19 - To A Lady Flashcards
intro
Carew offers a negotiation of courtship figured in terms of praise, scorn, acceptance and rejection (typical of the Cavalier pattern). His view of courtship stresses the importance of honesty in relationships and explores the concept of poetry as a construct. Indeed, the whole question of honesty in poetry becomes subsumed in the question of honesty in the relationship (metaphysical….). However, despite criticising ‘puling poets’ for their use of writing as a construct, the speaker himself employs the clichés he condemns, retreating into metaphorical language rather than offering a frank and true appraisal.
Now you have freely given me leave to love,
What will you do?
Shall I your mirth, or passion move,
When I begin to woo;
Will you torment, or scorn, or love me too?
Stanza 1 = Private
- Now = direct address, absent female listener – typical of meta
- First stanza littered with questions = express anxiety of speaker. Rhetorical questions build vulnerability rather than masculine arrogance. Power appears to be accorded to female – typical of courtly love; straight continuation of Elizabethan love poetry; reflection of his cavalier influence
Each petty beauty can disdain, and I
Spite of your hate
Without your leave can see, and die;
Dispense a nobler fate!
’Tis easy to destroy, you may create.Stanza 2 = Private
- Petty beauty = accords power of beauty, yet places it next to a negative adjective – frustration with women
- Tis easy to destroy; you may create = caesura enacts separation, wants intimacy vs. two fates that await him. She is in control. Parallel sentence structure accords an equality.
Then give me leave to love, and love me too
Not with design
To raise, as Love’s cursed rebels do,
When puling poets whine,
Fame to their beauty, from their blubbered eyne.
Stanza 3 = Public
- Then = narrative rhetoric
- Love me too = monosyllables, conviction. Dealing with honesty in relationship.
- Puling poets whine = plosives emphasise disillusion with such poets vs. convey energy and joy in his praise – he enjoys it despite saying he despises poets who misrepresent real women. Personal focus on woman is not sustained, detracts from her power.
- Fame to their beauty = doesn’t like poetry being manipulated in this way vs. emphasising importance of honesty in personal relationships. Seduction can be dishonest, absent listener wants the fame the speaker’s poetry can bring her. Writing as construct = topic of post-modernist critics in 1920s vs. Carew talking about honesty in poetry in 1640s.
Grief is a puddle, and reflects not clear
Your beauty’s rays;
Joys are pure streams, your eyes appear
Sullen in sadder lays;
In cheerful numbers they shine bright with praise,
Stanza 4 = Private and Public
- Reflects not clear your beauty’s rays = wants honesty in poetry and relationships, yet employs the clichés he rejects in the previous stanza. Renaissance tropes typical of Elizabethan love poetry. Traditional Petrarchan use of the sun as an ecstatic tribute – this is Cavalier and a straight continuation from Elizabethan tradition. Retreats into metaphorical language and cliché rather than offer a frank and true appraisal.
- Presents dichotomy of ‘sullen’ vs. description of eyes that ‘shine bright’ = emotional manipulation. Threatening her reputation. Phonological sounds, plosives of ‘bright’ and ‘praise’.
Which shall not mention to express you fair,
Wounds, flames, and darts,
Storms in your brow, nets in your hair,
Suborning all your parts,
Or to betray, or torture captive hearts.
Stanza 5 = Public
- Wounds, flames, and darts = allusion to wounds of Christ
- Storms in your brow = can command nature with feeling, Renaissance tropes/Petrarchan conceits. Elevates female anger to a cosmological scale
I’ll make your eyes like morning suns appear,
As mild, and fair;
Your brow as crystal smooth, and clear,
And your dishevelled hair
Shall flow like a calm region of the air.
Stanza 6 = Public and Private
- Make = modal verb, assertive, power in poetry. Suggests the artificiality of imposing these unrealistic R images on real women.
- Your eyes = ocular imagery, validating her through poetry
- Suns = touchstone of ecstatic tribute, simile. Traditional Petrarchan use of the sun as an ecstatic tribute – this is Cavalier and a straight continuation from Elizabethan tradition.
