Literary Review: The Four Lenses Used on Sonnets
The Gender Lens: As Feminist
Criticism of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet XXII can be broken into a handful of categories: feminism, religion, Greek scholarship, and physicality. Much criticism is focused on how Barrett Browning pirated the sonnet tradition to use for her own feminist agenda. These sources are primarily interested with her in relation to the sonnet tradition, and there is debate whether Sonnets from the Portuguese is autobiographical or not. Other critics use her religious background as a lens rather than her gender, explaining how she saw her role as a “poet-prophet.” Charles LaPorte especially explains how she sometimes stood against the religious sentiment of her day,
…show more content…
This is especially valuable to explain the explicit religious allusions in Sonnet XXII. According to Dieleman, Barrett Browning’s background in the Congregationalist Church shaped how she saw her writing as a spiritual exercise. In fact, in another article titled “Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Religious Poetics,” Dieleman argues that Barrett Browning saw herself as a poet-prophet, which often led her to political activism in her writings. Barrett Browning practiced writing religious hymns, then transitioned to epic poems more influenced by the biblically-based, yet emotionally-presented sermon style of her preacher, James Stratten. Later in her career, Barrett Browning transitioned to writing poetry that was not explicitly religious, yet still influenced by her religious …show more content…
By using the word “room,” she was referring to the room in her father’s house she wrote in, as well as the “lyrical room” of the sonnet and the space between the lovers. In the sonnet tradition, a sonnet was such a compact form that it only had space for one lover “alone with his thoughts.” However, Barrett Browning used prepositions, enjambment, and deictics to make room for both lovers to have an equal dialogue.
In “‘Our Deep, Dear Silence,’” Rhian Williams offers an interesting explanation of the physicality of silence in Sonnets from the Portuguese. According to Williams, the repeated references to silence anticipated the marriage of the Brownings at the end of the sequence. In contrast with the cultural expectation that women were silenced in marriage, Barrett Browning anticipated an egalitarian silent space between the lovers. Like other critics, Williams explains that Barrett Browning made room in her sonnets for marriage, a concept that is not usually found in the sonnet
It has been said that “beauty is pain” and in the case of this poem, it is quite literal. “For That He Looked Not Upon Her” written by George Gascoigne, a sixteenth century poet, is a poem in which the speaker cannot look upon the one he loves so that he will not be trapped by her enhanced beauty and looks. In the form of an English sonnet, the speaker uses miserable diction and visual imagery to tell the readers and his love why he cannot look upon her face. Containing three quatrains and a rhyming couplet at the end, this poem displays a perfect English sonnet using iambic pentameter to make it sound serious and conversational. This is significant because most sonnets are about love and each quatrain, in English sonnets, further the speaker’s
wendolyn Brooks’, “The Sonnet-Ballad”, can in-a-way be confusing to some. When first reading, you are able to understand that her love has gone off to war; however, you are not able to differentiate if she is talking about her love leaving her for another woman or her love dying in battle. I honestly believe that she was talking about her love dying and she’s grieving in disbelief. The narrator begins with the grand question, “Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?”
Gwen Harwood to a large extend, takes marginalised groups such as women, and privileges their experiences by giving them a voice through poetry. Both ‘Suburban Sonnet’ and ‘Burning Sappho’ express the frustrations of women who feel tapped by motherhood and the expectation that they will conform to domestic roles. Harwood comments on the inability of women to pursue personal happiness as she shows that motherhood can be both rewarding and all consuming. Meaning is therefore drawn from each poem through Harwood's intricate use of stylistic features such as figurative language and imagery, shaping readers to understand that it is often those we love that cause the most intense feelings of resentment and internal frustration.
"Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll is a pretense poem with an abundant amount of fantasy imagery and heroism. Carroll, who is known for these dramatic poems, is well known for this poem. Much the same as most sagas with a focal character, "Jabberwocky" is basically titled after the most critical thing in the ballad – the goliath beast. The title of this ballad drives the reader to figure out that the beast is the focal power of the sonnet. It moves our regard for the beast, and far from our mysterious legend.
