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| Love and Death, by Hans Baldung Grien (c.1484-1545) |
Write an essay (250-300 words) based on the following question:
If there exist some common motifs among Dickinson, Donne, and Marvell, they must be love and death. Obsessed with death, these poets use different ways to depict their relationship with the Grim Reaper. Besides death, love (be it religious or secular) is another recurrent theme of these three poets. Among the poems we discussed so far, pick one to analyze any of these themes. Or you can compare two or even three poets' different strategies (i.e. metaphysical conceits, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, etc.) to approach these themes. Explain why you think these strategies are ingenious and unconventional.
37 comments:
410402021 曾雅勤
John Donne- The Flea
Maybe the poet is the only person in human history conveying his love in such a bizarre way, after all, the comparison between ugly flea and romantic relationship is too huge. However, it makes readers be interested in the unique love poem and therefore leaves a strong impression on our minds. And by the sucking of the flea, the lover’s bloods integrate in the body of it, which indicates that they already have the sexual intercourse even though the woman keeps declining the sexual invitation. Above all, he thinks the flea is somewhat as supreme as God, and refers him, his lover, and their marriage to the holy trinity, which is a severe sacrilege. But, ironically, he considers the sins to lay in killing their love instead of the disrespectful comparison. And the description of his love is a bit too hyperbolic though, it shows how deep he is in love with the woman that this love almost becomes his religion. Regardless of his affection, the woman commits a sin for purple her nail by the blood of the flea, which is a symbol of killing or rejecting his pursuit. At the end, the poet still tries his best to convince the girl to yield to him, that is, to sleep with him, by utilizing strange comparison that the sin of killing the flea is not a big deal, and so is the sex. Both of the matters are irrelevant to the woman herself, let alone devaluing her character and status.
JOSIE 410402011
It is an undeniable fact that these two poets, John Donne and Emily Dickinson, both have a stroke of brilliance when it comes to illustrating their poems with flourishing metaphysical conceits. They all wielded the crucial weapon of creativity in their unconventional metaphors. They delight in comparing two outrageously different things to produce a striking analogy that will provoke the reader into making connections in a “whole new way”. In Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”, she portrayed death as a sophisticated gentleman wooer that was kind and patient enough to slowly carry her off towards the promising afterlife in eternity. Death, when mentioned, we usually conjure a terrifying image of a hooded figure with a lopsided leer of a smile who drags us off by the ankles and merciless throws us into Hell’s burning furnace. However, using the metaphysical strategy, Death under Dickinson’s pen became "someone" that the poet felt at ease with and even succumbed to its seduction. The personification of Death was exceedingly vivid and I felt as if Death and I were on quite friendly terms. With ingenious flicks of her wrist, Dickinson has chased away my last remaining cloud of skepticism towards Death and my dread seemed to be purged through reading this poem. Death was a never ending journey that we have all embarked on ever since our birth and Dickinson made us realize that Death was just another ordinary part of life. Her use of symbols like "the fields of gazing grain" meaning "life maturing" and "the school where children strove" echoing "the labors of existence" were all unusual and refreshing to read. On the other hand, John Donne took death by the throat and throttled it with mocking accusations and taunting jeers. He wasn’t in the least bit scared of death and its wrath. He didn’t hesitate in lashing out at Death right in the first verse of his “Death, be not proud”. Death wasn’t “mighty and dreadful”, on the contrary, it was the laboring slave to the arbitrary dictates of fate like kings and desperate men. Death, in his eyes, was subordinate to men. He countered the traditional characterization of Death as an undefeatable conqueror and drained it of its significance. Unlike Dickinson’s gentle and sublime Death, Donne’s Death could be seen as a beggar completely powerless under men’s control. In a defiant and triumphant tone, Donne taught the readers that we all have the potential to surpass Death because we don't truly fear it. What we are most afraid of is "the unknown" after death. Donne’s use of apostrophe in the poem also allowed the reader to witness Death’s vulnerability more intimately. It was as if we were directly confronting Death and spitting insults in its face. If it weren’t for these metaphysical poets, readers can never contemplate the meaning and power of death in such a different light. They guide us towards their eccentric world of contrasting metaphors, broadening our horizons in their wake and changing our attitudes from dreading Death to welcoming it.
410202006 英美三 林禹彤
Q1.
The islanders of Fanua are innocent and pure. Before European come, they have their primitive and happy life without any disturbance. It is wonderful for them to dance and sing in a field. The islanders also don’t have religious. Before Mr. Fortune comes here, the Archdeacon tells him that the islanders are immoral and barbarian.
Because the culture in Fanua is totally different from Europe.
The first failure is that Mr. Fortune gives announcements to the islanders but they just look at him and crunch on cookies. It is new to them because there is a man talking about something they don’t understand with passion. The second failure is that Mr. Fortune wants Lueli to live with him, so he has a conversation with his mother. But Lueli’s mom can’t understand what Mr. Fortune is talking about. She doesn’t know what Mr. Fortune is going to do. They have problems in communication. Mr. Fortune’s religious is also different from the islander’s, so Lueli’s mother doesn’t know what the conversion is. Because of these failures, Mr. Fortune makes none of them convert to him
Mr. Fortune is a humble man. Because of his characteristic, he has done so many failed things. He seems to be a loser in a story. In fact, he’s not like those who force colonies to convert their language, religious and the way of life. When Mr. Fortune encounters the failure, he gives up. He doesn’t want others reluctant to follow the new idea. As we know, the Imperialism and the colonialism usually seize weak countries’ lands and resources, and force them to give up their culture. Mr. Fortune is contrary to the Imperialism and the colonialism.
