2. During the “rebirth” or
“reconstruction”, you would
see a lot of this…
Idealization of the beloved
Rejection (Women)
Romance
Imagery
Symbolism
Metaphor
Hyperbolic speech
Figurative language
Nature
3. An awakening of intellectual
awareness:
Who were the
celebrities?
John Donne
Ben Johnson
Edmund Spenser
William Shakespeare
John Milton
Sir Philip Sidney
4. Metaphysical Poetry
Group of British poets in 17th cent.
Concerned with religion (casuistic element)
Donne-the perfection of beauty
Unusual similes/metaphors
Unrealistic imagery
Strong sense of wit/humor
Famous for introducing
the conceitt
Deeper meaning/allegory
5. Conceit
Extended metaphor
Complex logic
Invites reader into a refined way of
understanding a comparison
Juxtaposition/manipulation of images
6. “The Flea”
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood
made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
7. O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married
are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're
met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
8. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
Where is the conceit?
9. Cavalier Poetry
Secular topics (typically)
Conversational style
Natural speech and rhythm
Regular rhyme pattern
Also used conceits and
metaphors
Highly influenced by classical
Greek and Roman literature
Romantic love
“Carpe Diem”- Horace
Straightforward meaning
10. Sonnets
Traditionally come in two types:
(1) The Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet
An octave (eight lines) rhyming abbaabba
A sestet (six lines) of varying rhyme patterns such as:
cdecde or cdccdc
Sir Thomas Wyatt- 1500s (into English)
became all the rage.
11. Sonnets (cont.)
2) English (or Shakespearean) sonnet
Three quatrains (sections of four lines, also called
"staves"): abab cdcd efef
A concluding couplet (two rhyming lines): gg.
Early of Surrey and others- 1500s
** Last sestet/couplet illustrates change in
direction/thought/emotion
12.
13. Wait. .what about the
Spenserian Sonnet?
Edmund Spenser
Spenserian sonnet – everything similar to
Shakespearean except rhyme pattern
14. Edmund Spenser - Sonnet 75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. What is the rhyme pattern?
“Vain man,” said she, “that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
A) ABBA CDDC EFF GG
B) AABB CCDD EEF GG
For I myself shall like to this decay,
C) ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.”
D) ABAB BCBC DEDE FF
Not so (quoth I), “let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew.”
