BF2S Forums Oh God, Poetry Help Please

ceslayer23 wrote:

metaphors to depict loving a woman or the pursuit of a woman,  (ex. a man hunting a deer which is a metaphor for him trying to get the girl)

Well who hasn't wanted to shoot and mount the girl they were after?



She represents the sun in the poem.

Better clarification:

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

seated in thy silver chair represents either the sky or the ocean. You see the sun set in the brilliant ocean of silver. She\The Godess is excellently bright. So she is the sun. That's the best metaphor which links her as actually being the sun in this stanza.

Last 2 lines of the poem:

Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

She is the sun and brightens his day, just as the sun does.

Hope that helps. It's my interpretation anyway, come up with your own or learn from it, either way, good luck.

Hesperus entreats thy light
Goddess excellently bright

Hesperus is the "evening star" so I am led to believe that "Seated in thy silver chair" is referring to the moon, not the sun?  like I said though, I'm not good with this stuff so you guys are probably right

Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close

meaning she is the moon?  I think that's what I'm gonna go with

ceslayer23 wrote:

Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close

meaning she is the moon?  I think that's what I'm gonna go with

It's an allusion to the classical concepts of the moon, not the Sun. It's right there in the footnotes of the link that you posted; the explanatory notes are there for a reason- so people without a classical education can understand Jonson's style (which is always full of classical allusion, too damn much).

"Diana: the Roman goddess of wild animals and the hunt. Corresponds to the Greek Artemis, who in turn is associated with Selene, the goddess of the moon."

Bearing in mind as well that Hesperus is the evening star, this further rejects the sun interpretation.

I'm still unsure as to what your task is? You just have to conduct a semantic reading and explain the surface meaning of the poem? .

ceslayer23 wrote:

Basically I need to paraphrase the poem, find an explain any extended metaphor, look for literary technique (figurative language, apostrophe, refrain, personification) and explain how that explains the theme or purpose of the poem, and then come up with a thematic statement


i hate school

Oh well then, this is very easy and straightforward.

The classical allusion is a poetic conceit that basically is an extended metaphor, only referring to other literature and art in existence rather than concepts and abstracts. Explain fully all of the Greek-Roman allusion and the significance of this; what it means in straight-forward classical interpretation; what the connotations of such allusions and references are etc.

Literary techniques are a goldmine task when it comes to poetic interpretation. With someone as well-read and finely-honed as Jonson you're not going to struggle to find enough to meet your word-count. Something that I noted on my very first cursory reading was the syntagmatic and paradigmatic arrangements of certain stanzas/lines in order to emphasize the veneration (you could also take this as an opportunity to digress away and define the 'Hymn' as a literary form, essentially constructing a formal thesis as part of your overall argument). Just as an example, the rearranging of "Earth" and "Heaven" in the second stanza away from the standard sentence structure places them at the beginning of the line-- you could argue that this syntactic rearrangement focalises the reader's interpretation and understanding of Jonson's appraisal and sentiment that became clear to you from the semantic reading. This in effect has formulated a syntactic-semantic thesis just off 2 lines alone, which you could easily form into an argument (e.g. that Jonson's grammar/syntax is deployed in order to emphasize his semantic meaning and theme). This would be perfectly-demonstrated critical analysis, and if you wanted to take the easy-route you could just methodically go through the poem from Line 1 to Line 18 integrating your thesis into a coherent argument.

This is just an example, I think your teacher is looking for something along the lines of this? Based on your explanation: looking for literary techniques and exploring metaphor/allusion/para-intertextuality in order to better understand the poet's meaning is a semantic-syntactic thesis, in a more 'critical' lexis.

When reading constructed verse by the likes of Jonson, you have to remember that every single word and its placement is carefully chosen and purposefully placed- so you can literally produce thousands of words on those three stanzas alone approaching the content from different theoretical perspectives.

Last edited by Uzique (2008-12-11 17:24:35)

Uzique wrote:

ceslayer23 wrote:

Basically I need to paraphrase the poem, find an explain any extended metaphor, look for literary technique (figurative language, apostrophe, refrain, personification) and explain how that explains the theme or purpose of the poem, and then come up with a thematic statement


i hate school

Oh well then, this is very easy and straightforward.