英美一 林立 410402023
Q1
Death is personified in this poem, and “have called you mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” has described it as powerful but powerless too, and we don’t need to fear it. John Donne also shows his pity on death, because maybe it kills other people, but it can’t kill him, he thinks his power is over than death. Then he compared death with rest and sleep; he thinks death just like these two but stronger and more pleasure instead of suffering and scary. And although people die, death only get their bodies not souls; souls will be delivered in heaven, so death only has their empty shells. He also described death as a slave and controlled by Fate, chance and kings etc, and it uses dirty ways like poison, war and sickness dwell to get what it want. And just like poppy and harms, death only has same effect of just making people sleep, so poet doesn’t know why death can be proud of. After death, they will defeat death and wake up eternally. And when the moment they reach eternity, death will die.
John Donne is a Christian. So this poem is about a triumphant assertion of Christian belief in afterlife. To him, death has no power over a Christian soul. So he is very confident about the afterlife and even despises death, he thinks death is just a small process to eternity and a tool used by destiny. But death is feared by people, so he written this poem to subvert the image of death which everyone afraid of by using his strong belief in God.
410402001 張家慈
I choose Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” to analyze. When Emily Dickinson was little, many people who were on intimate terms with her died, I think that’s why she holding unique opinion about death differs from other people. Mortality is probably the major theme in this poem. It's all about the speaker's attitude toward her death and what the actual day of her death was like. The speaker isn't scared of death at all, and seems to accept it. The speaker of “Because I could not stop for Death” is dead, but the even cooler thing is that we don't know this for sure until the last stanza. So the speaker is a ghost or spirit thinking back to the day of her death. She's actually pretty calm about it too. Maybe because she's been dead for so long she's not so freaked out about it anymore, or maybe she was ready to die when she did; either way, she's completely at ease with it now and looks back at that day almost fondly. In simple words, we may say that this poem is a poem of 'suicidal feelings'. The poem 'Because I could not Stop for Death' deals with the poet’s desire to leave her physical life in this world and begin the eternal spiritual life of the soul. For this, the speaker of the poem assumed Death as her fiancé. She has been engaged to death, and she is impatiently waiting for uniting with him, so as to begin her endless life. On the way to death, the speaker realized that her life before marriage (or death) is temporary, and the real life will only begin after that; in the eternal journey of the soul. She feels eager and impatient like a bride before marriage to access the path of the eternal journey of death.
The analysis of Life Has stood- a loaded gun by 410102060 陳俊承
The love-hate relationship between the loaded gun and its owner is quite elusive. The loaded gun is ready to shoot but its owner has the power to pull the trigger as if women are dominated, controlled, or possessed by men. However, Emily Dickinson is struggling with the contradiction that she has the power to shoot but she couldn’t pull the trigger. The rage brewing in her mind is going to explode. At the end of the poem, the author states, “For I have the power to kill, Without the power to die.” This stanza totally expresses the conflict Emily Dickinson is facing with.She has the power to kill but she doesn’t have the power to die. As a consequence,Emily Dickinson describes herself as a loaded gun as if she is going to explode because her life has been loaded down with tons of unhappy worries. As a matter of fact, in those days of Emily Dickinson’s, women were expected to be submissive to men; however, Emily Dickinson was different from other girls. She was striving to write, which was disdained by men at that time. Therefore, she describes herself as a loaded gun because she is angry about the whole society towards women. Moreover, a gun is supposed to be in someone’s possession. It totally shows that although she doesn’t want to be submissive to men anymore, she has to be because she is a gun, she is somebody's possession, and she is a woman that has to be submissive to patriarchal men's society.
英美一 410402005 李玄晴
John Donne—Death, be not proud
Death always makes people feel dreadful, powerful and want to avoid that, but John Donne boldly uses metaphysical conceits to personify death, giving readers the unexpected and surprising feelings, and this is that I had ever seen before. In the poem, he uses very arrogant tone to tell death, be not proud. Donne doesn’t think death can defeat everybody. He is a Christian, and he believes that when people die, their souls still live in the afterlife, so death has no power over a Christian soul. In the poem, a word “pictures” means images, the image of death looks like someone who is sleeping, and we can get more pleasure from sleep. Then Donne claims that the best men embrace death the soonest because death let them rest their bones and delivery their souls to the afterlife; death is only controlled by Fate, Chance, Kings, and desperadoes, they are all death’s masters. He is only associated with Poison, War and Sickness, just a tool and a slave. Donne also mentioned opium, spells, or other drugs can make a person sleep easily, better than death strike. He portrayed death as nothing, like death should not exist in this world. People all think death is powerful and cannot be defeated, but in John Donne’s eyes, it is just something so small and negligible, so death should not swell with pride. In last two lines, Donne emphasized again, people do not truly die, they are only dead shortly, they awaken from dead into eternity, their souls will live eternity. Finally, death should die.
John Donne -The sun rising
Among all the poems we discussed in the class which written by John Donne, I think "The sun rising" impressed me the most. "Love" is a common motif that usually occurs in Donne's poems, he discusses not only about love of couples but also pious love to God. In "The sun rising", the speaker first describes the sun as busy and unruly, and even interrogate why doesn't let him and his lover sleep, just like an insane man that thinks the sun will answer his questions, and the speaker also "ask the sun" to wake the late school boys and sour prentices, he wants to show his rage to the sun, so he roars love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time."
In the second stanza, the speaker tells the sun that he could eclipse it by winking his eyes, but he doesn't want to do it because he wants to watch his lover all the time, and in the following stanzas, the speaker keeps showing his love by saying his lover is all states, and all princes to him.
