Mary Wroth - worth a second read

The introductions and the footnotes for each of our reading sections really helps me to start to understand what I'm reading,. Sometimes, it is just as interesting, if not more so, to read about the lives of the poets.  Take Mary Wroth for example. At a time when women were not allowed the same freedoms as men, the niece of the famous poet Sir. Philip Sydney, became such a well-known poet herself. Reading the information regarding her life puts some of her poetry in perspective.  From an unhappy arranged marriage, to a long standing affair with her first cousin, the poetry we read now makes more sense. Without reading the introduction about Mary, I wouldn’t have grasped the significance of “Pamphilia” and “Amphilanthus”.  So we have an all loving person writing to an unfaithful lover.  Now her sonnets are starting to become a little easier to understand.  Her sonnets are beautifully written; nevertheless there is a central theme running through them.  Pamphilia is helpless to stop the feelings of love that she bears. 

     “Am I thus conquered? Have I lost the powers

       That to withstand, which joys to ruin me?

       Must I be still while it my strength devours,

      And captive leads me prisoner, bound, unfree?”  (sonnet 16,pg 1457)

Pamphilia has no control over the love she feels.   Although it pains her, she has no choice.  “But O my hurt makes my lost heart confess/I love, and must: So farewell liberty” (sonnet 16).  This same theme runs through most of the sonnets that we read; which makes more sense to me as I take another look at this and now realize that this comes from a 558 page romance.  In every sonnet and song, there is something written about Pamphilia’s pain of betrayal.   

I realize that Norton is trying to provide a good sample of her work, but I wonder about the tone of the poetry between sonnets 77 and 103.

Sonnet 103 seems different somehow.  There does not seem to be the same level of indecision and pain in this sonnet. Rather, this sonnet is more relaxed.  “My muse now happy, lay thyself to rest/Sleep in the quiet of a faithful love, write you no more, but these fancies move /some other hearts, wake not to new unrest”.  It’s like Pamphilia has accepted her path and come to peace with it after wrestling with it for quite some time.  

Break of Day: Close Reading

Unlike Donne's other poems, this poem is written as if by a woman.  He is still writing this poem as first person but the poem is written from a feminine point of view, allowing Donne to set a different tone in this poem, expressing the emotions described in this poem in a different way than is usual for him. The whole poem is written like couplets, two consecutive lines rhyme throughout the poem. Speaking it out loud the poem is very fluid, and easy to recite.

The first section deals with the woman questioning her husband leaving her in the morning.  "Tis true, 'tis day; what thou it be? / O wilt thou therefore rise from me?"  Also, "Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither, should in despite of light keep us together."  Basically, she is saying, so what?  Who cares if it is light outside?  Why can't we be together here while it is light?  Lines 3 and 4 end with the rhyme of light and night, another comparison with the time of day.

The second section talks about light specifically.  Here light is taking on qualities; it is not just a thing.  She starts by saying that light is all eye; that light is everywhere and sees everything.  Again, so what?  Even if light could speak, and tell that they stayed together, the worst thing Light could say was that the woman chose to stay with her love, that she was happy to be with him no matter that it was light outside. 

The final section shows her disappointment, maybe even frustration or anger that he will not stay with her; that he has to leave her. “Must business thee from hence remove? / O, that’s the worst disease of love”. The speaker is disappointed that her lover must leave to take care of business.

I just want to say that analyzing poetry is challenging to say the least.  Please, feel free to help me out with anything that I've missed!

Lyrical Wild Card-Donna Summers-Four Seasons of Love

 Donna Summers album takes love and compares the emotional feelings to that of the four seasons. Having only four songs on the album, each song uses in the verse something about the season it is being compared with.  The songs are sung first person, as a member of the relationship, expressing the feelings the singer is experiencing. Changes in the tempo of the music also help to underline the stages of the seasonal relationship.

The first side of the album starts with faster paced music in the song Spring Affair.   The season of  spring brings newness. It's a new beginning, and is used as the comparison for the beginning of the relationship. They meet, they fall in love; the feelings are new and exciting.
              

"Spring affair, spring affair, spring affair
and I'm hung on you
Spring affair, spring affair, spring affair
and we've got something new, me and you, oh baby"

The second song on side one continues the happiness in the relationship.  In Summer Fever they are strong into their relationship.  For summer, we think of heat.  Donna Summer's song compares the relationship to a fever.

"Time of love, time of year
temperature's rising, our bodies near in fever, summer fever
summer fever"
 

On the second side of the album, as with the start of the fall season, the relationship is starting to change. In Autumn Changes, the romance is burning out.  No longer bright and sunny, as in the summer,
   "this  love of ours is gradually fading
    something is wrong, or somebody's faking"

"Autumn changes
shifting phases
autumn changes
turning stages
surely something can help to patch it up"

Finally, in Winter Melody, the love is gone and the relationship that seemed so promising in the spring is over.  "Emptiness and just a memory. Love is gone with nothing left for me".  

" Winter melody, winter melody, winter melody
play for me, just for me
'cause he's not coming home and I'm here alone
on my own"