23 - Nymph Flashcards
1
Q
intro
A
The speaker laments the death of her fawn in a singular long stanza. She reflects upon how a group of ‘wanton troopers’ have shot her fawn and then invokes Heaven, asking that her ‘simple prayers’ might implore God to forgive the murder. The speaker shifts her narrative onto her former love Sylvio, and the happy times that they shared before discovering that he had been unfaithful to her. Whilst on a literal level the poem is about a young girl mourning the death of her pet, on an allegorical level the Fawn signifies Jesus, who dies for the sins of humanity and the poem as a whole is set in the garden of eden (the primitive sense of innocence is destroyed by human passions); the fawn also symbolises Charles I, who was beheaded, reflecting Marvell’s political stance as a Royalist and the troopers denote Cromwell’s army. The poem is a pastoral poem, seemingly Royalist as Marvell was a Parliamentarian.
2
Q
The wanton troopers riding by Have shot my fawn, and it will die. Ungentle men! they cannot thrive To kill thee. Thou ne’er didst alive Them any harm, alas, nor could Thy death yet do them any good. I’m sure I never wish’d them ill, Nor do I for all this, nor will; But if my simple pray’rs may yet Prevail with Heaven to forget Thy murder, I will join my tears Rather than fail. But oh, my fears! It cannot die so. Heaven’s King Keeps register of everything, And nothing may we use in vain. Ev’n beasts must be with justice slain, Else men are made their deodands; Though they should wash their guilty hands In this warm life-blood, which doth part From thine, and wound me to the heart, Yet could they not be clean, their stain Is dyed in such a purple grain. There is not such another in The world to offer for their sin.
A
- Wanton troopers = symbolises Cromwell’s army who overthrew the monarchy and established the Commonwealth. Marvell writing during Civil War. Fawn is a symbol of destruction of innocents. Inciting incident, troopers shot faun.
- Ungentle men! = sexual stereotype. Exclamation is sensationalist. Elongated vowels also. Wallowing in incident, reflects psychology of teenage girl.
- I’m sure I never wished them ill = feminine virtues of forgiveness
- Oh = elongated vowel
- Heaven’s king = prayers cannot forgive murderers as God keeps an account of actions
- E’en beasts = whilst fawn is white, i.e. hart. Men are beasts of the chase i.e. vermin
- Wash their guilty hands = legalistic language reflects education
- Warm-life blood = reflects blood hands of the group of observers that watched Charles I being executed in his ‘Horation Ode upon Cromwell’s return to ireland’. Can wash themselves clean of sin with blood, alludes to JC. Fawn is JC/martyr/Charles I.
3
Q
Unconstant Sylvio, when yet I had not found him counterfeit One morning (I remember well) Tied in this silver chain and bell, Gave it to me; nay, and I know What he said then; I’m sure I do. Said he, “Look how your huntsman here Hath taught a fawn to hunt hisdear.” But Sylvio soon had me beguil’d, This waxed tame, while he grew wild; And quite regardless of my smart, Left me his fawn, but took his heart.
A
- Unconstant Sylvio = unconstancy of lover. If Charles is fawn, Sylvio is James I (devoted to hunting)
- I remember well = narrative voice
- Huntsman = James I loved hunting
- Hath taught a fawn to hunt his dear = pun on deer/dear
- This waxed tame, while he grew wild = parallel. Sylvio is more wild, fawn more tame
- Let me his fawn, but took his heart = caesura separates two actions
- Heart = just as hunters deceived fawn, sylvio deceives speaker. Conspicuous reaction. Pun on hart/heart
4
Q
Thenceforth I set myself to play My solitary time away, With this, and very well content Could so mine idle life have spent; For it was full of sport, and light Of foot and heart, and did invite Me to its game; it seem’d to bless Itself in me. How could I less Than love it? Oh, I cannot be Unkind t’ a beast that loveth me.
Had it liv’d long, I do not know Whether it too might have done so As Sylvio did; his gifts might be Perhaps as false or more than he. But I am sure, for aught that I Could in so short a time espy, Thy love was far more better then The love of false and cruel men.
With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at mine own fingers nurst; And as it grew, so every day It wax’d more white and sweet than they. It had so sweet a breath! And oft I blush’d to see its foot more soft And white, shall I say than my hand? Nay, any lady’s of the land.
It is a wond’rous thing how fleet ’Twas on those little silver feet; With what a pretty skipping grace It oft would challenge me the race; And when ’t had left me far away, ’Twould stay, and run again, and stay, For it was nimbler much than hinds, And trod, as on the four winds.
A
- How could I less than love it? = transferred her affections for Sylvio to the fawn. Fawn allows her to practice adult love. Unmediated by the consolations of mature, erotic love. Loss is insurmountable, brings about girl’s own demise. Psychological practice.
- As false of more than he = examining relationship, self-reflection and egotism of teenager
- The love of false and cruel men = rejecting patriarchy
- With sweetest milk/nursed = tentative, parental. Charles I encouraged links with JC. Girl is mother mary, fawn is JC
- Wax’d more white = Recalls white hart, beast of venery, prestigious form of hunting. An inescapable part of British folklore, symbol of royalty. Charles I was white king, wore white robes to Coronation.
- Any lady’s of the land = elevating fawn to royalty. Ovid and metamorphosis. Fawn transforms from male (silvic replacement) to female (lady of the land). Masculine embodiment of Sylvio vs. female nymph
- Prettty skipping = feminine
- Nimbler = fawn is child animal, on cusp of adulthood. Has character of submissive victim.
5
Q
I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness; And all the spring time of the year It only loved to be there. Among the beds of lilies I Have sought it oft, where it should lie; Yet could not, till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes; For, in the flaxen lilies’ shade, It like a bank of lilies laid. Upon the roses it would feed Until its lips ev’n seemed to bleed, And then to me ’twould boldly trip And print those roses on my lip. But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold. Had it liv’d long it would have been Lilies without, roses within.
A
- Garden = eden vs. symbol of England vs. sexual metaphor vs. Gethsemane
- Roses = passion vs. emblem of England vs. representation of human life span
- Lilies = white, represent death
- Little wilderness = virginity preserved in an ambiguous profusion of roses
- Loved = past tense. Purity and intensity of relationship
- Beds of lilies = foreshadowing death
- Upon the roses it would feed until its lips e’en seemed to bleed = transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation, RE debate. Red roses foreshadow danger vs. menstruation (on cusp of adulthood) vs. Charles the martyr vs. JC.
- Print those roses on my lip = childish depiction of fawn contrasts with serious subjects of poem: death, betrayal etc. Nymph abandons herself to childish and adolescent despair. Is in fact a real girl, if in an imaginary garden
- Lip = betrayal in garden, Judas
6
Q
O help, O help! I see it faint, And die as calmly as a saint. See how it weeps! The tears do come, Sad, slowly dropping like a gum. So weeps the wounded balsam, so The holy frankincense doth flow; The brotherless Heliades Melt in such amber tears as these.
I in a golden vial will
Keep these two crystal tears, and fill
It till it do o’erflow with mine,
Then place it in Diana’s shrine.
A
- Oh help! Oh Help! = drama
- Die as calmly as a saint = resonates with depiction of Charles during execution, bowed head calmly ‘as upon a bed’ vs. JC
- Heliades = turned into trees, wept resin. Brother dies after attempting to drive father’s chariot. Grieved for 4 months. Tear poem is fashionable
- Two crystal tears = tear poem. Nymph and fawn dignified by tears
- Diana’s shrine = Goddess of the hunt and an allegorical protector of women
- Till it do o’erlow with mine = 2 become 1
7
Q
Now my sweet fawn is vanish’d to Whither the swans and turtles go, In fair Elysium to endure With milk-white lambs and ermines pure. O do not run too fast, for I Will but bespeak thy grave, and die.
A
- Swans = greek mythology, symbol of light
- Turtles = turtle love is emblem of constancy
- Ermines = Charles, royal fabric
- And die = crafting teenage voice, hyperbole
8
Q
First my unhappy statue shall Be cut in marble, and withal Let it be weeping too; but there Th’ engraver sure his art may spare, For I so truly thee bemoan That I shall weep though I be stone; Until my tears, still dropping, wear My breast, themselves engraving there. There at my feet shalt thou be laid, Of purest alabaster made; For I would have thine image be White as I can, though not as thee.
A
- Cut in Marble = common place. Depicts not an ascent into heaven but a metamorphosis into stone, symbolising death. Frustrated genre expectation, sacrificial victim whose death counts for nothing (Charles I). Death in pastoral word, royalist and thus, represents court.
- Let it be weeing too = statue will weep too, melodramatic
- Weep though I be stone = weeping statue of Niobe. Ovid. Overcome by loss of children, wept until became statue
- Alabaster = white mineral rock at purest form, innocence in death, more pure than nymph. Focused on fawn, overwhelming grief and love, both dignified by tears. Nymph is symbol of grieving nation. Fawn’s death is death of childhood
- Thou not as thee = thee is last word, focused on fawn
9
Q
themes
A
Love
Intense Emotion
Death
10
Q
language general
A
- Sexual metaphor (‘I have a Garden of my own’, gives prominence to her virginity and by extension her innocence in the face of the trooper)
- References to the natural world (characterises it as a pastoral poem, purify and intensify her relationship with the fawn)
- Religious Lexus (‘holy frankincense’ engrains the allegory of the Fawn as Christ into the poem; Charles I also wanted to be seen as Christ, the language emphasises the idea of the fawn as a baby ‘sweetest milk and sugar first’)
- Childlike and simplistic tone of speech (Reinforces the image of purity and contrasts sharply against the subject matter of violence, betrayal and death)
- Images of Blood vs. white (recall the ‘bloody hands’ of the group of observers that watched Charles’ I execution in Marvell’s ‘Horation Ode Upon Cromwell’)
o Blood marks intrusion of men
o White = fawn and nymph, innocence and purity. Recalls white hart, beast of venery, prestigious form of hunting. An inescapable part of British folklore, symbol of royalty. Charles I was white king, wore white robes to Coronation. - Personal Pronouns (accentuate the intimacy of the nymph’s relationship with the fawn)
- Urgent and dramatic opening (typically metaphysical, drama as the dominant literary form)
- Meekness of fawn = Charles I death
o Love poem?
o Elegie for king?
o Religious poem?
o Political poem?
11
Q
levels of interp
A
o Xian ♣ Fawn = innocent victim, sacrifice of JC ♣ When girl is parental, she is Mary ♣ Garden = Eden/Gethsemane. Edenic innocence corrupted by human violence and sex (men invade garden) ♣ Flowers and roses (Song of Songs) o Pastoral ♣ Opens in garden = royalist ♣ Garden = England vs. sexual met ♣ Garden is desecrated by Sylvio and troopers o Classical ♣ Nymph is pagan ♣ Ovid metamorphosis ♣ Dian ♣ Killing of fawn – Virgil’s Aeniad • Sylvio is daughter of royal game keeper (Sylvia) o Royalist ♣ Regicide ♣ Charles I = white king ♣ Hunting = sport of royals ♣ Went to death with meekness ♣ Likened himself to JC ♣ Troopers = Cromwell army ♣ Mary Fairfax (tutee) is royalist ♣ Marvell political affiliation is ambiguous Nymph personifies grieving nation
12
Q
title
A
The title is simplistic in language, reflecting the youthfulness of the narrator. It also establishes the distinct separation between the nymph and the fawn which remains consistent throughout; they are not interchangeable.
13
Q
structure
A
- One long stanza in iambic tetrameter: Extreme variance between form and content is consistent with Marvell’s poetic distance at large, which armed to expose contradictions and paradoxes that, in turn, produce memorable aesthetic effects. Certain lines which invoke abrupt tetrameter ‘Left me his fawn, but took his heart’ hold stronger emphases (the emotional shock that accompanied her lover’s abandonment of her).
- Rhyming couplets = constancy of bond vs. desire to be reunited with fawn
- Abrupt Tetrameter lines (reflect the speaker’s emotional distress and instability)
- Indented paragraphs get shorter and shorter
- Parallels innocence of fawn and brutality of man. Enacted by caesura, creates balance, visually demonstrates parallel
Short sentences, exclamations, words tumble out in disordered syntax. Reflects psychology of teenager
14
Q
quotes - The wanton troops riding by / Have shot my faun and it will die’
A
- The wanton troopers could signify Cromwell’s army, who overthrew the monarchy and established the Commonwealth. The drama invoked in the opening lines creates immediate sense of pathos for the grieving nymph, fortified through the monosyllabic second line which recalls the masculine, violent and unstoppable nature of the troopers.
15
Q
quotes - ‘with sweetest milk and sugar first’
A
- The word “sweet” is repeated often, along with “milk,” “nursed,” “white,” and “soft”—all words which could easily describe or relate to a baby. The word “they” in line 58 remains ambiguous; it could refer to the milk and sugar, the nymph’s fingers, or perhaps even the nymph’s past paramours (Sylvio in particular), whom she has pointedly replaced with the fawn-child. Additionally, the slight hyperbole of “Nay, any lady’s of the land” evokes the common occurrence of a mother delighting in (and thus exaggerating) the accomplishments and charming qualities of her child. The parallel between nymph/fawn and Mary/Christ is further emphasised in two later lines, which strongly evoke death and the shroud: “And its pure virgin limbs to fold / In whitest sheets of lilies”cold” (89-90).