John Donne uses many rhetoric in the poem, including apostrophe and hyperbolic assertions. In the beginning of the poem, he uses apostrophe to call upon the sun, and this metaphor skill makes the poem full of rhythm, readers can feel the speaker's emotion simply by reading through the lines. Also, the whole poem is built around by hyperbolic assertions, for example, in the second stanza, the speaker says to the sun that he could eclipse just by closing eyes. The sun of course will not pay attention to a mortal's insult, but in my opinion, this is a unconventional way to express one's disobedience to the thing that human can not control. Donne conveys an idea that the love is so strong that can even fight against the sun which is infinite like the sun.
410102073 英美四 游佳洵
In John Donne’s The Flea, “love” is the main theme of the poem. The “flea” is a metaphor of love, and it is also a metaphysical conceit. The idea that being bitten by a flea represents sin, shame, and the loss of maidenhead. In the poem, the speaker mentions that the flea sucks his blood, and sucks the woman he likes, too, and it means they are mingled in the flea’s body because their blood mixes together. Also, the speaker makes the flea for the connection and kind of matchmaker of them. The speaker tries to persuade his beloved to face his love, and it does not work. However, the woman is not appreciated. She even kills the flea by her hands. Cunningly, the speaker says the flea dies and it is virtually no problem, and the woman must take his love because it is ok for them to get together. She should not be afraid of the loss of her virtue. The speaker use the word “sacrilege” to describe the action the woman .This poem is talking about love, but it is not just about “love”. It combines sex, sin, and the loss of maidenhead. This poem is unconventional for me because the flea is not a common thing that poets use to describe love, and Donne uses it in an interesting way. Moreover, the metaphor is not difficult to understand, and the character of the flea is clear and is important for both the speaker and his beloved woman. Skillfully, the whole poem is surrounded by the small thing-----the flea.
410201050 中文三 陳姵汝
When we mentioned about love, we all know that love is necessary in our life like air and water. However, everyone has his/her ways to express love. Some people are positive and brave, and some are negative and not confident. The Sun Rising is a romantic poem, in which the speaker (John Donne) proclaims to the sun and to the whole world that his love is the center of the universe. He shows his love with eager, enthusiastic ways. In the whole poem, he uses two conceits; and the one is to personify the sun into an old man. At first, he insults the sun with offensive words like ” Busy old fool, unruly sun” because he thinks the sun bothers his lover and him. He just wants to lies in one bed with his lover all day and nobody can interrupt them. Then, he believes he is stronger than the sun, because he can” eclipse and cloud" his beams just by blinking. The conceit of the speaker in the poem is incredible. And the second conceit, the speaker expresses how his love is important and celebrated. He clams” love, all like, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time” and” She is all states, and all prince I, Nothing else is ”.For him, love is everywhere and everything. Nothing can be compared with his love.
The poem begins with a dramatic and argumentative tone. But soon it changes into romantic tone. Also, the speaker describes his love with exaggerated tone to let us realize how he cherishes his love. Love, is elevated in this poem. And for the speaker it is the most important thing in the world, even the only thing he wants to pursuits for.
410402029 英美一 王鈺雅
The Sun Rising by John Donne
“Busy old fool, unruly sun” this poem is beginning with the damn to sun. Donne is in bed with his lover just as morning dawns, and the sun bothered them through windows and curtains. So the sun is his enemy just like the time. The following Donne claimed that love is unchangeable, not subject to season or to time. In second stanza he says that he could eclipse them simply by closing his eyes, except that he does not want to lose sight of his beloved so long. Donne argues that he is more powerful than the sun. In third stanza, “she is all states, and all princes I Nothing else is.” he equates his lover with all countries and he is ruler. Next sentence, he compared to what he has, all honors are mimicry and all wealth is alchemy, nothing is real. Love in "The Sun Rising" is immediate and romantic. Apparently, this is a love poem. This poem's theme is love. The kind of love is invincible and his love is the center of the universe.
"The Sun Rising" also talks about the community. He is arguing that the whole scope of humanity is subject to the sun's power, but he and his lover are exempt. he wants their love breaks free of that chain. “Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide” is about a speaker's desire to escape the responsibilities and restrictions of the outside world and just experience his love. Donne makes references to people.
410402027 胡心瀞
John Donne’s poem “Death, be not proud” which is from the holy sonnet is about making death seem not so scary and the themes of the poem is death, mortality and religion. In the beginning of the poem, Donne is so proud to smack at death. He says that some people think you are so mighty and dreadful, but he doesn’t think so. The way he describes about death as if it is a person. He looks down on death, and he says that you cannot kill me to the poor death. He thinks death only makes people sleep or look like take a rest and the two things are all causing a lot of pleasure to us. Therefore, he understands the reason why only the good die young in our lives. He thinks death can cause a lot of pleasure instead of pain so many good men choose to die earlier. The following line, Donne judges death is the slave of fate, chance, king and desperate men and often dwells with poison, war, and sickness, but we can choose to use poppy or charms to get the same effect. We can see the last two lines, they are about religion. He thinks death had no power over a Christian soul because a good Christian will wake up and find himself in Eternity. As a result, it will seem like death has died. This poem is against mortality. He thinks death doesn’t exist in a long run. However, if he didn’t fear death is the end, he wouldn’t make the poem. For me, the way Donne portrayed death is really new and unique.
