Month: September 2023

A Sitting Ovation to Stand Whoso List (from Sir Thomas Wyatt)!

Posted on by Chris Zhou
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This is my first blog post, feel free to give me feedback on what I can improve on!

Of the poems this week, my favorite was “Stand Whoso List” by Sir Thomas Wyatt. The overarching theme of the poem is living a peaceful life to earn a peaceful death. He paints busyness as an enemy to this ideal, as the more occupied a person is with things in mind, the further away he is from achieving this goal. He desires to die as himself, happy and his own goals achieved. He believes that thinking as another person and wishing to be them causes one to be completely unhealthy and unhappy, driving them into a miserable life:  “For him death gripeth / right hard by the crope / That is much known of other; and of himself alas, / Ooth die unknown, dazed with dreadful face (6-10, Wyatt)”. The “Ooth die unknown” line felt like a simple yet chilling message – it’s understandable to admire a person, but you need to come to terms with your own character to find happiness – even if they’re flawed.  

 

When I was reading it, I thought the poem emphasized more on a trochee meter, given how many times the poem would go from stressed to unstressed (brackish, stand, whoso); I think it provides a nice theme of a pendulum between harmony and chaos. The oxymorons between phrases like “brackish joys” and “dazed with dreadful face” help darken the mood of the story and make the narrator’s words more urgent and dramatic.




Whoso List to Hunt: possibly a very disturbing poem?

Posted on by Claire Lazar
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For this week’s blog post, I’m choosing to focus on the poem Whoso List to Hunt by Thomas Wyatt. In the simplest of terms, I read this poem as one about hunting, particularly a man who tires of hunting a deer. He describes his attempts to capture the deer, ultimately comparing his endeavors to catching the wind with a net— impossible and ultimately fruitless. He speaks to the reader, revealing that while his mind is with the deer, his body can carry on no more, and he must give up the chase. In this way, the poem is quite direct. However, I understood this poem, more thematically and symbolically, to be about a man’s pursuit of a woman, with the deer representing the object of the speaker’s affections. This reading threads, for me, into two possible interpretations. The first is one of lost love and heartbreak: the speaker of the poem has been trying for so long to win his love’s affection that he has grown weary, incapable of carrying on. It is a poem, for him, about the prize he could not win, and the woman who ultimately belonged to another. While he gives up the chase, his thoughts remain with her— he is devoted to a woman he ultimately cannot have. Sweet sentiments, absolutely. However, I am drawn to a more sinister reading of this poem, particularly to the undercurrents of violence that such an interpretation carries. The word hunt, particularly, enhances this reading of the poem for me. There’s an inherent implication of brutality, a single-minded goal of capturing and/or killing one’s target that, when applied to the idea of romantic pursuit, becomes incredibly disturbing. It stirs the image of predator and prey, framing the woman in this poem as a prize to be won, her ultimate fate being slaughter. And despite the deer’s escape, the speaker describes a kind of persistent obsession with his love, his thoughts lingering with her even when he forfeits his pursuit. When read innocently, the idea, as I mentioned before, seems sweet. However, after applying a more alarming tone to the poem, such statements become cause for concern. He appears oddly possessive, warning those who might try to win her that she is impossible to catch. It’s possible that this is a complete misreading of the poem, but I thought it might be an interesting perspective to examine.

Thomas Wyatt’s “The Long Love “

Posted on by Seth Moore
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Being completely honest here, I am having trouble finding the exact message of this poem, and the meaning I have derived may be faulty, so please feel free to comment about it! It would be greatly appreciated.

Thomas Wyatt’s “The Long Love” is a poem about love and control, and how the two conflict. This poem personifies love as a soldier that in our minds we quarter, which I think is a really unique take that I like because it can bring a lot of interpretations for it. It could be used to depict love as a confused, in the context that many soldiers may die not knowing the true cause that they out their lives down for. I think that would be a fun take on that, although in this poem it is not used in that way. In this poem, love is personified as a faithful soldier, who will lie down and die with his host/master. (This is the part I am confused about and still trying to understand)

After the first 4 lines personify love as a soldier which “thought doth harbor,” it introduces a new character assumed to be the lover of the poem. The lover is portrayed as having a certain amount of power or control over the narrator, and thus causes conflict as love’s “hardiness taketh displeasure.” Or, the way the lover reigns control over the narrators love is something the narrator’s love does not like. Love and control are conflicting.

