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Poetry II Unit 2: Renaissance Poetry Summary and Analysis A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning Is A Personal Poem
Poetry II Unit 2: Renaissance Poetry Summary and Analysis A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning Is A Personal Poem
Stanza 9. (The poet now addresses his beloved and bids her good bye, as
he is going to a foreign country). My beloved will be like the fixed foot of
the compass, because she is staying at home. He will be like the other
foot of the compass which revolves in a circle. Even so, the beloved will
incline towards him and her firmness will only strengthen his love. Just
as the revolving foot of the compass returns to the central point after
completing the circle, in the same way the poet shall return to his
beloved. Thus, they will again be united in pure love.
Development of Thought:
In 'A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning', the poet addresses his beloved
to offer her consolation for his short absence. Just as virtuous men are
not afraid of death, in the same way true lovers are not afraid of
separation: Separation only tests their loyalty and devotion. Ordinary
lovers who are addicted to sex may not be able to stand separation.
Therefore, his beloved should neither shed tears nor heave sighs. This
absence is a sort of touch-stone to test their mutual love. Men are afraid
of earthquakes and the damage caused by them. However, the movement
of the heavenly bodies, though much greater and more violent, is quiet
and harmless. Similarly, ordinary lovers may lament a separation but
their love is so holy and pure that in spite of separation, they have no
feeling of loneliness. Their love is so chaste and refined that physical
absence does not matter to them at all. Their love is not based on
physical enjoyment.
Pure Love:
The lovers cannot define the nature and essence of their pure love. It
is a refined love of the mind and has nothing to do with the joys of sex.
Their souls are one. Temporary separation cannot cause a breach of love.
Absence extends the domain and expanse of love. Just as gold is beaten
to thinness and its purity is in no way affected, in the same way their
pure love will expand and in no way lose its essence. The lovers are like a
lump of gold and the quality of their love cannot change. The frontiers of
their love will extend and their mutual confidence and loyalty will in no
way be affected.
A Pair of Compasses:
Donne employs the conceit of 'twin compasses. Their souls may be
two but they are united at a centre like the two sides of a compass. The
soul of the beloved is like the fixed foot of the compass as she stays at
home. The poet's soul is like the other foot of the compass which moves,
so to say in a circle. The fixed foot leans towards the moving foot, and
afterwards, the moving foot rejoins the fixed foot. The rejoining of the
encircling foot suggests the return of the poet to his beloved and their
union - in spite of their separate identities - is the very consummation
and joy of love. The poet proves that in spite of separation, the lovers are
united in mutual affection and loyalty. James Reeves writes in this
connection: "We are like the two legs of a pair of compasses, you are the
fixed one in the centre. Further my soul goes from yours, the more yours
leans towards mine; and as mine comes home, so yours revives. Your
soul is the centre of my being, and keeps mine constant as it circles
round you."
Critical Appreciation:
The poem consists of nine quatrains and is quite smooth in its
rhythm. However, its images and conceits enrich its significance. The
comparison of separation to death is obvious. Just as good people face
death patiently and quietly, in the same way, true lovers face separation
willingly. Ordinary lovers may view separation as an earthquake because
their love is based on the physical relationship. True lovers are like the
heavenly bodies, the movement of which is greater and violent but
causes no injury or harm. Holy love is not affected by movement or
change of environment. There is another conceit of the gold beaten to
thinness. The quality of the gold remains unaffected though its area and
its dimensions increase. In the same way, the quality of love remains
constant in spite of the extension of the gambit of love. The best conceit
of the stiff twin compasses is extremely appropriate and fits the theme
like a glove. The individuality of the lover is maintained while their basic
unity is symbolised by the screw which fixes the two sides of the
compass. The fixed foot rotates while the moving foot revolves in a circle
and then gets rejoined to the fixed foot. While moving foot
circumscribes, the fixed foot leaves it, showing the mutuality and
interdependence of the two. In this connection A.J. Smith writes:
The strength of the poem lies in its argument and the use of
appropriate conceits and images. Sometimes hyperbole is used to
emphasise a point that 'tears' are floods and 'sighs' are tempests. The
poet has been able to prove his point that his absence is no cause for
mourning for his beloved because their love is pure and constant.
