Thou Blind Man's Mark

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Sir Philip Sidney’s poem, “Thou Blind Man’s Mark,” addresses desire and its ruinous ways. In conveying the speaker’s complex and bitter attitude toward desire, Sidney employs poetic devices including paradox, tone, and a specific diction. These and other techniques (such as personification and irony) complete the speaker’s portrayal of desire and his feelings about it. The first three lines of the poem include some paradox and irony. Consider the opening line, “Thou blind man’s mark, thou fool’s self-chosen snare…” Such nonsensical descriptions reflect the speaker’s nonsensical impression of desire. Sidney has opened the poem with such lines to emphasize the complicated and rather backward nature of that feeling called desire.

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