traps").
He is a friendly, kindly sort who enjoys
a neighborly drink of ale in a bar and will
gladly lend a friend a half-a-crown when
he has it. He has known what it is to be
poor. In any other circumstances he would
have been horrified at taking a human life.
It gives him pause even now. He is trying
to figure it out. But he is not a deep
thinker and thinks he has supplied a
reason when he has only supplied a name:
" I killed the man….because he was my
foe."
The critical question, of course, is why
the man his "foe". Even the speaker is
left unsatisfied by his answer, though he
is not analytical enough to know what is
wrong with it. Obviously this poem is
expressly dramatic. We need know
nothing about Thomas Hardy's life (he
was never a soldier and never killed a
man) to realize that the poem is
dramatic. The internal evidence of the
poem tells us so.
In "The Man He Killed" the central purpose is
quite clear: it is to make us realize more keenly
the irrationality of war. The puzzlement of the
speaker may be our puzzlement. But even if we
are able to give a more sophisticated answer
than his as to why men kill each other, we ought
still to have a greater awareness, after reading
the poem, of the fundamental irrationality in war
that makes men kill who have no grudge against
each other and who might under different
circumstances show each other considerable
kindness.
Denotation and Connotation:
Denotation and Connotation:
Denotation: the exact meaning of a word,
without the feeling or suggestions that the word
may imply .It is the opposite of "connotation" in
that it is the "dictionary" meaning of a word,
without attached feelings or associations. Some
examples of denotations are:
1. Heart: an organ that circulates blood
throughout the body .Here the word "heart"
denotes the actual organ , while on another
context , the word "heart" may connote feelings
of love or heartache .
2. Sweater: a knitted garment for the upper
body .The word "sweater" may denote
pullover sweater or cardigans, while
"sweater" may also connote feelings of
warmness or security.
Denotation allows the reader to know the
exact meaning of a word so that he or she
will better understand the work of
literature. It is the literal meaning of a
word.
Connotation : Associations and
implications that go beyond the literal
meaning of a word , which derive from
how the word has been commonly
used and the associations people
make with it .For example , the word
'eagle' connotes ideas of liberty and
freedom that have little to do with the
word's literal meaning.
Connotations relate not to a word's actual meaning ,
or denotation , but rather to the ideas or qualities that
are implied by that word .A good example is the word
" gold" .The denotation of gold is a malleable , ductile
, yellow element .The connotations , however , are the
ideas associated with gold , such as greed , luxury , or
avarice . …connotations.
Connotation is the range of secondary or associated
significances and feelings which it commonly suggests
or implies.
Thus 'home' denotes the house where one lives, but
connotes privacy and intimacy.
Figurative language: Symbol
Symbol: is an object or event that
represents something other than itself,
frequently an abstract idea or concept.
The use in literature of objects or
events to represent something other
than them selves is called symbolism .It
usually refers to a concrete image used
to designate an abstract quality or
concept.
A symbol may be roughly defined as something
that means more than what it is.
Image , metaphor , and symbol shade into each
other and are sometimes difficult to distinguish
.In general , however , an image means only
what it is ; the figurative term in a metaphor
means something other than what it is ; and a
symbol means what it is and something more ,
too .
A symbol, that is, functions literally and
figuratively of the same time.
Allegory: is a narrative or description that has
a second meaning beneath the surface
.Although the surface story or description may
have its own interest, the author's major
interest is in the ulterior meaning.
It has a moral, social, religious, or political
significance, and characters are often
personifications of abstract ideas as charity,
greed, or envy .Thus an allegory is a story with
two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic
meaning.
Paradox: is an apparent contradiction that is
nevertheless somehow true .It may be either a
situation or a statement .As a figure of speech,
paradox is a statement.
For example: "In death there is life " is a
paradox .
…………………..
Simile : A figure of speech in which an explicit
comparison is made between two things
essentially unlike .The comparison is made
explicit by the use of some such word or phrase
as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems.
Metaphor: A figure of speech in which an
implicit comparison is made between two
things essentially unlike. It may take one
of four forms (1) that in which the literal
term and the figurative term are both
named ;(2) that in which the literal term is
named and the figurative term implied ;(3)
that in which the literal term is implied and
the figurative terms are named;(4)that in
which both the literal and the figurative
terms are implied .
Personification: A figure of speech in which
human attributes are given to an animal, an
object, or a concept.
Apostrophe :A figure of speech in which
someone absent or dead or something
nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and
present and could reply .