This is solved in the final 6 lines, where the love flees into the forest like a deer (A deer is an animal we hunt for sport so is the poem trying to depict love as vulnerable or innocent??), and love faithfully dies in a field (Weird).

Again, my interpretation of the poem is probably flawed, but I see it as this. The narrators comparison to love as a faithful soldier and the lover as controlling (not entirely manipulative but definitely limiting) is telling us that if we are ever unhappy in a relationship then we have full control to flee??? (And die in a field…. This is definitely a stretch sorry)

Which ‘Sencelesse Stone’

Posted on by Lucy Leness
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Amoretti’s sonnet 54 portrays really interestingly the insecurity behind an artist’s inability to take criticism. I’m referring to the speaker as ‘he’ here, but don’t believe they necessarily have to be a man. The speaker begins by comparing this life he shares with another to a theater.  He relates his love – either the person who he loves, or his abstract feeling of love – to an audience member. The speaker writes of his love’s presence as secondary to his own, explaining that “Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay, / My love lyke the Spectator ydly sits” (1-2). This love watches from the outside as the speaker narrates his own story, and every story. The lines “Beholding me that all the pageants play, / Disguysing diversly my troubled wits” (3-4) reveal that the speaker plays every part, dictates every voice, and expresses every emotion. Conversely, his love remains a bystander, robbed of real autonomy in this unfolding story. If the speaker plays every part in the theater of their romance, the relationship he seems to refer to describes only his own self-obsession. He continues to perform alone, continuously disguising his true character and preventing his love from assuming an active role in the tale of their partnership. 

The speaker speaks of this person as his ‘love’, but also complains of her cruelty. He feels the contempt she holds for his acting, as “when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry / She laughs, and hardens evermore her hart” (11-12). She seems to not believe in, or care for, in the sincerity of his emotion. His crying seems comical to her, and for ‘evermore’ she withholds her sympathy. She lacks trust in him– and for good reason! He shows no concern for anything she may have to say. He asks, “What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone, / She is no woman, but a sencelesse stone.” (13-14); he cannot move her emotionally, and thus confirms she has no sense of humanity or womanhood. He now considers her a foolish variation of the most inanimate of objects: a stone. 

Rather than wondering if her failure to appreciate his performance may relate to the quality of his acting, he instead decides that she must be inherently stupid. In fourteen lines, he has professed his love, and compared that same love to a useless rock. He immediately invalidates criticism – even when it comes from those supposedly important to him – for he stays so sure of the perfection of his craft. 

The Ballad Which Anne Askew Made and Sang When She Was in Newgate. (Pg. 146)

Posted on by Jackson Rassias
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This ballad was especially interesting to me. Upon first reading, I was already fascinated with it due to the double rhyming scheme. Every line rhymes with every other line, with some minor exceptions, which may be due to different ways of pronunciations. This creates such an exciting read, especially out loud, and it allows the ballad to flow more in a songesque way, which makes sense, seeing as Askew sang this while in captivity. As I did more research on Anne Askew and the conditions of her imprisonment, the words held far more profound meaning. While I encourage others to look up the history for themselves, the general sense of it was that Anne Askew was a devout Protestant who married a devout Catholic. Her husband later kicked her out, and she traveled to London, where she continued to preach Protestantism. Her husband later had her arrested, from which she was held in the Tower of London and tortured. She was repeatedly asked who else followed the Protestant ways and tried to convert her, but she did not give up any names nor switch her ideology. She was eventually burned at the stake, though she stuck to her beliefs even as she was chained. Certain lines ring strong in the ballad, acknowledging her dedication to her beliefs. For instance, in line 4, “and faith shall be my shield,” which displays both determination and irony, as faith is also the sword of her captors for which she is being slain. Line 2, “appointed to the field,” invokes a sense of purpose, as if she was placed on this earth to preach Protestantism, and she intends to do that. Also, passage 7…

“More enemies now I have
Than hairs upon my head
Let them not me deprave,
But fight thou in my stead.”

