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literay analysis of the sonnet Written ar the Close of Spring
literay analysis of the sonnet Written ar the Close of Spring
literay analysis of the sonnet Written ar the Close of Spring
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Freedom and Liberty in Wordsworth's Prefatory Sonnet
William Wordsworth's "Prefatory Sonnet", originally published in his book, Poems, In Two Volumes, deals with the concept of liberty as a personal goal and its relevance on the larger political spectrum. The poet likens Nuns and Hermits, who find solace in their confining spaces, to himself and the writing of sonnets. Building upon this framework, Wordsworth makes an important observation about personal liberty and its place in political freedom. Carefully crafted literary elements combine efforts to manipulate tension in the poem, a powerful poetic tool used with precision and perfection to tell the story of liberty: how it is yearned for, its glory, and its consequences.
The poem begins with the sonnet tradition of listing. People of various professions are listed as being content within the confines of their appropriate workspace or abode (later compared to the poet working on sonnets, happily confined within the sonnet's binding structure). Note the building of tension in the first three lines, an effect maneuvered with diminishing sentence structure and internal rhyming:
Nuns fret not at their Convent's narrow room;
And Hermits are contented with their Cells;
And Students with their pensive Citadels;
While the first line is a fully independent clause, the second, while also an independent clause, begins with "And," seemingly a continuation of a sentence started in the first line. The verb is dropped in the third line, creating a dependent clause, and a more hurried feeling than the first and second lines. Finally, the fourth line seems cramped (like the confines holding the Nun, Student, Maids, and Weaver), with two dependent clauses separate...
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... but must be created in politics through the acting liberty of the people. This is what finally brought Napoleon's tyranny to an end in Europe, and this is what brings this poem to its close.
Nuns fret not at their Convents' narrow room;
And Hermits are contented with their Cells;
And Students with their pensive Citadels;
Maids at the Wheel, the Weaver at his Loom,
Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in Foxglove bells;
In truth, the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is: and hence to me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground:
Pleas'd if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find short solace there, as I have found.
William Shakespeare’s sonnets are considered to be some of the most beautiful poems in English literature. Although little is known about the poet, many seem to put their focus on Shakespeare’s inner life; wondering why he wrote the things he did. William Shakespeare is mostly known for his plays; however, he did accomplish a lot in poetry. William Shakespeare was powerful with his words, and knew how to express things in great depth. Why or who he wrote about is still a mystery. Scholars only know so much about his life, and are still trying to put the unknown pieces together.
Canfield Reisman, Rosemary M. “Sonnet 43.” Masterplots II. Philip K. Jason. Vol. 7. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002. 3526-3528. Print.
Their different personalities and mindsets created a nice balance between them. Their differences explained why, “Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she could think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter.” (Vonnegut 226). This proves how cruel this government is. They do not want the smartest individuals to defeat the government so they make it mentally and physically impractical for them to do so. For normal people, like Hazel, it does not matter what they think or say because it is not like they will follow up on their thoughts. That is how the government is keeping everyone in check without any backlash. The fact that George is wearing forty seven pounds of balls in a bag is worrying Hazel. She says, “’If you could just take a few out when you come home from work, said Hazel… ‘If I tried to get away with it, said George, ‘‘then other people’d get away with it-and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”’ (Vonnegut 228). This whole conversation is the reason why the government knew that this new futuristic society would benefit them. Hazel knew that what
This is an enjoyable sonnet that uses nature imagery, found extensively in Petrarca, that Shakespeare uses to get his point across. Not much explication is needed, aside the sustained images of nature, to fully understand its intent, but I would like to point out a peculiar allusion. When reading line 3, "the violet past prime" has made me think of Venus and Adonis. In the end, Adonis melts into the earth and a violet sprouts where his body was, which Venus then places in her heart, signifying the love she has for him. Reading this into the poem makes the few following lines more significant. Having Adonis portrayed as the handsome youth, Shakespeare is alluding to the death of youth (in general and to the young man) through the sonnet. In the next line, it is not certain if "sable" is an adjective or a noun and if "curls" is a noun, referring to hair (which is plausible) or a verb modifying "sable." Invoking the allusion to Adonis here, Shakespeare portends that if Adonis did live longer, he too would have greying hair; thus, Shakespeare sees ["behold"] an Adonis figure, the young man, past his youth.
