Theme of Temperance in The Faeirie Queene
The themes of temperance, that being the employment of restraint, or at least moderation, especially in the yielding to personal appetites or desires, and of intemperance, the submitting to such desires, pervade Book Two of The Faeirie Queene. Prior to describing individual rooms within the Castle of Alma, it is useful to briefly discuss how the idea of the castle functions within the Book. Spenser compares the towers of the structure with towers at Thebes and Troy, which stand as monuments to individual According to Berger, Alma's Castle functions as an 'archetype of human temperance'; Spenser specifically describes the building in terms of the human body, relating it to Christian teachings; in the first canto, he states:
Of all Gods workes, which do this world adorn,
There is no one more faire and excellent,
Then is mans body both for powre and form,
Whiles it is kept in sobre government...
Spenser's statement borrows from the polemic of St. Augustine, which states 'there is no need... that in our sins and vices we accuse the nature of the flesh to the injury of the creator, for in its own kind and degree the flesh is good.' (Berger) Alma's castle represents this 'good flesh'. Throughout canto IX the reader is shown that the inordinate uses of the flesh, intemperance, that permeate all other cantos of book II, are not the only possible uses of the flesh, as represented by the actions of Guyo.
Concerning the interior of the castle, the Kitchen is described in detail, in terms which can be directly related ...
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...; ...some could not abide to toy, All pleasance was to them briefe and annoy: This fround, that faund, the third for shame did blush, Another seemed envious, or coy, Another in her teeth did gnaw a rush. (Stanza 35)
Throughout Book II Guyon is seen to exert his aversion to pleasure, as he crushes and smashes the illusions of intemperance in canto XII, and shrugs off temptations in canto VII. Here, in Alma's parlour, these temptations, the passions, are also present, however they are subdued, natural and not corrupting. Whilst still seen as flaws in man, they are accepted; as in all things, moderation is the key. As Berger comments, whereas Guyon rejects passions as 'unbefitting an excellent man, here they are not considered as a negative.
"They turn casually to look at you, distracted, and get a mild distracted surprise, you're gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were fucking is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.(pg.263)" In Minot's story Lust you are play by play given the sequential events of a fifteen year old girls sex life. As portrayed by her thoughts after sex in this passage the girl is overly casual about the act of sex and years ahead of her time in her awareness of her actions. Minot's unique way of revealing to the reader the wild excursions done by this young promiscuous adolescent proves that she devalues the sacred act of sex. Furthermore, the manner in which the author illustrates to the reader these acts symbolizes the likeness of a list. Whether it's a list of things to do on the weekend or perhaps items of groceries which need to be picked up, her lust for each one of the boys in the story is about as well thought out and meaningful as each item which has carelessly and spontaneously been thrown on to a sheet of paper as is done in making a list. This symbolistic writing style is used to show how meaningless these relationships were but the deeper meaning of why she acted the way she did is revealed throughout the story. Minot cleverly displayed these catalysts in between the listings of her relationships.
This poem was written between the years of 872 and 885, and the poet is anonymous. It tells the story of a maiden who could not stand to hear words from those who spoke using foul language. When she was exposed to it, she immediately fell ill, and her father, a farmer, had to take care of her. In desperate need of help, he hired a young man named David to assist with threshing wheat, feeding livestock, leading oxen, and other farmyard duties. Unapparent to the farmer and his daughter, David was a con man who wanted his way with the maiden and ultimately tricked her into copulation. What made this poem stand out to me was the obvious humor in the use of euphemisms. While David and the maiden shared a bed, he partook in her use of substitutions of obscene words for guiltless ones, such as “pasture” and “spring” to describe body parts. The element of irony is also evident in this poem, apparent when the daughter uses these euphemisms innocently, but they do not make her seem innocent at
A strong example of this flattery is seen in line 297, “What say’st thou, noble heart....
There are any kinds of masks. There is the story; the masks are the masks that tell
Primary source: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls pages (68, 112, 280, 180-181, 225, 212-213)
Throughout his life... was a man self-haunted, unable to escape from his own drama, unable to find any window that would not give him back the image of himself. Even the mistress of his most passionate love-verses, who must (one supposes) have been a real person, remains for him a mere abstraction of sex: a thing given. He does not see her --does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her; not of love, but of himself loving.
The importance of costume in the theatre cannot be rated too highly, for it is not only an outward and immediately visible medium of expression for the actor himself but it is significant of the dramatic values which he is suppose to portray (Brooke, 1). The colors, texture and shape of a costume can create a feeling of the character that the actor may not be able to portray. There is not any definite information on what exactly the Greeks used for costumes because so much time has elapsed since the original records were taken. Most information is based on the different artifacts that were found, such as paintings and pottery. Sometimes hints of what was worn could be found in the plays themselves.
To begin, the poem, “Eve’s Apology,” uses many different poetic devices such as alliteration, assonance, rhyme scheme, and simile. The author uses a great number of alliteration, which is the repetition of constant sounds generally at the beginnings of words. Alliteration can be seen in the words “what” and “weakness” in line 3. Some more examples of alliteration throughout the poem are “subtle serpent’s” (23), “he had him” (24), and “with words which” (30). Assonance, the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds, is another poetic device that the author uses greatly. Some examples of assonance are found in lines 10 “ The ‘p...
Edmund Spenser in his epic romance, The Faerie Queene, invents and depicts a wide array of female figures. Some of these women, such as Una and Caelia, are generally shown as faithful, virtuous and overall lovely creatures. Other feminine characters, such as Errour, Pride, and Duessa are false, lecherous and evil. This might seem to be the end of Spenser's categorization of women; that they are either good or bad. Yet upon closer examination one finds that Spenser seems to be struggling to portray women more honestly, to depict the "complex reality of woman" (Berger, 92). Spenser does not simply "idealize women or the feminine viewpoint" as he could easily do via characters like Una, but instead attempts to "revise and complicate the traditional male view" of women (Berger, 92, 111). Spenser endeavors to show various female characters, in both powerful and weak roles, and also to emphasize the importance of women in his society. Despite his intentions to give a fair representation, however, it is still obvious that Spenser was influenced by a society with a culture “whose images of woman and love, and whose institutions affecting women and love, were products of the male imagination” (Berger, 91). Throughout The Faerie Queene, Spenser reveals his anxiety about women and their power.
“… gave details of the house: it was white with black doors fitted with iron bars; four rooms were stuccoed, but other parts were less finished; the front floor was stone slabs. She loc...
Antonio that he will take a pound of flesh if the money is not repaid
“If half thy outward graces had been placed upon thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart! But fair the well, most foul, most fair. Farewell, the pure and impiety and impious purity. For the I’ll lock up all the gates of love and on my eyelids shall conjecture heading to turn ...
In William Blake 's Songs of Innocence and Experience, the fierce tiger and the gentle lamb define childhood by setting a contrast between the two very different states of the human soul. “The Lamb” is written in a way that would be suitable for a very young audience. “The Lamb” is one of the simplest poems that William Blake wrote. The symbolic meaning of innocence can easily be found throughout the poem.
The next morning me and a friend that I had met locally. Decided to go