Poetry Context Flashcards
What other poems of Wyatt’s feature unobtainable love?
‘And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?’ - Features a male speaker begging a woman to stay with him, repeating ‘say nay, say nay’.
‘They Flee from Me’ - Features a male speaker reflecting on women who seek him at night for sexual/romantic affairs and then leave.
How does ‘Who So List to Hount I Know Where Is An Hynde’ reflect Wyatt’s life?
Wyatt was rumoured to have been involved in an affair with Anne Boleyn, thus the poem could represent his pursuit of her despite her being owned by Henry IIIV.
What is ‘Cesar’ a reference to in ‘Who So List to Hount I Know Where Is An Hynde’?
Julius Caesar, a politically powerful Roman politician renowned for military accomplishments.
How many sonnets did Shakespeare publish in total?
154
What were remarriage rates like in Renaissance England?
They were typically high, due to a higher death rate.
What is powerful in the notion of a ‘Tempest’ to Renaissance readers?
Tempests and storms were much more threatening due to a lesser quality of shipcrafting, and the literate classes who would have been able to read Shakespeare would have had experience (be it as traders or nobility) at sea given the rise of colonialism and expansive foreign trading (e.g. with the Ottoman Empire) in the Early Modern era
What other works of Shakespeare feature tempests and storms?
- ‘The Tempest’ opens in a ship caught in a powerful storm.
- ‘Twelfth Night’ opens with Viola being shipwrecked due to a storm.
What other Shakespeare works feature personified abstract concepts? (As Shakespeare does to ‘Love’ in Sonnet 116)
In ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Romeo cries ‘I Am Fortune’s Fool!’. Fortune is personified in this play as an entity.
What other Renaissance poems present love as timeless?
In John Donne’s ‘The Sun Rising’, the speaker says ‘Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime’
What does metaphysical poetry value?
Carpe Diem messages
What other Donne poems feature opening imperatives?
‘The Canonization’
How did S letters appear in Renaissance manuscript typography?
They would resemble the letter f in lower case
What other poems by Donne feature interrogatives which silence/persuade other personas?
- ‘Woman’s Constancy’ - where the speaker assumes of what the female speaker may say to deny him.
- ‘The Canonization’ - where the speaker asks why he cannot love and what harm it could do.
What does Michael Donkor suggest about the speaker in ‘The Flea’ continuing to speak after the flea’s death?
The speaker is ‘more enamoured with the artistry of his own conceits’ than the lady
What is a syllogism?
Two arguments bridged together into a conclusion, used in ‘To His Coy Mistress’
What other Lovelace poetry uses hair imagery?
The speaker of ‘Song to Amarantha’ begs for Amarantha to unbraid her hair so that it can be free and admired for its beauty.
What features of Wilmot’s poetry are constant?
Sexual promiscuity, satire, and breaking cultural taboos
What aspects of Wilmot’s life impact his poetry?
Wilmot was known for his immense sexuality within the court, and constantly falling in and out of favour with the king for his antics and satire.
What was Blake’s personal view on Church and Religion?
Blake himself was a sworn Christian, though he did not believe the Church as an institution was a proper manifestation of Christianity and was inherently corrupt.
What happened during the Industrial era of Blake’s writing?
With the onset of capitalist society in the turn of the century, private landlords began to own green space that had previously been public communal ground.
What is the partner poem for ‘The Garden of Love’?
‘The Echoing Green’ - A poem of nostalgia for one’s youth, as a community spanning three generations gather in public green space to play sport, and the elderly generation remember their youth.
What is Blake’s poetry collection that ‘The Garden of Love’ comes from?
‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’, a poetry collection of partner poems depicting an innocent perception of the world that is childlike and an experienced, cynical perception of the world affected by society.
As well as being an edenic reference, what does the ‘Garden of Love’ refer to?
It is reminiscent of the ‘Song of Solomon’ in the Bible, which cherishes sexuality as the female speaker invites the male to the garden to try her fruits, metaphorical for sexual love.
What other contemporary literature to ‘The Ruined Maid’ draws on the fallen woman archetype?
- ‘Vanity Fair’: A satire depicting Becky Sharp, an orphan who uses her powers of seduction to enter upper class gentry circles and earn riches.