Metonymy: A figure of speech in which some
significant aspect or detail of an experience is
used to represent the whole experience.
In this book the single term
metonymy is used for what are
sometimes distinguished as two
separate figures: Synecdoche (the use
of the part for the whole) and
metonymy (the use of something
closely related for the thing actually
meant).
The Sick Rose
Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy
“The Sick Rose”:
In 'The Sick Rose' no meanings are
explicitly indicated for the rose and the
worm. Indeed, we are not forced to appoint
them specific meanings. The poem might
literally be read as being about a rose that
has been attacked on a strong night by a
cankerworm.
The organization of 'The Sick Rose' is so rich,
however, and its language so powerful that the rose
and the worm refuse to remain merely a flower and
an insect. The rose, apostrophized and personified
in the first line, has traditionally been a symbol of
feminine beauty and love, as well as of sensual
pleasures. 'Bed' can refer to a woman's bed as well
as to a flower bed. 'Crimson joy' suggests the
intense pleasure of passionate lovemaking as well
as the brilliant beauty of a red flower. The 'dark
secret love' of the 'invisible worm' is more strongly
suggestive of a hidden or illicit love affair than of
the feeding of a cankerworm on a plant, though it
fits that too.
For all these reasons the rose almost immediately
suggests a woman and the worm her secret
lover-and the poem suggests the corruption of
innocent but physical love by concealment and
deceit. But the possibilities do not stop there.
The worm is a common symbol or metonymy for
death ; and for readers steeped in Milton (as
Blake was ) it recalls the ' undying worm ' of
Paradise Lost , Milton's metaphor for the snake (
or Satan in the form of a snake ) that tempted
Eve .Meanings multiply also for the reader who is
familiar with Blake's other writings .
Thus 'The Sick Rose' has been variously
interpreted as referring to the
destruction of joyous physical love by
jealousy , deceit, concealment , or the
possessive instinct ; of innocence by
experience ; of humanity by Satan ; of
imagination and joy by analytic reason
; of life by death .
We can not say what specifically the poet
had in mind , nor need we do so .In Blake's
poem the 'rose ' stands for something
beautiful , or desirable , or good .The worm
stands for some thing agent. Within these
limits , the meaning is largely open .And
because the meaning is open , the reader is
justified in bringing personal experience to its
interpretation . Blake's poem ' for instance ,
might remind someone of a gifted friend
whose promise has been destroyed by drug
addiction .
Overstatement, or hyperbole, Paradox
Overstatement: or hyperbole: is simply
exaggeration, but exaggeration in the
service of truth .It is not the same as a fish
story .If you say, " I'm starved!" or " You
could have knocked me over with a
feather!" or " I'll die if I don't pass this
course!" you don't expect to be taken
literally; you are merely adding emphasis to
what you really mean.
(And if you say, "There were literally
millions of people at the beach ". You are
merely piling one overstatement on top of
another , for you really mean, " There
were figuratively millions at the beach , "
or , literally , " The beach was very
crowded .")
Like all figures of speech, overstatement
may be used with a variety of effects .It
may be humors or grave, fanciful or
restrained, convincing or unconvincing.
When Tennyson says of his eagle that it is
"Close to the sun in lovely hands," he says what
appears to be literally true, though we know
from our study of astronomy that it is not.
When Frost says, at the conclusion of
'The Road Not Taken'
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
We are scarcely aware of the overstatement , so
quietly is the assertion made .
Unskillfully used however ,
overstatement may seem strained and
ridiculous , lending us to react as
Gertrude does to the player-queen's
speeches in Hamlet : "The lady doth
protest too much ".
Overstatement /Hyperbole: is a
figure of speech involving great
exaggeration .The effect may be satiric,
sentimental, or comic.
Understatement : or saying less than one
means , may exist in what one says or merely in
how one says it .If , for instance , upon sitting
down to a loaded dinner plate , you say , " This
looks like a nice snake , " you are actually stating
less than the truth ; but if you say , with the
humorist Atriums Ward , that a man who holds
his hand for half an hour in a lighted fire will
experience " a sensation of excessive and
disagreeable warmth , " you are stating what is
literally true but with a good deal less force than
the situation warrants .
Paradox: is an apparent contradiction
that is nevertheless somehow true .It
may be either a situation or a
statement .As a figure of speech,
paradox is a statement.
For example: "In death there is life "
is a paradox.