One of the first issues to be resolved is the relationship between 'freedom' and 'liberty'. There has been several theses proposing a distinction between these two concepts. Theorists such as Belaief and Pitkin claim that liberty is a political term, while freedom is metaphysical. This distinction, however, is a false one. The only difference between these two terms is linguistic convenience. To illustrate, in the example above, liberty could be described as 'political freedom'. This shows the error in the apparent distinction. The two terms are synonymous, and will be used interchangeably in the remainder of this essay.
Berlin, I. (1990), Four Essays on Liberty: Two Concepts of Liberty. New York: Oxford University Press.
By concurring to the Italian sonnet’s rules and exploiting the room he was left to utilize, not only does Wordsworth create a poem that is both coherent and clever, he leaves the reader with a sense of communion, that he isn’t alone in the world. A brief moment of solace is sometimes all one asks for, and “Nuns Fret Not” has shown us how it’s obtained.
The most obvious use of repetition would be the abundant use of Annabel Lee’s name in the poem. The fact that the title of the poem is Annabel Lee, and her name is repeated so often throughout the poem clearly demonstrates just how important and lovely she is to the narrator. The second most prominent use of repetition comes from the lines regarding the “kingdom by the sea” (Poe). Poe constantly reinforces the setting and reminds the reader of its importance in almost every single stanza until near the end of the
Freedom is a concept open to interpretation, as is its contrast inhibition. Many poets try to express these concepts through subtle means; be it using implicit references or literary devices such as metaphors and similes. Poets seek to give form to these intangible concepts. For instance in Gabriel Okara’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ society’s expectations cause limitations on actions and force people to oppose what they are inclined to do in order to gain acceptance. Whereas freedom of understanding, which stems from the having knowledge of the world around you is portrayed in Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’. Both of the ways the ideas are presented in these poems are different to Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ which shows an absence of freedom. Each of the stated poems attempts to emphasize liberty or lack thereof. They depict physical freedom from imprisonment or mental freedom from abuse. This shows the reader that there many different forms of freedom, and that it can be achieved in different ways.
As of 2013 data, the US per capita government expenditure was $4307 while total per capita expenditure on health spending was $9146, which is 17.1 percent of the GDP (2013) for the total expenditure on health. The annual rate of growth in per capita government spending on healthcare has been roughly 5.1 percent over the past thirty years (WHO, 2015). This rate of spending on health care growing faster than the economy for many years creates challenges ...
“The rose embodies only the perfect moment that intervenes between fulfillment and decay. Describing it, Shakespeare makes no attempt to speak in a biographical voice, or that of a dramatically defined persona. It is simply “we” who speak, as the voice of a consensus, and our desire for preserving the flower’s beauty is no less natural than its coming decline. Such a confluence, using “we” to unite temporarily speaker, reader, and the ordinary world, has a justification of its own” (Weiser, 3).
Sonnets and Poems of Wordsworth and Milton Sonnets are poems that have fourteen lines that usually have a recognized rhyming scheme. A sonnet generally has two sections; with the first section normally having eight lines and the second section having six. The rhythm in each line of the sonnet can also apply with sonnet traditions and the syllables (which is counted in feet) can define which tradition it is - French, Italian or English. Sonnets were commonly written in the sixteenth to eighteenth century and often written to express emotions of happiness, sadness, and love or written for someone in particular by request. I have chosen to study three of William Wordsworth's sonnets and one by John Milton.
Canfield Reisman, Rosemary M. “Sonnet 43.” Masterplots II. Philip K. Jason. Vol. 7. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002. 3526-3528. Print.
---. “Sonnet: England in 1819.” The Longman Anthology: British Literature: Volume 2A – The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 761.
Bender, Robert M., and Charles L. Squier, eds. The Sonnet: An Anthology. New York: Washington Square P, 1987.