410402013 英美一 張瑋城
The major theme of the poem, Love, can easily be found in John Donne’s “The Sun Rising.” The poem begins with Donne being annoyed about the light beam and the shining of a sunrise. The sunshine illuminated the house, and woke up the sleeping Donne and his lover. So he started to have a fight with the sun, for Love. He called the sun a “busy old fool,” and used Apostrophe to directly address the subject. It all seems that Donne is more like the ruler of the universe than the sun. Then he called to the sun, to bother other people of the community and leave him and his lover alone. From the outside world, and from the ruler of the sun, there’s nothing could affect the love that Donne and his lover had. Their love is exceptional, and proud. Sun can’t do nothing against them like it do to the ordinary people. In Donne’s view, Love is unchangeable, and always remains the same and fresh. And again, he started to make his argument about the strength the sun has. He said that he could easily eclipse the shining beams by closing his eyes. But, then he clarified – Love is beyond anything. He couldn’t stand for too long about losing his lover’s sight. So he made this out: since the riches and all nobility the sun had seen are all lay in this bed, then it is you, Sun, to succumb to my power of love. There’s no need to shine others outside of this room. This room is the center of the universe; all things compared to things lay on this bed are all fake. Their love is the only truth in this world. Donne is trying to protect his pure love with his lover from the outside world. Although, we know the reality is cruel (they must wake up and face the real world), Donne is still commanding the sun to only shine this room. In the end of this poem, we did see the disharmony from the real world and the bed, but the Love that we see is powerful like infinity.
John Donne—Death, be not proud 410402039 陳雋哲
Death is the end of life. Many people are afraid to face death. “Death, Be Not Proud” presents an argument against the power of death. Addressing Death as a person, the speaker warns Death avoid pride in his power. The poet criticizes Death as a slave to other forces: fate, chance, kings, and desperate men. Death thinks that he has the power to kill people. Even in the rest it brings, Death is inferior to drugs. Finally, the speaker predicts the end of Death itself, stating “Death, thou shalt die.” In first stanza focuses on the subject and audience of this poem: death. By addressing Death, the author makes it into a character through personification. “poor Death “shows pity for death. In stanza 2, from death comes “Much pleasure” since those good souls whom Death releases from earthly suffering experience “Rest of their bones”. Donne then returns to criticize Death for thinking too highly of itself: The best men embrace death the soonest; death is only the tool of fate. At line 9, it’s standard for the poem to shift or “turn”. It could imply stroke of a clock of death. Although a desperate man can choose death as an escape from earthly suffering, even the rest which death offers can be achieved better by “poppy, or charms”, so even has death but has no superiority.” And dost with Poison, War, and Sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,” depicts guilty and dirty of death. The final “die” just means he doesn’t exist anymore.
英美一 陳怡君 410402017
It is uncomplicated to find the main theme “love” in John Donne’s The Sun Rising. In the beginning of the poem, he blames the sun for its disturbance in his and his wife’s morning. And he reproves the sun with irreverent description. For example, “busy old man” and “unruly”. Then he requires the sun to bother others, instead of interrupting their serene and splendor morning. What’s more, he thinks their love is eternal and confirmed, not like the variability and mutability of time. He even considers arrogantly that his strength and power is more tremendous and enormous than the sun’s. And he says that the sunshine will be eclipsed and clouded by a simple action “wink”. He believes he can dominate all condition and remove all obstacles he thinks to remain his love. Another sentence “She is all states, and all princes I “grossly magnifies the ”love” between them. In John Donne’s viewpoint, he thinks his love is the most extraordinary and remarkable, and others’ love is mimic and imitative. Only they are distinguished one in love. But in the last stanza, he requires the sun to demonstrate its duty and responsibility to warm the world and them because he thinks their room is the universe, and the bed is the center of the world. The sun should illuminate them and surround them obediently. I think the poem is ingenious for me because John Donne takes advantage of discourteous tone to insult and affront the sun, which is the center of the universe. It is rare to see poets use this unconventional way to express their feelings to love. And he uses this unique method to show his romance and sincerity to his wife, and loyalty toward their love.
410302025 / Melody張端容
According to John Donne’s Death, be not proud, it is a good example of metaphysical poet. Death is personalized by the speaker and also accused by him. To the speaker, Death is only a guy or a slave who hanging out with those lowlifes poison, war, and sickness. Unlike other people at that time, he thought people don't really meet death when they die, but just sleep and take a nap without any hurt or pain. From line 1 to line 2, “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;” we can see the speaker was different from most of the people who believed in mortality, he didn't think die is the end of a life, but it’s a start to be eternity. Line 7 to line 8, “And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.” We can see the speaker had both religious and secular meanings. The speaker also believed in God based on line 13, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally.” He believed that after people die, they will wake up and join the heaven The rhetorical move allows him to end on a triumphant note. Through the whole poem, we can’t stop seeing how brave and courageous the speaker was, he was kept talking to death and telling him he was suck and don't be proud at all. At the end of this poem, “And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.” A surprising ending that seals the deal, death should die, and also means that death won’t exist anymore.
410001005 黃美嘉
The two poems, Emily Dickinson’s “Wild Nights-Wild Nights!” and John Donne’s “The Flea,” are both writing about love and sex. Emily Dickinson depicts the happiness and passion for lover in “Wild Nights-Wild Nights!” John Donne portrays the man propose and seduce the woman to have sex with him in “The Flea.”
Emily Dickinson uses lines to build the image of sexual and wild night in “Wild Nights-Wild Nights!” The last line of first stanza “Our luxury!” and the first line in last stanza “Rowing in Eden” both imply sex. The two lines in second stanza “Done with the Compass-”and “Done with the Chart!” mean the speaker in a state without instructions. The compass and chart here symbol the rule and direction. “The winds” in second stanza symbols the feelings of desire. The “port” in next line can be interpreted the world of the speaker and his/her lover. The “Sea” in last stanza symbols the bed. John Donne make the flea becomes the metaphor of love in “The Flea.” The speaker and his lover’s blood mix in the flea symbol the sex, the combination of their love. The poet uses the marriage bed, marriage temple, and the chapel symbol the trinity. The “living walls of jet” symbols the insect’s black shell. The blasphemous behavior is replaced by the images and the words of innocence.
Emily Dickinson clearly portrays the detail and subtlety of emotion. She uses the symbols and images directly present the emotion. The way shows how deeply she tastes those feelings. John Donne does not directly present the love and the desire in his poem. He can use special, even weird things to symbol or connect with the things he wants to describe. The way full of imagination makes his more dramatic.
410402007 英美一 林旻萱
What makes John Donne- The Flea so ingenious and unconventional is how he collects material for this poem. “The flea” seems to have nothing to do with love, but John turns even the least likely image into elaborate symbol of love and romance, using it to woo his beloved. The flea is a symbol of blood of two people combining sexual experience, John uses it to try to show how innocuous such mingling can be, for the same reason, sexual mingling should be harmless equally, it is not “a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead”. In the second stanza, John’s beloved is trying to kill the flea, and John says it is a “sacrilege” to do this because one flea contains three lives: his life, her life, and the flea’s own life. So he asks her to stay her hand and spares the lives. However, in the third stanza, “cruel and sudden”, his beloved still kills the flea, “purpled her nail in blood of innocence”. But here John did not flustered, on the contrary, he cleverly turns his argument on its head and claims that despite the sacred ideals he has just been invoking, killing the flea did not really impugn his beloved’s honor, namely, “sleeping with me is not a big deal”. This poem becomes so classic due to its dramatic monologue and John’s writing skill, without ever referring to sex or love while at the same time leaving no doubt to let the readers (or his beloved) to understand exactly what he means and makes it such a funny and charming poem as well.
410402019 英美一 王致雅
“Love” is the main theme of John Donne’s “The Sun Rising,” and it surrounds by the speaker, his lover and the sun. The sun plays an important role in the poem. In the first stanza, the sun represents the mutability of time, the passing hours and the changing of seasons. To a cocky speaker who only wants to stay with his lover forever without doing anything, the passage of time becomes an enemy of his love. Therefore, we can see that the poem begins with the speaker using Apostrophe and personifying the sun as a “busy old fool.” This also demonstrates speaker’s dissatisfaction with the end of night, he and his lover are disturbed by the blinding sunshine, and they are going to be separated. Then the speaker says that he can easily eclipse the strong beams by closing his eyes, but he refuses to do it. Since once he closes his eyes, he can’t see his beloved, and he wouldn’t want to lose her sight even an instant. In the final stanza, the arrogant speaker announces that the sun only has half happiness that the couple own. Their bedroom is the whole world and their bed is the center of the universe. The only thing the sun needs to do is to shine on the room, the bed, and the couple.
410201045 中文三 黃鈺婷
Death is a frequent concern of Dickinson’s poetry. She creates a portrait of death which is not fearful or brutal, but rather one of calm comfort that is to visit everyone as their inevitable end is marked in the poem, "Because I could not stop for Death--’’.
In the opening lines, she personified death as a gentleman that " kindly stopped for me." vastly overthrew the traditional western vision toward death, for there is little to either prevent embracing it or to prevent its presence.
In the third stanza, they passed the place that full of vitality such as school yards and open fields. Then she narrated that they passed the setting sun that was used to foreshadow the passage of death. The scene of dew in the fourth stanza gave us a spooky and chilly sensation that the speaker found herself unprepared for her impromptu date with death. The last two stanzas bring back the theme of the poem, that is, death. It was not clear till the last four lines explained that she had already dead for centuries turned out that the former parts were just her memories about the day when death came to grab her. But the afterlife seems the same as the day before she died.
I think the poem is trying to tell us that one should not fear death as it is a part of our life. Hence we all know we will die one day whether we are prepared or not.
410402019 英美一 王致雅
“Love” is the main theme of John Donne’s “The Sun Rising,” and it surrounds by the speaker, his lover and the sun. The sun plays an important role in the poem. In the first stanza, the sun represents the mutability of time, the passing hours and the changing of seasons. To a cocky speaker who only wants to stay with his lover forever without doing anything, the passage of time becomes an enemy of his love. Therefore, we can see that the poem begins with the speaker using Apostrophe and personifying the sun as a “busy old fool.” This also demonstrates speaker’s dissatisfaction with the end of night, he and his lover are disturbed by the blinding sunshine, and they are going to be separated. Then the speaker says that he can easily eclipse the strong beams by closing his eyes, but he refuses to do it. Since once he closes his eyes, he can’t see his beloved, and he wouldn’t want to lose her sight even an instant. In the final stanza, the arrogant speaker announces that the sun only has half happiness that the couple own. Their bedroom is the whole world and their bed is the center of the universe. The only thing the sun needs to do is to shine on the room, the bed, and the couple. Love in“The Sun Rising” is so invincible and romantic like the couple just fall in love that they can hardly notice others besides their lovers.
英美一 410402047 林汎諭
I think the poem “The Flea” by John Donne is perfectly related to the theme “Love”. We can see from this poem that the speaker kept on using some peculiar metaphors to convince the woman to make love with him. For instance, in the verse “Just so much honor, when thou yield’ st to me, Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.” Speaker even used the death of that tiny little flea to compare with woman’s refusal. Moreover, we can also find out that John Donne cleverly combined “love” and “religious” in this poem. He kept using the number three in the poem to represent “Holy Trinity” in Christianity. “And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.” He made a perfect use of the word “sacrilege” to exaggerate the badness of woman’s behavior of killing the flea. In the last stanza, the speaker even started to pity the flea and said it was innocent. He wanted to make woman minify the effect of sleeping with him, this point of view had also been mentioned in stanza one, “Thou know’st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead.” He believed that if they were both bitten by the flea, then it was as same as they had sex without marriage then why did the woman keep on refusing him?