Summary
God, who is Love, welcomed me to His feast, but my soul hesitated and
stepped back because of its sense of its own sinfulness and its
unworthiness. God perceived with His quick eyes my hesitation in going
forward in the direction of the feast. He, therefore, came nearer to me
and sweetly asked me if I lacked anything.
I replied that I was not fit to be his guest at the feast and that what I
lacked was any real worth. God said that I was surely fit to be His guest. I
asked how an unsympathetic and thankless man like me could be fit to
sit at His feast as a guest. I told my dear God that I could not even look at
Him because of my sense of shame. Thereupon God took hold of my
hand and smiling, said to me, “do not feel any hesitation in looking at
me. After all, it was I who gave you those eyes, and therefore I bid you
make use of them.”
I said: “It is right. Lord, that you gave me these eyes, but I have been
misusing them and have therefore rendered them unworthy of looking at
you. Let me, therefore, go where I deserve to be because of my sinful
deeds and my sense of shame.” I certainly do not deserve to stay here
with you. God thereupon said: “You know very well that the blame for
your sins is no longer yours because that blame has already been taken
by my son Christ upon, himself. (Christ took upon himself the sins of all
mankind).” I replied: “In that case, my dear God, I shall stay, but only as
a waiter at the dinner table not as a participant because I do not deserve
that honour.” God, who is Love, said: “No you must sit down to dinner as
my guest and you must taste the food which I have to offer.” Thereupon I
sat down and ate the food at God’ s table.
Analysis
In this poem, God is represented as Love, meaning that God is the source
and fountain of all love and that God‘s love for mankind is infinite. God
forgives man for his sins provided man approaches God in a spirit of
remorse, repentance, and humility. God knows that every human being
commits sins, and therefore what God wants is that human beings
should realize their sinfulness and should feel sorry for their sins. The
act of repentance implies spiritual improvement and spiritual progress.
It is only the unrepentant sinner who incurs the wrath of God. The
repentant sinner can be sure of God‘s mercy and forgiveness.
The poem is written in the form of a dialogue between the poet and God,
thus reminding us of the poem which has the title “Dialogue” and which
begins: “Sweetest Saviour, if my soul….”. In other words, the poet here
also is holding a private conversation with God, thus showing an
intimate relationship with Him. We are to imagine, of course, that the
soul of the poet, after the poet‘s death, stands before God, feeling acutely
conscious of its sinfulness. The feast to which the poet‘s soul has been
invited is the one which sinfulness. The feast to which the poet‘s soul has
been invited is the one which God is to hold in Heaven and at which God
himself will serve the guests. This feast should not be confused with the
sacrament in the church, the ceremony known as the Eucharist where
every member of the congregation is served with bread and wine
symbolizing the body and the blood respectively of Christ. This feast
means the heavenly communion which the souls will attend after
departing from the earth.
The dialogue between the poet and God is intended to emphasize the
poet’s sense of his own unworthiness and God’s unlimited capacity for
forgiveness. When the soul of the poet hesitates to advance toward the
feast God speaks encouraging words to the soul. When the poet admits
that he was unkind ad ungrateful and does not, therefore, have the
courage to look at God. God smiles and, taking the poet by his hand, tells
him that the eyes with which the poet is to look at Him were God’s own
gift to him and that the poet should not hesitate to use them. When the
poet says that he has married his eyes by misusing them, God assures
him that his sins, as also the sins of other people, were taken by Christ
upon himself. Indeed, God’s whole attitude here is one of such profound
benevolence that even the reader is overwhelmed. The poem is, indeed,
charged with intense feeling, and that feeling is effectively
communicated to us.
The poem alternates iambic pentameter (a line of verse with five metrical
feet, each consisting of one short(unstressed) syllable followed by one
long (stressed)syllable)and iambic trimeter(a line of verse with three
metrical feet consisting of one short (unstressed) syllable followed by
one long (stressed)syllable). The poem has four stanzas. The first stanza
of the poem contains one line. The second line contains five lines. The
last two lines contain six lines each.
In Love(III) personification and metaphors are used. Personification is a
figure of speech in which something non human is given human
attributes. Metaphor is another figure of speech which makes a
comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some
common characteristics without using like or as. The comparisons
maybe implied or hidden. Love is personified through out the poem.
Love is like another character. A few quotes are “Love bade me welcome,
yet my soul drew back,” (1), “But quick-ey’d Lover observing me grow
slack” (3), and every time Love talked. The metaphor in the poem is
Love. Love can be viewed as god while the guest in the poem is the
author.
The theme in Love(III) is how god, Love, forgives the sinner, the
narrator, and invites him into his house. The narrator was ashamed to be
there because of what he had done but Love just forgave him and invited
him in.
Paradise Lost
Analysis
In the opening section of Book IV, Satan talks to himself, and for the first
time, the reader is allowed to hear the inner workings of the demon's
mind. This opening passage is very similar to a soliloquy in a
Shakespearean drama, and Milton uses it for the same effect.
Traditionally, the soliloquy was a speech given by a character alone on
the stage in which his innermost thoughts are revealed. Thoughts
expressed in a soliloquy were accepted as true because the speaker has
no motive to lie to himself. The soliloquy then provided the dramatist a
means to explain the precise motivations and mental processes of a
character. Milton uses Satan's opening soliloquy in Book IV for the same
purpose.
In his soliloquy, Satan reveals himself as a complex and conflicted
individual. He literally argues with himself, attempting first to blame his
misery on God but then admitting that his own free will caused him to
rebel. He finally concludes that wherever he is, Hell is there also; in fact,
he himself is Hell. In this conclusion, Satan develops a new definition of
Hell as a spiritual state of estrangement from God. Yet even as he
reaches this conclusion, Satan refuses the idea of reconcilement with
God, instead declaring that evil will become his good and through evil he
will continue to war with God. The self-portrait that Satan creates in this
soliloquy is very close to the modern notion of the anti-hero — a
character estranged and alienated who nonetheless will not alter his own
attitudes or actions to achieve redemption from or reintegration with
society at large.
As Satan debates with himself, he is still in the form of a cherub. The
different guises and shapes that Satan assumes become a revealing
pattern in the work. In Book I, Satan appeared almost as he had in
Heaven — a majestic being. Here at the start of Book IV, he is in the form
of a cherub, a much lesser angel. Next, when he leaps the wall into Eden,
he sits in the Tree of Life as a cormorant, a large ravening sea bird that
symbolizes greed. As he explores Eden and observes Adam and Eve, he
takes the forms of a lion and a tiger. Finally, when he is captured
whispering in Eve's ear, he is described as "squat like a toad." The
devolution or degeneration of Satan in these different shapes is readily
apparent. He moves from archangel to lesser angel, from angel to bird —
a creature that still flies. Next he is a lion and a tiger — dangerous beasts,
feared by Man but nonetheless beautiful and noble in bearing. Finally, he
is described as being like the low and homely frog. The idea that evil
corrupts and diminishes is made graphic in Satan's various guises.
Milton goes even further with images of shape shifting. When Zephron
captures Satan squatting like a toad, Satan immediately assumes his
actual shape. Yet, at this point, his real appearance is so changed that
Zephron does not recognize him. The animal forms that Satan has
assumed symbolize the actual degradation that is taking place in both
Satan's physical appearance and moral character. Milton makes the
point that evil is a destructive and degenerative force almost palpable as
he describes the different physical changes that Satan goes through.
While Satan's soliloquy and shape shifting are important, the most
memorable part of Book IV is Milton's description of Eden and the
introduction of Adam and Eve. Eden is described as a garden on a
plateau-like mountain. It is surrounded by a wall and has only one
entrance, guarded by angels. Milton depicts the Garden itself in lush,
sensuous detail with the two trees — the Tree of Life and the Tree of
Knowledge — singled out. The image of Satan sitting in the Tree of Life
in the shape of a cormorant presages the entrance of Death into
Paradise.
A significant aspect of Milton's description of the Garden is the role that
Adam and Eve have there. Their duty is to tend Eden, to keep nature
from running wild. The implication here is that Man brings order to
nature. Nature is beautiful in itself but also without control. Left alone,
the beauty of nature can be lost in weeds, unchecked growth, and decay.
Eve mentions how difficult it is for the two humans to do all that is
necessary. Some commentators see the struggle between Man and
nature as one of the basic themes in all literature. Nature represents the
Dionysian side of the universe, emotional, unrestrained, without law,
while Man represents the Apollonian side, moral, restrained, lawfully
structured. Nature runs rampant: Man civilizes. Milton's description of
the Garden and Adam's and Eve's duties within it bring this Dionysian /
Apollonian contrast into play. Satan's entrance into the Garden shows
that both the natural and civilized aspects of the world can be corrupted
by evil.
Milton also emphasizes the physical nature of the love between Adam
and Eve. Some Puritans felt that sex was part of the fall of man, but
Milton literally sings the praises of wedded love, offering an
Epithalamion or wedding song at line 743. Milton does emphasize the
bliss of wedded love as opposed to animalistic passion, however.
Milton also provides insight into the characters of Adam and Eve. At line
411, Adam reminds Eve of the one charge God has given them — not to
eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. While this short
speech reminds the reader of what will happen when Satan gains access
to Adam and Eve, it also hints that Adam may think too much about
God's proscription concerning the Tree, since there is no particular
reason for him to bring the warning concerning the tree up at this point
in the poem.
The introduction of Eve even more obviously reveals her character and
points to the future. Eve describes how she fell in love with her own
image when she first awoke and looked in the water. Only the voice of
God prevented this narcissistic event from happening. God turned Eve
from herself and toward Adam. The suggestion here is that Eve's vanity
can easily get her into trouble. Eve's weakness is further indicated in her
relationship with Adam. Adam is superior in strength and intellect while
Eve is the ideal companion in her perfect femininity. This relationship is
sexist by modern standards but reflects the beliefs of Puritan England as
well as most of the rest of the world at the time. Even so, Eve's
dependence on Adam suggests that she could be in trouble if she has to
make serious decisions without Adam's aid. Eve's vanity and feminine
weakness in conjunction with Adam's warning about the Tree of
Knowledge are a clear foreshadowing that Eve will eventually yield to
temptation.
The final scene of Book IV, as Satan confronts Gabriel and a small
phalanx of angels, has received much criticism from commentators.
Milton's description of Satan as he confronts the angels emphasizes the
devil's power and magnificence even in his corrupted state. The scene
seems to call for a battle, but Milton instead produces a deus ex
machina in the form of a golden scale in the heavens. The suggestion
that Satan has been weighed and found wanting causes the great demon
immediately to fly away. The intense drama of the moment fizzles with
the image of the scale and Satan's inglorious departure. Of course,
Milton's point is that the only power of Satan or the angels comes from
God, and, at this moment, God chooses to exert his own power
symbolically. In terms of drama, the ending of Book IV may be
unsatisfying, but in terms of theology, it reminds the reader of where the
real power in the universe resides.
Kubla Khan: Poem Summary
The poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is in the form of a
dream or vision about a grand palace of a famous ruler of China and its
magical surroundings. Coleridge has constructed the poem into two
parts. The first part describes Kubla Khan’s pleasure-dome and its
beautiful and mesmerizing setting. While the second part describes the
creative power of a poet and his poetry.