Poetry in literature is often marked significantly by a literary device or a special characteristic of the structure. In Robert Pack’s poem “An Echo Sonnet, To an Empty Page,” echoes throughout the poem create a tone of awe-solemn wonder, revealing the poet’s confused attitude towards the relationship between form and meaning and the inner conflict formed within oneself, dealing with the “voice” and the “echo.” A conversation then begins. The “echo” in this poem acts as the subconscious of the speaker, as opposed to a simple reproduction of the previous sounds. The speaker employs the “voice” as a confusing soul, who is deliberately seeking a response to its questions, and the “echo,” with its one word responses, provides the “voice”
Structurally “Dim Lady” has little to do with the firm guidelines of true sonnets, however this choice gives Mullens a greater degree of creative liberty when it comes to the rescripted Sonnet 130. The more contemporary style of free verse rather than structurally rigid helps to create the more modern feeling of the overall work and in turn allows Mullens to shape Shakespeare's work in a new
He employs several literary devices in this poem which include: simile, hyperbole, satire, imagery and metaphors to create a lasting mental image of his mistress for the readers. The language used in this sonnet is clever and outside of the norm and might require the reader to take a second look. The first 3 Stanzas are used to distinguish his beloved from all the
Heaney uses the English pattern sonnet as a form of ironic gesture towards the English. The poet took a risk in creating a both political, both rape poem, as these two topics are very controversial. He still managed not to become too political, but he let us know his inside thoughts about the matter. He describes women as weak, as someone who is easily oppressed.
At the beginning of Sonnet XXIX, the poet reveals that he feels like a complete social outcast, deprived of self-esteem, and beset by many internal conflicts. He also feels fiercely insecure, ashamed, unlucky, and jealous of those people around him, whom he thinks are more friendly, successful and hopeful than him. Besides, the speaker alludes to heaven, for which this makes him kind of a believer of a religion. For example, he claims, "And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries. " In other words, he says that he prays God with meaningless cries, but it seems that nobody in heaven does not want to hear him anymore.
Robert Browning did not have much of a religious view, or that we know of. His mother was a religious woman. Robert had asked his mother for Mr. Shelley’s atheistical poem Queen Mab when he was fourteen (Religious Views). He had frightened his mother when he had confirmed his mother’s worst fear. He had become just like Percy Bysshe Shelley, an atheist and a vegetarian.
The two poems I will be comparing and contrasting in this essay are two of William Shakespeare 's most popular sonnets. Sonnets in chapter 19, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? ', and in chapter 23, 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds, ' of our Literature book. Both of these poems deal with the subject of love but each poem deals with its subject matter in a slightly different way. Each also has a different purpose and audience. In the case of 'Shall I compare thee ' the audience is meant to be the person Shakespeare is writing the sonnet about.
At the end of the day, an association with God requires being reawakened and modified starting from the earliest stage, in however not of the world. At last, since the speaker here recommends being in the female part of assurance to be wedded and ravishment (a city excessively tends, making it impossible to be coded as female), we by and by observe that the speaker is placing himself in the position of the Christian church by and large. In the New Testament, the congregation is metaphorically said to be hitched to God. By influencing many references to the Bible, John Donne 's Holy Sonnets to uncover his need to be acknowledged and forgiven by God. A fear of death without God 's forgiveness of sins is passed on in these sonnets.
Evaluating Sonnet 18 in Relation to Shakespeare’s other works Shakespeare did not write this sonnet seeing as it goes against 3 elements of his personal stylings which he utilizes on all of his other sonnets. This sonnet doesn’t seem to adhere to the conventions that other sonnets at the time did. Just as Shakespeare, refused to write the same way as all the other writers. In fact, Shakespeare became well known for writing unconventional and progressive pieces of work. This sonnet does much of the same thing by not writing something romantic for this woman.
In these short poems, the authors utilize particular rhetorical techniques and methods to reflect the speakers’ personality and motivation. Therefore, presenting the speaker becomes the main focus of the authors. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” both poems reflect the speakers’ traits through monologue, figurative language, and symbolism. However, these two speakers’ personalities are different due to their attitude toward their beloved. The speaker in Sonnet 18 is gentle and delighted but frustrated because the ideal metaphor comparison of summer is not perfect for describing his beloved; the poem thus suggests that the way you love others reflects how you feel about yourself.
This erotic love—marked in this poem as a common noun—“brings forth” for the speaker a specific, romantic “wisdom”. With this wisdom, as well as his innate, genealogical “mother-wit”, the speaker sharpens his verbal