John Donne used many graceful but wild phrase to complete this poem. But for me, if there were really a man that said these verses to me, though this poem is very beautiful, I maybe will still slap him for his overstated his value and doesn’t put much emphasis on my opinion.
英美一 李糧羽 410402003
In “Because I could not stop for Death”, Emily Dickinson regard death as gentleman and carriage driver. She thinks death is a kind person, treats her well, and do so many normal things with her. In line 3, the carriage means the hearse, but she is not afraid of it, and even thinks it is attractive because death is immortality. Dickinson personalizes death, and describes how the polite death treats her well. Every scenes, every conducts, every details, Dickinson narrates that just like she and her lover fall in love and date for a day. Therefore, Dickinson even thinks a day is so short that could not accompany with death too long. It means she is not fear the death, and wants to get close to the death. In the end, She thinks they were toward eternity. She loves the death, and because of love, she is willing to follow the death to that eternity world.
Compare with John Donne” Death, be not proud”, it can feel the differences of the two poems so intensely. In front of this poem, John Donne still insults the death, and even thinks he can control the death. Death cold not kill him, and death is not scared at all. He personalizes the death as a slave and even a tool which controlled by Fate, Chance, Kings, Desperadoes. These are all the death’s masters. John Donne is not afraid of death because he is a Christian. And he thinks death has no power over a Christian soul. And even thinks it is a triumphant assertion of Christian belief in an after life. From this poem, we can know that although Donne is not afraid of death, he despises death, and won’t accept it form his heart.
610288204 多元所 崔珮芸
In our culture, it's not always easy to know how to talk about dying because we usually look “death” upon a taboo or abstract unknown thing. However, in “Because I could not stop for Death—,” “Death” is the main theme in this poem. We can obviously see “death” was personified from the title. The writer, Emily Dickinson used a gentle type of description to present that everyone should not live their life in fear of death. Actually, there is no eternity in the world, even “death.”
For example, in the stanza, “He kindly stopped for me”, the speaker told us death is like a dashing gentleman to welcome her to get on the carriage (hearse).Moreover, Dickinson pick some words like “kindly (line 2)”, “slowly (line 5)”, “leisure (line 7)”, “civility(line 8)”, and “passed (line 9)” to portray a comfort and peace attitude of “death”.
Furthermore, in the stanza 3-5, the writer used the metaphor to demonstrate that how far death goes as there is no concept of time. For instance, when they ride around peacefully, they see many things, such as children playing, fields of grain, the setting sun and finally the head stone of the narrator.
After reading the whole poem, we can find the speaker is already dead form the tense changing in the stanza. Dickinson used “Eternity” to describe what she realized that the death is not just hours or days in our life. In fact, it is a long unlimited journey for Centuries.
410402049 蕭芊曼
John Donne-- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
I think we can easy find “love” as main theme of John Donne’ “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”. The author had to leave her wife for Paris, and he wrote this poem to tell his wife does not need to be sad. Because they are only separate physically, and their souls are still together. In the whole poem, Donne used lots of conceits and analogies to describe the couple’s relationship. In stanza 1, he used a simile, death, to symbolize their separateness. And then there is a Petrarchan conceit in line5 and 6,he distinguished them from the laity. “Moving of the earth” means a big change—they are forced to be apart. “Innocent” symbolizes that it can’t harm their everlasting love. The speaker mentions that normal people’s loves are only connected by physical senses, but he and his wife are connected by their souls, minds, and spirits. They care more about spiritual connection than physical.in stanza 6, the speaker used a simile again. He used a piece of gold to describe the love between him and his wife. The gold might get thinner but will never be broken just like their devoted love. And the last three stanzas, Donne take the two legs of compass as him and his wife. One foot leave the other will lean, while one come back, the other will erect. The fixed foot means the firm wife; Women should be the one that stay in home and wait their husband come back. It shows the Patriarchal society in that time. But we can still find many signal of love in this poem. I think maybe in those years that is how love are.
410402025蘇薇雅
Because I could not stop for Death
The theme of the poem is “death. “Death is personificated as a gentleman. He gently invited a proper lady-speaker herself- to attend a journey. On the way, they passed the school, the fields of gazing grain, the setting sun, and a house. These all are very normal landscape in life. Moreover, these are the brainchild: the carriage is a metaphor for hearse; the setting sun is a metaphor for the end of one’s life; a house is a conceit for grave. Different from most poetry which used a pain tone to face death, Dickson used a confident attitude instead. The evidences are below quote: first,” Because I could not stop for death- “is disclose that we can choose when we die. even in medical technology advanced nowadays, most dead people are not naturally dead. We also faced this fact with afraid. The author’s attitude just says to us “so why worried about death?” ; second,” we slowly drove—He knew no haste “she reminds us again that we can’t control death. Death is the driver of carriage, the real controller. And the word” slow” express the peace the author feels; last, “We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground” finally they arrived their terminal-grave. We usually described grave as cold contract to home which was depicted as warm. However, Dickson connect them via metaphor which is very unconventional. It’s hard to image Emily Dickson lived in an era which restrict limited to her via her talent on poetry –emotional intensity, audacity, original words-which build a new stage for us.
410402033 英美一蘇宣
John Donne - The Flea
To me, John Donne's poem, The Flea, is very different with other poems to describe "love". We can know that John Donne was a different person at that time.
The poem uses the conceit of a flea, which has sucked blood from the male speaker and his female lover, to serve as an extended metaphor for the relationship between them. The speaker tries to convince a lady to sleep with him, arguing that if their blood mingling in the flea is innocent, then sexual mingling would also be innocent. His argument hinges on the belief that blood mixes during sexual intercourse.