3.1 The First Part of ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge
Kubla Khan, one of the greatest oriental kings, once ordered a
magnificent luxury palace to be built for him in Xanadu on the bank of
the sacred river, Alph. This sacred river flowed through deep and
immeasurable caves in the hill and then, at last, fell into a dark,
subterranean sea. Xanadu was surrounded up to ten square miles by
walls and towers. It had beautiful gardens, winding streams, and trees
bearing sweet-smelling flowers.
There was also a deep mysterious chasm that ran down the slope of a
green hill across a wood of cedar trees. It was an awe-inspiring place. In
fact, it was as holy and bewitched as the one haunted by a woman
wailing for her demon-lover in the dim light of a waning moon. From
this chasm, a mighty fountain gushed forth at short intervals producing
an incessant roaring sound. The powerful outburst of water threw up
huge fragments of rocks here and there on the earth. They sounded like
the hailstones striking the earth or the grains spreading when separated
from the chaff by a farmer’s flail.
The sacred river Alph flowed across a five miles long winding course
through woods and valleys. Then, it entered the immeasurable deep
caves and finally sank in the dead sea producing a loud noise. In this
tumult of the river, Kubla Khan seemed to hear the voices of his
ancestors foretelling him of the impending wars. The palace was built
somewhere midway between mighty spring and the caves measureless to
men. Its shadow seemed floating in the middle of the river. From the
palace could be heard the mixed sounds of the water gushing forth from
the spring and the water noisily flowing through the caves. The palace
had sunny domes and caves of ice and its architecture displayed a rare
skill or a miracle.
3.2 The Second Part of ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge
Once in a vision, the speaker saw an Abyssinian girl who was playing on
a dulcimer and singing a sweet song in praise of Mount Abora. If it were
possible for the speaker to revive the sweet melody and music of her
song, it would fill him with divine inspiration and he would feel
enraptured and poetically inspired. With such divine inspiration, he
would write powerful poetry to give a vivid description of Kubla Khan’s
marvelous palace.
The speaker says that his imaginative palace would be so vivid that all
the people who would listen to his songs would see it clearly before their
eyes. They would then think of him as a mighty magician and would ask
others to be cautious of his flashing eyes and floating hair. They would
weave a circle around him three times and close their eyes with holy
dread. Furthermore, they would say that he had been fed on honey-dew
and the Milk of Paradise and warn one another to keep away from him.
4. Critical Analysis: ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge
Kubla Khan is an edifice of the dream or vision of the poet about a grand
palace of a famous ruler of China and its magical surroundings. It is an
examination from a dream-soaked imagination, and at first sight doesn’t
seem to possess any rational viewpoint and logical consistency. It looks
like a procession of images, images colored in rainbow tints and
expressed in the language of hunting melody. The poem also seems to
have no story, no moral, no allegory, and nor even any logical
consistency of ideas.
However, Kubla Khan is rational as well as logical. Both of its parts are
connected to each other in a logical way. The poem is rich in symbolism,
imagery, pictorial quality, and romantic elements. It is, in fact, a poem of
pure romance, in which all the romantic associations—ancient forests,
hills, measureless caverns, music of dulcimer, Milk of Paradise, demon-
lover—are concentrated within a short compass to create a sense of
mystery and awe. Besides, the poem also stands by the sheer beauty of its
shadowy vision, and by the power of its wonderful music.
Kubla Khan: A Poem About Life and Its Complexities
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a poem about life and its
complexities. The pleasure dome, indeed, dominates the poem. Besides,
the setting of the poem is also carefully and vividly described by the poet.
There is a description of a sacred river Alph that runs through ‘caverns
measureless to man’ down to a sunless sea. The area through which it
flows is, however, full of beautiful gardens, aromatic trees, winding
streams, and ancient forests