- Dishevelled = only bit of honesty in description, rest remains conventional
- Shall flow like a calm region of the air = will elevate her beauty
Rich nature’s store (which is the poet’s treasure)
I’ll spend, to dress
Your beauties, if your mine of pleasure
In equal thankfulness
You but unlock; so we each other bless.
Stanza 7 = Public and Private
- Rich nature’s store = invoking Pastoral imagery
- Poet’s treasure = exoticism, R voyages. Abstract noun. Brackets = extra info, he treasures hyperbole and metaphor despite it not always being true. Admitted to himself that he takes pleasure in her and in poetry as a construct, despite insisting on honesty throughout the poem. (metaphysical) The whole question of honesty in poetry is subsumed into the question of honesty in relationships.
- If = conditional, she still has a bit of power.
- Mine = yonic imagery, tunnel shaped. Emotional manipulation. Frank sexuality of the metaphysical movement, NOT Cavalier/Elizabethan
- We each other bless = prenuptial agreement, first collective pronoun
themes
Seduction
Honesty
Convention vs. Metaphysical
Relationships
language
• Monosyllables in S3 = conviction
- Plosives of puling poets = disgust
- Phonological sounds, plosives of praise and bright
- Allusion to wounds of Christ
- Modal verbs = assertive
- Simile = power of poetry
- Pastoral imagery
- Yonic imagery
- Retreats into metaphorical language and cliché
- Use of irony – by writing about the negotiation, we know the un-made-up lady; her position is undermined
- Hyperbole
- Disparaging language
- Collective pronoun at the end
- Abstract noun – treasure
structure
- Direct address
- Rhetorical Qs build vulnerability in S1
- Caesura enacts separation in S2
- ABABB rhyme scheme runs through
- Polished verse
- Parallel sentence structure in S2 accords an equality.
- Chronological markets = trained in rhetoric (now, then)
- Brackets
context
• Poem is a straight continuation of Elizabethan courtly love poetry, working with conventional themes, diction, images and structures.
• Post-modernism: writing as a construct
• Traditional Petrarchan use of the sun as an ecstatic tribute – this is Cavalier and a straight continuation from Elizabethan tradition.
• Carew was poetic arbiter elegantiae of the court of Charles I
o He gave a witty spin to the tradition of Petrarchan lyric, polishing and resetting traditional conceits of love poetry for an increasingly sophisticated and aristocratic audience
o Link to convention of courtly love
• Frank sexuality of the metaphysical movement, NOT Cavalier/Elizabethan
• Renaissance voyages of discovery
• Petrarchan Conceits
o The refutation of Petrarchan conventions (such as those that can be seen in Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella where Astrophil writes 108 sonnets in sequence about his lover’s lack of interest) is metaphysical in its rejection of what has gone before; the metaphysical poets dismantled the smoothness, cadence and imagery of the Elizabethan poets.
evaluative sentences - praise
The poem promises to praise if the speaker upholds her side of the mutual equal bargain. The irony in the voice’s outlining the Petrarchan and Renaissance images that he will employ when he writes about her, is that in doing so he inadvertently praises her anyway. Thus, the poem is conflicted with inner contradiction as he strives for honesty but will dishonestly praise her in return for projected sexual fulfilment.
evaluative sentences - power balance
As the focus in not exclusively on the woman, but rather on the very nature of poetry, the absent listener is attributed less power – though perhaps this can be countered by the fact that she has an equality within the relationship rather than being posited as an ideal presence. This is emphasised in the parallel syntactical structure of ‘easy to destroy; you may create’, the power balance is equal and thus the relationship seems more honest.
evaluative sentences - meta
TAL is metaphysical in character, moving from the intense personal feelings of the poet to intellectual and meta considerations of self-conscious nature of poetry (an idea later adopted in the Post-Modernist appraisal of writing as a construct) and in keeping with its modernity and iconoclastic approach, it does not significantly praise its subject and the woman is not the sole focus of the poem; her power is not greater than that of the male voice.