He wrote this poem in 17's. At that time, the Western people were still under control by Christian. We can know that Donne was creative and special.
The speaker claims it would be "sacrilege" to kill the flea. He holds the flea up in the second stanza as "our marriage bed" and "our marriage temple," begging for the lady to spare its innocent life. He argues that by killing the flea, she would be killing herself, himself, and the flea itself, "Three crimes in killing three". The lady, in the third stanza, kills the flea, presumably rejecting the speaker's advances. He claims that she sleeping with him is better than she kills this this flea.
Although this poem does not describe “love” directly, John Donne wrote his desire. This poem shows his opinion to his love.
410201006 曾政源 中文三
"Death" the theme usually be discussed many writers.I want to compare the idea of Emily Dickson with John Donne. First,they have some common that they don't afraid death,and they regard death as a person.
The poem"Because I could not stop for death─"by Emily Dickson we can find the author narrate she and death stay in same carriage,and they went to a unknown place.
In second stanza,"He" is no haste,and the author contribute her labor and leisure.She was delight because of his civility.I think the civility means "no haste".In third stanza,they passed a lot of place.I think the stanza narrate the memory of author or that is a life of person from school to setting sun.
In fourth and fifth stanza, the poet only dressed a tulle,and she felt cold.I think she was unprepared.In fact, she didn't really have to face to death,but last stanza we can find that is so many years ago.Now she surmise the horses'heads─death will toward eternity.It's not a ending.
The poem "Death, be not proud by John Donne we can find the author looked down death.He think death as we sleep just close our eyes and rest.The death is also Fate,Chance,desperate men's salve.Without them, the death isn't exist. Death is short rest,while while waking is immortal.Finally,John Donne said "Death, thou shalt die.
Contrast the two poem,they didn't give in death.In the other word,they think the way will go toward eternity.It's not final ending.
410402051 卓韋馨
The way John Donne portray “ love” is special and kind of weird and childish, but I think that quality of strange is his characteristic. There is seldom people write love poem as he did. In poem, he likes to use “ apostrophe” to scold mutable things such as sun and time and often immortalize love by comparing it to something unchangeable like gold. And hyperbolic assertion are all among “ The Good-Morrow”. We can see hyperbolic assertion from the title of “ The Good-Morrow”. Good “morrow” it also means good “morning” which has the meaning of waking and new. It means that I always in sleep and every beauty I met before you it was just like wastes time on worthless activities, but I was awake because of you. And I personally like the meaning hide behind the title because it is so romantic, although it is a little bit melodramatic. And hyperbolic assertion also appears in the middle of the poem. “ Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.” The lover is compared to be the speaker’s mainland, everything, world. And in the end of the poem, the author still use hyperbolic assertion to express his love to his lover. “ Without sharp north, without declining west? ” Sharp north represents conflicts and declining west represents gradual decay of love. “Whatever die was not mixed equally, If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.” The author believes their love wouldn’t change and they won’t get fight with each other, but that is impossible. And mixed equally not only mean integrate but mean alchemy. It implies the author pursue their love to be immortal.
410402015 英美一 巫芷玲
We can know that Emily Dickinson was deeply obsessed with the idea of death from many of her poems, and “ Because I could not stop for death—“ is one of them. The motif of this poem is death. The speaker personified death as a gentleman, and she also capitalized death. In this poem, the gentleman came to pick up the speaker to go for a ride. They drew a carriage which she surmised that will take her to eternity. We can learn from the word “immortality” in the first stanza that she thought of death as a step on the way to eternal life instead of an end. After they rode by so many scenes, the sky started to get dark. (In the third stanza, the speaker used anaphora: the repeated phrase “We pass”) The speaker felt a little chilly because she was completely under-dressed, which indicated that she was not prepared for the impromptu date when death picked her up in the morning. At last, death led her to the place she was buried. We can realize from the last two stanzas that actually the speaker has already been dead for hundreds of years. She died centuries ago, so “The Cornice— in the Ground—“, which means that nobody came to tidy up her gravesite. However, “Feels shorter than the Day” shows that the speaker felt that it happened just at yesterday, so the memory of death remained vivid for her. It is clever of the speaker to depict death by the image of a journey.
英美三 吳婉君 410202072
Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death” is one of her famous poems about death and eternity. The speaker personified “Death” as a “He” and even as the speaker’s new spouse since they are in the same wedding carriage (l.3). In Christianity culture, death means the beginning of a new eternal life for a person. A wedding with death leads to immortality (l.4). What’s more, we can know from the bible that “righteousness through Faith” (Romans 3:21). As long as people have faith, they will come to immortality after life.
In the second stanza, death drove slowly instead of with haste, which suggests that death is a common and slow process, and may be endless. The words “His Civility” (l.8) imply that death is not horrible or scary in the speaker’s eyes. Instead, it connects with courtesy and politeness. And we can also suggest from this stanza that the speaker shows much respect to death.
However, when the speaker turns to stanza 4, the tone is changed entirely. In the last three stanzas, the speaker thinks about immortality, eternity, and civility of death, and even enjoys being with death. However, in a sudden, the speaker feels “quivering and Chill” (l.14), and the surrounding has become a grave. Death doesn’t seem so attractive to the speaker now. And the wedding carriage with death is not driving the speaker to heaven or eternity. Instead, the speaker suddenly realizes that death is just going into a grave like entering a cold grey haunted house.
From this poem, we can see the inconsistent and uncertain thoughts and feelings toward death, which may appear in many people’s minds as well. Since there are no evidence of the truth of death and the afterlife, these images give us much imagination, expectation, and philosophical thinking toward them.
