ceslayer23
IN YOUR MIRROR
+142|6807|CLOSER THAN I APPEAR
For my British Literature class I need to analyze the poem "Hymn to Diana" (sometimes called "Hymn to Cynthia") by Ben Johnson.

The poem is actually a part of a play called Cynthia's Revels.

I'm having a ton of trouble with it and I'm sure its due to the fact that I can't figure out what Diana/Cynthia represents.  Recently in class we've been analyzing poems that use things as 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) but I can barely understand the poem, much less try to figure out what Cynthia/Diana represents. 

Here's a link to the poem:
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/724.html

and here's a link to the wikipedia page on Cynthia's Revels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia%27s_Revels


So if anyone here is actually half decent at stuff like this, could you please help me?
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6599|what

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?

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v83/rac_goshawk/awsm11.png

She represents the sun in the poem.
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
Bevo
Nah
+718|6967|Austin, Texas
Hymn to Diana

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.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wishèd sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever;
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

    -- Ben Jonson




Eds: Quite elementary tbh. She's "perfect", or emits light, a symbol of purity. Her purity is unable to be ruined.

She's not the sun, lulz.

Last edited by MadKatter (2008-12-11 16:58:12)

AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6599|what

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.
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6917
By 'analyse' do you mean the process of forming a thesis/argument or a straightforward criticism / critical appreciation?

There's a lot more to the poem if, for example, you have to form a metric-syntactic thesis in an argument. A critical appreciation with annotations and literary analysis is very straightforward and easy, I'll help out with a method if you need one for such a task.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
ceslayer23
IN YOUR MIRROR
+142|6807|CLOSER THAN I APPEAR
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
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6599|what

MadKatter wrote:

Eds: Quite elementary tbh. She's "perfect", or emits light, a symbol of purity. Her purity is unable to be ruined.

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

lol
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
ceslayer23
IN YOUR MIRROR
+142|6807|CLOSER THAN I APPEAR
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
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6599|what

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
That's another take, she could very well be the moon.

She's some big shining gravitational force not to be reckoned with either way.

https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6917

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? .
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
ceslayer23
IN YOUR MIRROR
+142|6807|CLOSER THAN I APPEAR
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
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6917

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)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Bevo
Nah
+718|6967|Austin, Texas

TheAussieReaper wrote:

MadKatter wrote:

Eds: Quite elementary tbh. She's "perfect", or emits light, a symbol of purity. Her purity is unable to be ruined.

She's not the sun, lulz.
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.
ceslayer23
IN YOUR MIRROR
+142|6807|CLOSER THAN I APPEAR

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.
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6599|what

MadKatter wrote:

TheAussieReaper wrote:

MadKatter wrote:

Eds: Quite elementary tbh. She's "perfect", or emits light, a symbol of purity. Her purity is unable to be ruined.

She's not the sun, lulz.
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.
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
Bevo
Nah
+718|6967|Austin, Texas

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.
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|7139
I think she is the moon.
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6917
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 .
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Bevo
Nah
+718|6967|Austin, Texas
Nevermind, I appear to be wrong.

Condolences.
ceslayer23
IN YOUR MIRROR
+142|6807|CLOSER THAN I APPEAR
thanks guys, 45 minutes ago i had no idea what i was doing, but bf2s = geniuses, thanks again, special kudos to uzique and reaper
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6917

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.

Ces wrote:

thanks guys, 45 minutes ago i had no idea what i was doing, but bf2s = geniuses, thanks again, special kudos to uzique and reaper
/geekmode: That's the brilliant and rewarding thing about poetry: you stare at densely woven verse that seems indecipherable, and with enough time and concentration it opens up into something far more enriching, engaging and entertaining than most straightforward prose .

Last edited by Uzique (2008-12-11 17:42:50)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
argo4
Stand and Deliver
+86|6379|United States
i analyzed ulysses by tennyson...maybe do this one instead if u can
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6917

argo4 wrote:

i analyzed ulysses by tennyson...maybe do this one instead if u can
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Bevo
Nah
+718|6967|Austin, Texas

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.
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6917

MadKatter wrote:

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.
Where are you getting that 'rule' from exactly?

What about Romanticist poetry where sometimes someone such as Coleridge or Shelley will spend an entire 5 cantos writing about an Aeolian harp, or a nightingale? Shakespeare's Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day, one of the most highly regarded Sonnets? I don't really agree with the "usually" part, but I'll agree that there is a lot of variety in poetical constructs.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/

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