بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Hi Everybody :74:
How Do You Do?
Today I'm going to give you a romantic poem by Sir Edmund Spencer
describing his love to his second wife, Elizabeth Boyle
One Day I wrote her Name
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.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quod 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,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
*The Amoretti are a series of eighty nine sonnets Spenser wrote to commemorate his courtship of his second wife, Elizabeth Boyle. A companion piece, 'Epithalamion', honours their wedding
I think this love sonnet told the story of men in love with unattainable women. However, Spenser's sonnets from his sonnet sequence "Amoretti" defy the general pessimism and give an optimistic look at love. In fact, his "Sonnet 75" shows such optimism that his persona, after a realization in the poem, claims that his love will be immortal through verse. "Sonnet 75" stands as a successful sonnet because it presents an optimistic view on love through graphic imagery and a realistic story. The writer takes the success of the work a step further because he uses form, rhyme, personification, and alliteration to mirror the imagery and story of his Elizabethan sonnet. This sonnet contains three quatrains and a couplet. The form of each part plays an important role in creating the story of the poem. The first quatrain contains a physical description of the strand. In this description, Spencer includes the image of the tide washing away the persona's lover's name. This image propels the rest of the poem. The second quatrain contains the dialogue of the lover as she responds to the distress of the persona. She declares that he seems foolish for trying to make a "mortal thing so to immortalize" (6). The third quatrain contains his returning dialogue where he makes the claim that he wants to immortalize their love through verse. The final couplet magnifies his claim, as the persona concludes optimistically and drastically that death will kill all things but their love. By using each piece of the form of the sonnet to play a role in the story of the sonnet. The complex rhyme scheme of this sonnet is a unique pattern frequently used by Spencer. The rhyme scheme is ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. By having the rhyme of the final line of each quatrain also be the rhyme of the leading line in the next quatrain, Spencer links all the quatrains of the sonnet. This skillful linking also mirrors the imagery he creates.
I already left one comment on this write but it was my personal opinion and didn't really deal much with the class, so here is for the class. I think that the author of this write did an excellent job describing the process of wanting to remember his loved one. His use of syntax throughout the write was pleasant to read, and done in a way that didn't stress my eyes or mind. I think syntax in this example is a great example of a writer trying to accommodate his audience without making them over-extend themselves to read it.(The last line stands the strongest for me.)
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
as opposed to the more predictable…
(When whereas death shall subdue all the world, our love shall live and renew life later. Pretty boring in contrast.)
The close pairing of shall live and later life focusing the contrast and the commonality more intently.
But came the tide – more emphasis on the action. It brought more intent to the coming. Any other order would have left it just a happenstance of daily events.
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That's All Folks.
I hope You Enjoy It!!:118:
