Friday, March 25, 2011
The Republic
In a comment I left about Beowulf, I mentioned Plato's The Republic. Below is a link that is an online copy of The Republic. It is a very interesting read and I suggest everyone read it at some point of their lives!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Good morning Love
John Donne is obviously a poet who knows how to write about love. What I wanted to concentrate on in this week’s rumination is how Donne uses the ideas of waking and sleeping in many of his poems. The common cliché that lovers often say to each other gravitates around something like, “you are the first person I think of when I wake up, and the last person I think about before I sleep.” With the few Donne poems we were assigned, the most striking occurrence was the mentioning of morning and night in relation to love.
The titles of three of Donne’s poems reference morning. These poems include, “The Good-Morrow,” “The Sun Rising,” and “Break of Day.” These three poems deal with the narrator ‘greeting’ morning in different ways. For instance in “The Good-Morrow,” the narrator speaks about not knowing what they did before they loved. They talked about a good morning waking their soul and adventuring through love. There is an interesting comparison made about discovering new worlds. I took this as the narrator promoting discovering a new world of love, just as a map would lead a sea-discoverer to a new land. It talks about that good morning is the start of these adventures, so morning is put in a good light in this poem.
In “The Sun Rising” the narrator doe not welcome the sun. The narrator feels that the “unruly sun” calls on the lovers in bed and “must to thy motions lover’s seasons run.” The speaker, who just happens to be a king, in the beginning of the poem felt as though he was more important and powerful than the sun. He did not welcome it at first. Later in the poem, the tone changes. He speaks of how if it weren’t for the light of morning sun he would not be able to see the wonderful woman lying next to him in bed. By the end of the poem, once again the morning light is an important factor in this narrator’s story of love.
Lastly, the main character in the poem “Break of Day” is actually the Light, that comes from the morning. Throughout the poem, it is Light that actually interferes with the lovers. It is written from the perspective of a woman, who is angry that the lovers must part people Light makes an appearance.
What is the fascination with morning, light, the sun, ect. when it come to Donne and love? Another cliché that I believe Donne would agree with is when a person says, “the sun rises and sets on a person.” Donne has to think that love is fresh and awakening, since he pairs it up with morning sun in his poems. We also see how he may pair love up with night and darkness and togetherness. Either way, it is clear that Donne enjoys using “Morning” as a major part of his poems.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Have someone read you Shakespeare!
I was reading some of the sonnets to myself, and I thought it might be helpful to have someone read them to me as well. Check out the links below. Its really interesting to hear them in the voice, and I was able to get a better grasp on them as well!
Sonnet 55- James Earl Jones!
Sonnet 106
Sonnet138
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