Demeter On My First Daughter And Romeo And Juliet

Demeter, On my First Sonne, On my First Daughter and Romeo and Juliet all show feelings of love between the parents and children. I will be exploring the relationships in each of these pieces of literature. I will also look at the relationships between Juliet and the Nurse and Juliet and her parents in Romeo and Juliet.

‘Demeter’ is a poem about the story of Demeter. "Demeter was the goddess of harvest and Persephone was the goddess of springtime. Hades, the lord of the underworld, kidnapped Persephone. Hades fell in love with Persephone and asked Zeus to help him kidnap her so she could become his bride. The crops started to wilt and humans couldn't grow crops anymore. However Zeus told Hermes to bring back Persephone and to make sure she didn't eat any food from the Underworld. Hermes fetched Persephone. But before she left, Hades convinced her to eat 6 pomegranate seeds. Hermes made a compromise and said Persephone had to stay in the Underworld as Hades wife for six months. That's why there are seasons. In the fall and winter, Persephone goes down into the Underworld and Demeter mourns. In the summer and spring, she comes back and Demeter rejoices. " (1)

‘On my First Sonne’ is the elegy or lament which Ben Jonson wrote after the death of his son, Benjamin. Jonson was away from his home in London when he received letters from his wife telling him that his son had died from the plague. His son was seven years old. Ben Jonson is showing the heartache from his son’s early death at the age of seven. The first two lines, ‘My sin was too much hope for thee, lov’d boy’, is showing that Jonson is blaming himself for loving Benjamin. Throughout the poem Ben Jonson uses many religious references for example, ‘child of my right hand’ , ...

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... told to marry.

From these four pieces of literature, this shows that no matter how you lose a someone you love, the suffering cannot be cured. Both "On My First Sonne" and "On my First Daughter" emphasise the unbearable feelings of losing a loved one (his son and daughter). In "Demeter", the only way she can cure the suffering is when she is able to see her daughter. However this is only healed for six months, until Persephone has return to the underworld. In "Romeo and Juliet", Juliet is the person that is suffering as the only part of her family that loves her is the Nurse and the Nurse isn’t even part of the family although Juliet sees the Nurse in the story as her true mother. These texts show that parent and child relationships are very important and can cause great suffering. It is how you deal with the situation after the suffering that is very important.