英教碩二 蕭峻閎 610302607
Analasis of "My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun"
Emily Dickson often goes outside to socialize people, I want to analyze how she write this poem about love or relation between the couple, even women right.
The speaker said she is a gun. It prepares to shoot all the time. The speaker describes she can be launch when a man holds her. The metaphor is a woman didn’t have the right to fight their natural right. Gun often to presents the man, however, the woman present the gun in this poem. Many people think the gun which is a woman can help the hunter to hunts the animals or to do every. Women were often the housewives in that generation. If this poem depicts young couples’ love. Maybe Emily portraits her youth love. This poem also can discuss the relation between two people. “And do I smile, such cordial light Opon the Valley glow - It is as a Vesuvian face Had let it’s pleasure through” We can imagine the gun is a youth girl. She caressed with his owner. The speaker needs to be loved or touched.
She can embrace the love with her love. The speaker said, “I guard My Master’s Head – ‘Tis better than the Eider Duck’s Deep Pillow - to have shared”. This line is really beautiful to describe the couple falls in love. They don’t leave each other. At night, they hug each other to feel the love. This poem gives the young girls or women different feeling. “Though I than He - may longer live He longer must - than I -For I have but the power to kill,
Without - the power to die” this line can prove I mentioned that women live with men. I think Emily wants to use to it to mentioned women’s plight of society.
Love will change by time and people, but woman right should exist without time and man. Emily hope uses this poem to promote female right. Now, we still need to fight for every woman in the corner of the world.
410202073 英美三吳晟華
The Sun Rising
Andrew Marvell
I choose this poem because it is quite interesting that the speaker praise the love he have and in the meanwhile look down upon every other things, such as all the earthly values and even the very function of the world; By that the speaker seems to have greater mind than the sun, but it is funny that he’s just not willing to get up in the morning.
In many part the author shows his uncommon imagination, for example: one wink and the lovers can block the sun; one bed and it can contain all states. His imagination are not only hilarious, but also a clever way to show that the speaker is actually “crazy in love”.
If we see this poem in another depth, the facts that the author said are not truths, but “wishes”. A pair of lovers cannot stop time or block the sunshine, nor can they be all kings and princesses. The fact is that the speaker “wishes” that the time can freeze so they could stick together longer and would not have to face the pressure of (daily) life; he wishes that their love could be almighty that overruns all the earthly values and duties.
On the surface, this poem contains a funny tone of praising love, however, in other aspects we can see the struggle and deep wishes of a mortal lover. No wonder Marvell’s poems are so important to read.
410302049 洪子宸
Death is usually consider the worst enemy of mankind, but in [Death, be not proud], John Donne mock death, giving readers a new sensation and an unexpected surprised. He describe death as a human being, and he think death will defeat no Christian, John Donne believed that there souls still lives in the afterlife after deceased, so death is harmless, powerless to the Christian souls. In the poem, the word "pictures" means portrait, it says the portrait of death is like a sleeping and resting person, and we can get more pleasure from sleeping. Then he said that the best men that embrace death is the soonest one, for the are the most willingly to rest their bones and deliver their souls to the afterlife, and death is only the tool of fate, chance, kings and desperadoes, its masters are poison, war and sickness. John Donne also mentioned the milk of poppy and magic spells, which can also make people fell asleep, and it is better than death to strike them down. Through out the poem, John keeps mocking death, like death is the bottom of the world, it's nothing, so people shouldn't afraid of it. In John's point of view, death is weak and vulnerable, it has no place to be so swell and so proud. IN the last two lines, John said after we deceased, we're not truly dead, and we're just dead for a short period of time, then our souls shall live in eternity forever, there's no place for death. So death, you shall die.
英美二 尤雅樹 410302050
John Donne - Death, be not proud
Most people are afraid of Death, because only people who is gonna die will see it, but John Donne didn't. He tells Death not to be so proud, he’s really not as scary or powerful as most people think. He even calls Death a "slave" to fate, chance, king and desperate men. The poppy and charm can make the same even better effect than death. So why it can be so proud? Death will only happened once, it won't got second time. So Death will also death after we death. It's very interesting that Death will also death.
I have same thought with John everyone will experience death, why people regard it as vicious things. After death you will never death. Exactly, people just afraid they will lose something after they death, but they didn't. We bring nothing with us when we're born, and we take nothing with us when we die. Death just happened in a moment, it won't be exist anymore instead, there will be the eternal joyful. People who fear of death, just turn it into the fear of death itself. Death for people, it's the gate to the happy eternal life.This strong dramatic effect and to obtain a final irony is through the paradox of language
410402031 英美一 楊子玉
“Love” is a direct and apparent theme of “The Sun Rising” by John Donne. The author uses different description to make his love not only romantic but also invincible at the same time. To begin with, the author thinks his love is impervious to time, and even the sun should not rise and bother he and his lover. In contrast of his immortal love, hours, days, months are just rags of time. Secondly, the author was so proud of his love that he thinks his love is superior than every precious thing in the world, such as the Indias of spice and mine, which are valuable in Age of Discovery. Third, the auther’s love is romantic and unrealistic. The author literally thinks that he and his lover are the center of the universe. However, apart from the ideal love that the author emphasized, we can also discover some hidden problem in their relationship. For example, there are many descriptions from line 11 to 15 that mention “sight” and “seeing”, and it also implies that the author’s love is superficial and boastful. Also, if the author’s love is like he says, impervious to time, how can he feel the sun rising? I think the rising sun implies that the hidden problem of their relationship is also rising, like the white elephant. The author doesn’t want the sun rising because he wants to escape from the restriction of reality. Nevertheless, the fantasy night will eventually end, and the real challenge will come along with the rising sun.
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