Wilmot - Absent from thee Flashcards
How does the speaker present love and fidelity?
The speaker questions if men are genetically coded to be unfaithful and avoids responsibility for his infidelity. He uses phrases like ‘absent from thee I languish still’ to suggest weakness and a lack of choice in his actions, being forced to remain in an unpleasant situation.
- The imagery of being trapped by fidelity and societal convention is evident in ‘From thine Arms then let me fly’.
- The phrase ‘wearied with a world of woe’ indicates that he finds fidelity monotonous as shown through alliteration, desiring freedom while expecting loyalty from his partner - suggesting he will stray but wont be fully satisfied
- ‘to thy safe bosom i retire’ - patriarchal double standard
What is the presentation of love and selfishness?
- The speaker describes male fidelity through a semantic field of suffering, reflecting his self-importance with personal pronouns.
- He prioritizes his own pleasure over his partner’s emotional needs, disregarding her in favor of his pursuits of pleasure and lust.
- This attitude is influenced by the hedonistic values celebrated after the interregnum, contrasting with the moral restrictions of puritanism.
How is love and morality presented in the text?
- The speaker is willing to abandon traditional moral conventions for hedonistic pleasure.
- He acknowledges the consequences of his actions with lines like ‘lest more wandring from that heaven fall on some base heart unblessed’, indicating awareness of his moral decline, straying from goodness and heaven.
- ‘faithless to thee, false, unforgiving, and lose my everlasting rest’, contemplating losing your place in heaven would have been shocking to a religious person - he is prepared to lose his place in heaven for the joy of being with his love, and he doesn’t care about the potential implications of his sinful actions
