Theme Of Unrequited Love In English Renaissance Poetry

Every period of time has their own outstanding poetry’s features to show their uniqueness of the period. For the English Renaissance period, there are three outstanding features of poetry: “the theme of the unreachable and unrequited love”, “carpe diem”, and “metaphysics”.

The first outstanding feature of the English Renaissance period is “the theme of the unrequited and unreachable love”. To explain in “Whoso List to Hunt” the poem is about a hunter who states that he may no longer desire to hunt this hind since it is uncatchable; the usage of a hunter and a hind is one of the figurative devices called “metaphor” which is making a comparison between two different things but still have something in common, so a hunter is a metaphor of a man

To illustrate, “carpe diem” means “seize the day” or “doing anything at this present period without worrying the future time but to live one’s life as best as possible. Carpe diem is reflected through “Holy Sonnet Death, be not proud”, summarily, the sonnet is about the author insulting death treated as a person (using of personification) to not be so proud that death is not that powerful and frightening because for the poet, he has an idea that death is just a rest or a sleep for him which reversely expressed to be in a positive way which is unusual; furthermore, the poet has his reason to have this kind of thought, actually, he does not directly want to insult death in the poem but to indirectly speak with and encourage the audience that “death is nothing to be afraid of”, so they just do whatever they want to do to meet their best possible life at the present moment by avoiding worrying the future including death which is one of the main worry of human; however, even people usually feels so negative when they realize that death has to meet them surely but the poet just takes it in the same position as an eternal rest and sleep which are pleasurable things for human, so the audience will not fear to do anything anymore since they have overcome the absolute fearful thing of life. After all, the poet simultaneously persuade not only himself but also the audience to practice the idea of “carpe diem” resonated by the

To explain, “Metaphysics” means “what is beyond physics”. Importantly, “life after death” is one of the most discussed sub issues in metaphysics; the life after death is displayed through “Holy Sonnet Death, be not proud”, to support, a last two couplet of the sonnet are written that “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.” To interpret, death is just a short sleep for the poet since after that sleep people will wake forever and there would be no death anymore after death; it needs some complex interpretation for these two line since the idea of death for this poem is quite complicated, briefly, for the poet, he believes that there is another life after death for everyone but they have to sleep (die) first to meet that eternal moment, in depth, this shows that “metaphysics” is one of the outstanding feature of renaissance period since at that time it was the time of Christian religion, according to the Bible, when people died, they just took some rest waiting until the apocalypse (Judgment Day) to let Jesus Christ to wake them and lead them to eternal heaven. So, this sonnet is not only talking about death but also god and heaven which are beyond