“Success is Counted Sweetest”
Success is Counted Sweetest
By Those who ne’er succeed
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated- dying
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
Emily Dickinson
The poem:
The first two lines of this poem make a statement
that appears contradictory and , on the surface,
impossible . Yet, through the rest of the poem.
Dickinson illustrates that to understand success
most profoundly, one must be denied it. A
statement that seems self- contradictory yet has
valid meaning is called a paradox. Paradox can
serve to emphasize a point or to create a sense
of irony.
“The Road Not Taken”
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and 1
I took the one less traveled b
And that has made all the difference
'The Road Not Taken ',
The poem:
It concerns some choice in life, but what choice?
Was it a choice of profession? A choice of
residence? A choice of mate? It might be any, all,
or none of these. We cannot determine what
particular choice the poet had in mind , if any ,
and it is not important that we do so .It is
enough if we see in the poem an expression of
regret that the possibilities of life experience are
so sharply limited
The speaker in the poem would have liked to explore
both roads , but he could explore only one .The person
with a craving for life , whether satisfied or dissatisfied
with the choices he has made , will always long for the
realms of experience that he had to forgo .Because the
symbol is a rich one , the poem suggests other
meanings too .It affirms a belief in the possibility of
choice and says something about the nature of choice how each choice narrows the range of possible future
choices , so that we make our lives as we go , both
freely choosing and being determined by past choices
.Though not a philosophical poem , it obliquely
comments on the issue of free will and determinism
and indicates the poet's own position . It can do all
these things, concretely and compactly, by its use of an
effective symbol.
Symbols very in the degree of
identification and definition given them by
their authors. In this poem Frost forces us
to interpret the choice of roads
symbolically by the degree of importance
he gives it in the last stanza.
Sometimes poets are much more specific
in identifying their symbols. Sometimes
they do not identify them at all.
“TO His COY MISTRESS”
TO His COY MISTRESS
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day
. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain.
I would Love you ten years before the Flood :
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.
Two hundred to adore each breast:
But thirty thousand. to the rest.
. An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state~ .
. Nor Would I love at lower rate
But at my back I always hear
Time's. winged chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
:Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found~
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song : then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity :
And your quaint \honour. turn to dust
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave' s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits On thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour, ...
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll. all our strength, and all .
Our sweetness, up into one ball:
And tear our pleasures with rough strite,
Thorough the iron gates .of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
. Stand still, yet we will make him run.
“To His Coy Mistress”
The poem:
It is the best known poem of Andrew
Marvell .It is one of the most scrupulously
love-poems .It is a dramatic poem , in
which Marvell achieves one of the
supreme lyrics on the recurrent theme of
love .
The poem can be considered dramatic
because the woman is imagined to be
present and the poem is marked with
mounting tension .The speaker offers a
strong plea for the beloved to soften
towards him and to relax her rigid attitude
of Puritanical reluctance to grant him
sexual favor . She refuse to do that
because of her modesty and her sense of
honor .
But the lover tells that her coyness would
have been alright if they had enough time at
their disposal .If they had enough time , he
would have started loving her ten years before
the great flood ( mentioned in the Bible )
while she could refuse to satisfy his desire till
the day of judgment when the Jews might
agree to converted to Christianity .If they
really had time , he would spend hundred
years in praising her eyes and gazing on her
forehead ; and he would spend thirty
thousands years in praising the remaining
parts of her body .
The lover says that his beloved really deserves so
much praise .
But all this not quite possible .The lover tells
that the time is passing at a very fast pace , and
eventually they have to face the deserts of the
vast eternity .After some years her beauty will no
longer exist on this earth .She will lie in her
marble tomb , and he would no longer be in a
position to sing songs in her praise .In the grave ,
the worm will attach her virginity .All her nice
sense of honor will turn into dust and all his
desire to love her will then turn to ashes .
The lover tells that the grave is a fine
private place, but nobody can have the
experience of physical relation there.
Therefore, the lover says that it will be
proper for them to enjoy the pleasures of
love while there is still time, when her
skin is youthful and fresh. They should
roll their strength and all their sweetness
into one cannon-ball and shoot it through
the iron gates of life.
If they cannot arrest the passage time,
they can at least quicken time's speed of
passing.
Marvell's love-poems are inspired both
by human love and divine love. Joan
Bennet places him in the metaphysical
tradition. In this poem a lover addresses
his beloved who refuses to grant him
sexual favors on account of her modesty
and her sense of honor.
