Thou Blind Man's Mark Analysis Essay

The poem, “Thou Blind Man’s Mark”, by Sir Philip Sidney, dramatizes the conflict between desire and morality. In a classic struggle between id and superego, the speaker mulls over what desire has cost him. The phrase, “with price of mangled mind” (line 6) is used to illustrate that the speaker’s logical method of cognition has fallen prey to his instinct and innate wants. This results in a caustic, harsh and aggressive tone throughout the work, specifically in reference to the folly of innate wanting. With scathing diction such as, “fool’s self chosen snare” (line 10), and “Fond fancy’s scum” (2), the speaker conveys a sense of hatred and loathing for his own, presumably sexual, desires. This hatred and anger stems from a waning feeling of both moral purity and intellectual achievement, primarily shown in lines 8-10 (who should...ruin sought). In this frame of mind, the speaker expresses a righteous indignation at his own human nature, almost in a self-deprecating acto of honesty. In doing so, the speaker establishes some ethos with the reader as an objective, open minded intellectual.

Compound this strange rhythmic scheme with a fairly even meter, and around ten syllables to each line, and the speaker creates a sound of guided calamity through the poem. The sentence structure also varies wildly, with some exclamations such as “Desire, desire!” (line 5) breaking up the flow of thought from the speaker. Thus, the speaker’s form somewhat vacillates and is difficult to clearly define, only being coherent in the way that it is