…is also interesting, as while her enemies were numerous, that being the crown and Catholics, I also think this applies to men. On the Wikipedia page, it was said that both her husband and brothers were against her expressing her religious beliefs. In this sense, men have oppressed her; they are also her enemies. I also like how she acknowledges that history may vilify her, though she believes that the truth will come out and those followers will fight her enemies in place of her. This also cements her determination and dedication to the cause, as it is implied that Askew knows about her impending death.

Sonnet 39 from Astrophil and Stella

Posted on by Julia Afsar-Keshmiri
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Like Claire, I also really enjoyed Sonnet 39 from Astrophil and Stella this week. For me, the poem was really interesting because of its parallels to a book that I read last year called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. This book’s discussion of sleep research was absolutely fascinating. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in sleep science, or needs some motivation for prioritizing sleep! In the book, Walker discusses the many benefits of sleep, the history of sleep, and the science behind the different stages and types of sleep. I found it fascinating while reading Sonnet 39 that Sir Philip Sidney mentions many of the same benefits, given that “sleep science” was far from a studied field when he wrote this poem. This really speaks to how fundamental sleep is in the human experience, and what it can do for a person emotionally and physically. Even without studying the science of sleep, we all know what it feels like to not get a good night of sleep. Sidney uses a metaphor to compare sleep to the “balm of woe” (line 2), calling it a healing oil for sorrow. Walker discusses how sleep is a critical period for emotion processing, and we can certainly imagine that a good night of sleep might have helped Sidney process his intense emotions. In the last few lines of the poem, Sidney writes “thou shalt in me, / Livelier than elsewhere, Stella’s image see” (lines 13-14). This idea of seeing Stella’s image and seeing it so clearly in his dreams also matches up with what science tells us. When we dream, we are able to process the events and emotions we feel throughout the day and we are able to awake with a clearer picture of those events. Walker talks about musicians who struggle playing a piece, and then awake from sleep suddenly being able to play the piece with no trouble. Sidney’s personification of sleep as “Th’indifferent judge between high and low” (line 4) and someone he will pay tribute to in order to achieve peace is similar to how some people view god. This highlights the intense power of sleep that Sidney felt, and his belief in it.

Sidney, from Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 39

Posted on by Claire Cooper
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Of all the sonnets of this weekend’s reading, my favorite was sonnet 39 from Astrophil and Stella. In this sonnet, the speaker personifies sleep, complimenting it for its ability to provide a safe haven from the despair of real life, serving as “the poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release” (line 3). What I found most fascinating about this sonnet was the irony of the lines’ speaking of liberty while the speaker is actively being imprisoned by his own poetry, having to fit it into the confines of the sonnet form and meter. While some of the other sonnets in our reading speak of poetry as a source of freedom, comparing it to nature, the speaker in sonnet 39’s poetry is an active participator in his reality of confinement and hardship. In describing sleep as his only escape from the woes of real life, the speaker implies that the sonnet, which is written while he is awake and is also inherently confining, is a piece of this harsh reality. Certain aspects of the sonnet’s form also mirror the meaning of its lines. The rhythm of the sonnet’s iambic pentameter provides a lullaby-like comfort, almost like the speaker is trying to accomplish his wish and lull himself to sleep through his own poetry. However, the speaker’s desperate pleading for relief as well as his guarding of the details of his own plight until the last few lines adds commotion and suspense to the poem, counteracting the otherwise calming consistency of the meter. In this way, the speaker creates a central tension in the poem between calm and chaos, helping his audience to empathize with his struggle. The other tension of the sonnet is the fact that the speaker seems to be trying to use sleep to simultaneously escape the pain of being in love with Stella and to see her once again. He says, “With shield of proof shield me from out the prease / Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw” (lines 5-6), with the description of “darts” evoking the image of cupid’s arrows, meaning that his love for Stella is the source fo his “despair.” However, after suggesting many different offerings to sleep in exchange for its relief, the speaker says: “And if these things, as being thine by right, / Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, / Livelier than elsewhere, Stella’s image see” (lines 12-14). This suggests that the speaker plans to see “Stella,” the source of his heartache in his dreams, meaning that, while she provides him with strife in his waking hours, she gives him sweet relief in his dreams. Perhaps his favorite part about sleep is that he can see Stella in the context in which he wants to see her.