In this poem, passion is allowed to take
its most natural path. As a love-poem it
is unique. For sheer power, this poem
ranks higher than anything Marvell ever
wrote. The poem has what is known as
a carpe diem theme. It is written in the
form of syllogism, i.e., an argument
developed in a strictly logical form and
leading to a definite conclusion.
But the poet succeeds in investing the old
classical commonplace subject with an
intensity and nobility to affirm the triumph
of love over time.
In this poem the passion of love is ardent.
While the lover adopts a witty and
somewhat sarcastic manner of speaking in
the first two stanzas, he becomes truly
ardent and fervid in his passion in the last
stanza.
In this stanza, he becomes almost
fierce in his passion when he
argues:
" Let us roll al our strength and
all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
……" The Daffodils by Words
Overall Survey
of
English Literature
Overall Survey
of
English Literature
1-Anglo-Saxons or Old English Period (6701100)
2-Middle English or Anglo Norman Period (11001500)
(Langland Gower Chaucer)
Geoffery Chaucer(1340?-1400)
Occcleve, Lydgate, Skelton, Henryson, Dunbar,
Doglas
3-Renaissance Period or Elizabethan
Period(1500-1600)
Drama : [University Wits( Lyly, Peele,
Kyd, Greene, Marlowe (1564-93)]
Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Ben
Jonson
Poetry: Wyatt, Surrey, Sackville, Sidney,
Spenser.
Prose: Lyly, Sidney
5-The Puritan Age (1600-1660)
Drama : Jacobean and Caroline Drama:
Marston, Dekker, Heywood, Middieton
Poetry: School of Spencer: Phineas Fletcher,
Giles Fletcher, Browne, Wither, Drummond
Metaphysical Poets: Donne,
Herrick,Carew,
Crashaw. Vaghan. Herbert. Cowley.
Marwel
Cavalier Poets: Suckling, Lovelace
Prose:
Bacon, Burton, Browne, Taylor
5-Restoration Period (1660-1700)
Drama : Dryden, Etherege, Congreve
Poetry: John Dryden
Prose:
Dryden, Bunyan
6-Eighteenth Century Literature (1700-1798)
Drama :
Addison, Johnson, Cibber, Kelly,
Cumberland, Brinsley Sheridan
Poetry:
Age of Pope: Pope, Prior, Gay, Young,
Oarbekkm Winehelsea
Age of Johnson Johnson, Goldsmith, Thomson,
Gray, Collins, Blake,Cowper
Prose:
Johnson, Burke, Gibbon,
Novel:
Daniel Dafoe, Richerdson Henry fielding,
Goldsmith
7-Romantic Age (1798-1824)
Poetry: Lake Poets:
William
Wordsworth, S T Coleridge, Robert
Southe
Scott Group: Scott, Campbell,
Moore
Younger Group: Byron, Shelly,
Keats
Prose: Lamb, Hazlitte, Quincy
Novel: Jane Austen, Walter Scott
8-Victorian Age (1832-1900)
A-Early Victorian Period (1832-1870)
Poetry: Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Clough
Prose:
Carlyle, Ruskin, Macaulay, Arnold,
Novel:
Dickens, Thackeray, Disraeli,
Charlotte Bronte, Kingslay, Reade. Collins,
Trollope
B-Late Victorian Period (1870-1900)
Poetry: Pre-Raphaelite Movement:
Rossetti, Morris, Swineburn
Decadent And Aesthetic Movement: Oscar wild,
Dowson, L P Johnson
Prose:
Newman, Walter Peter.
Novel:
George Eliot, George Meredith, Hardy,
Stevenson, Gissing
9-Modern Age (1901 to date)
Drama
G B Shaw, Oscar Wild, Galsworthy,
Granville Barker, Masefield, Barrie, WB Yeats, Lady
Gregory, Synge, Sean O’Casey, T S Eliot, Drinkwater,
Bax, Dukes, Besler
Poetry:
Robert Bridges, Hopkins, Houseman,
Walter de La Mare, William Henry Davies, Binyon,
Masefield, Ezra Pound, D H Lawrance, Wilferd Owen,
Sassoon, W B Yeats, T S Eliot, Auden, Spender.
Prose:
Novel: H G Wells, Arnold Bennett,
Henery James, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard
Kipling, John Galsworthy, E M Forster,
James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Aldous
Huxley, D H Lawrence, Somerset
Maugham, J B Priestley, Charles Morgan,
C S Lewis, Bates, F L Greene, Graham
GreeneFrank SWinnerton, Richard Church
The end