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RENAISSANCE POETRY
PASTORAL POETRY
 CARPE DIEM
 SONNETS
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PASTORAL POETRY
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Set in an idealized countryside
Inhabited by handsome shepherds and
beautiful young women (nymphs)
All live in harmony with nature
Characters are simple country folk, yet
they use sophisticated diction and
imagery
PASTORAL POETRY: continued
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Many express a longing or nostalgia for a
simpler, more innocent time
Takes its name from the Latin pastor
meaning “shepherd”
Depict country life in idyllic, idealized terms
Characters are naïve and innocent yet
express themselves with poetic sophistication
PASTORAL POETRY: continued
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Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593)
Contemporary of William Shakespeare
His most famous play: The Tragicall History
of Dr. Faustus, which is about a man who
makes a deal with the devil.
Our book tells us that Marlowe’s heroes want
to be more than mere men, and only death
can put an end to their grand ambitions
Marlowe is believed to have died in a bar
fight about the amount of a bill (258)
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by
Christopher Marlowe (pg. 259)
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountains yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs,
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning.
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
PASTORAL POETRY: continued
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Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552 – 1618)
Served as Queen Elizabeth I’s confidential secretary
and captain of the guard
Devoted to colonizing the Americas
Charged with treason (not true) against King James
in 1603
Executed in 1618
Lived in Tower of London until execution
Did not think of himself as a writer; only 35 of his
poems have survived (260)
Wrote a reply to C. Marlowe’s pastoral poem
125 / 195-7dc. Tower of London - Brick Tower - and Sir Walter Raleigh.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Adventurer - explorer - parliamentarian - author and poet - Raleigh was
the man who according to legend laid his cloak over a puddle so that
Queen Elizabeth 1st. would not muddy her feet. He also introduced
potatoes and tobacco into Britain from the ‘New World’, now known
as North America. So why was Sir Walter Raleigh imprisoned in the
Tower of London. And, not just once but on three separate occasions.
First time: Early on in his career Raleigh happened to be the favourite of
Queen Elizabeth 1st. That is until in 1592 when she discovered he was
secretly married to her maid-of-honour Elizabeth Throckmorton,
whereupon she flew into a jealous rage and sent him to the Tower of
London. Although he was later released, he was for ever more
banished from the Royal Court. As for where he was imprisoned
exactly, no-one really knows, although it is thought that the Brick
Tower above is a likely candidate….
....Second time: Raleigh, although admired by
many, nevertheless, was not without his
enemies who in 1603 persuaded James 1st
that he was suspected of opposing the King’s
succession to the throne. And although not
sentenced to death for treason, Raleigh was
nevertheless arrested and sent to the Tower of
London yet again. On this occasion, however,
he was definitely kept here in the Bloody
Tower. And an extra floor was added so that
his family, who wanted to be with him, could
also be accommodated….
On the first floor of the Bloody
Tower, seen here, is Raleigh's
private chamber in which you can
see the writing desk where he
wrote the 'History of the World'.
Although it appears he did'nt get
very far, as he only reached the
second Macedonian War in 130
BC....
“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir
Walter Raleigh (pg. 261)
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
But Time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies.
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee an be thy love.
But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
CARPE DIEM
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Literally means “seize the day”
Literary theme that urges living and
loving in the present moment, since life
and earthly pleasures cannot last (263)
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”
by Robert Herrick (pg. 265)
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
“To His Coy Mistress”
by Andrew Marvell (pg. 267-68)
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews,
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For. Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave’s a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore while the youthful hue
Sits on thy like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life;
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
SONNETS
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A 14 lined lyric poem
Conforms to a specific rhyme scheme
You are responsible for knowing three types
of sonnets:
1. Spenserian sonnet
2. Petrarchan sonnet
3. Shakespearean sonnet
Spenserian sonnet:
taken from: Literature: timeless voices, timeless themes
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Named for the poet Edmund Spenser (1552 – 1599)
Born into a working-class family, but later became
one of the few poets who depended on his writing
money for his lively hood.
He is most famous for his sonnet sequence called
Amoretti, which is addressed to his own wife.
He dedicated The Faerie Queene to Elizabeth I.
Sonnet sequence: a group of sonnets linked by
theme or subject. (206 – 07)
SPENSERIAN SONNET: continued
TAKEN FROM: LITERATURE: TIMELESS VOICES, TUIMELESS THEMES
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Rhyme scheme
ababbcbc cdcdee
The sonnet is divided into two sections:
the octave and the sestet
“The octave raises a question or presents a
situation and the sestet gives a response.”
Edmund Spenser
Sonnet 30
My love is like to ice, and I to fire;
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not delayed by her heart-frozen cold:
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told
That fire which all things melts, should harden ice:
And ice which is congealed with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device.
Such is the pow’r of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.
Petrarchan sonnet
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Also called the Italian sonnet
Rhyme scheme
abbaabba ccdeed
Divided into two parts
the octave and the sestet
The volta is the transition or turn of the
sonnet usually found in the ninth line
(276)
Shakespearean sonnet
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Also called Elizabethan sonnet or English sonnet
Rhyme scheme
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abab cdcd efef gg
This kind of sonnet is divided into four parts
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three quatrains and one couplet which is indented
The quatrains (4 lines) express related ideas
The couplet (2 lines) sums up the poet’s message
This sonnet also has a volta
Many of Shakespeare’s sonnets are sad because of
“unrequited love” (276 – 78)
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling bud of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long live this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 130
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.