The classical allusion is a poetic conceit that basically is an extended metaphor, only referring to other literature and art in existence rather than concepts and abstracts. Explain fully all of the Greek-Roman allusion and the significance of this; what it means in straight-forward classical interpretation; what the connotations of such allusions and references are etc.

Literary techniques are a goldmine task when it comes to poetic interpretation. With someone as well-read and finely-honed as Jonson you're not going to struggle to find enough to meet your word-count. Something that I noted on my very first cursory reading was the syntagmatic and paradigmatic arrangements of certain stanzas/lines in order to emphasize the veneration (you could also take this as an opportunity to digress away and define the 'Hymn' as a literary form, essentially constructing a formal thesis as part of your overall argument). Just as an example, the rearranging of "Earth" and "Heaven" in the second stanza away from the standard sentence structure places them at the beginning of the line-- you could argue that this syntactic rearrangement focalises the reader's interpretation and understanding of Jonson's appraisal and sentiment that became clear to you from the semantic reading. This in effect has formulated a syntactic-semantic thesis just off 2 lines alone, which you could easily form into an argument (e.g. that Jonson's grammar/syntax is deployed in order to emphasize his semantic meaning and theme). This would be perfectly-demonstrated critical analysis, and if you wanted to take the easy-route you could just methodically go through the poem from Line 1 to Line 18 integrating your thesis into a coherent argument.

This is just an example, I think your teacher is looking for something along the lines of this? Based on your explanation: looking for literary techniques and exploring metaphor/allusion/para-intertextuality in order to better understand the poet's meaning is a semantic-syntactic thesis, in a more 'critical' lexis.

When reading constructed verse by the likes of Jonson, you have to remember that every single word and its placement is carefully chosen and purposefully placed- so you can literally produce thousands of words on those three stanzas alone approaching the content from different theoretical perspectives.

karma wrote:

You may not karma the same person in a 24 hour period.

TheAussieReaper wrote:

MadKatter wrote:

TheAussieReaper wrote:

She's perfect, an orb and emits light, but isn't the sun?

lol

Why must she "be" an object? Most poetry doesn't use people to represent things, much the opposite. Besides the obvious references to the sun that the poet already put in the poem, it doesn't make too much sense. The sun wouldn't brighten the shadows of the earth, because the shadows are CREATED by the sun.

BE as in the sense of a METAPHOR.

lol. And I was wrong about the Sun. She is representative of the moon. I read the silver light she sleeps in as either the sky or the ocean and thought ocean.

I don't think you're understanding, lol. "love poems" or describing anything tends to be a series of metaphors. This "goddess" or what have you isn't simply "the moon". Parts of the moon may be used as a metaphor to describe her, but it's not x=4.

Aussie/MadKatter, the final couplet:

"Thou that mak'st a day of night,    
        Goddess excellently bright!"

That's straightforward, no? Teh m00n.

Ceslayer, get deeeep and form a metrical thesis around the poet's elected rhymescheme, the chained ABAB with the final concluding CC couplet reflects both the diurnal cycle (ABAB, back and forth rhythmically) and the eternal continuity of the process/Diana's glorious qualities in the looping endrhyming couplet. Going beyond the call of duty for extra marks! I would bother to analyse the scansion and metre but I think it would be really over-the-top for your task to integrate a metrical analysis into an explanation of the basic meaning .

thanks guys, 45 minutes ago i had no idea what i was doing, but bf2s = geniuses, thanks again, special kudos to uzique and reaper

i analyzed ulysses by tennyson...maybe do this one instead if u can

Uzique wrote:

MadKatter wrote:

Nevermind, I appear to be wrong.

Condolences.

I'm not saying 'the moon' as a physical object is all he is addressing or praising... not at all. I'm simply clarifying the moon as the object in the weird sun/moon interpretation argument, which should have been obvious from the offset . It's clear that the moon and the moon's beautiful qualities, coupled with the classical mythology/allusion surrounding the moon, are metaphorically used in his hymn to Diana. It's symbolic, not literal.

Right. I know.

It seems that the entire poem is an extended metaphor of the moon, though. Where usually it's not a single object or idea being compared to the subject, but many.