Deforming John Milton’s ‘Sonnet 7: How Soon Hath Time’ was a similar experience as trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. Just like the Rubik’s cube, Milton’s anatomically constructed Sonnet proved to be somehow immune to any form of dematerialization and re-formation. In that sense, Prof. Jeffrey Robinson correctly referred to “the playful aggressiveness deformation usually requires.” The main constraint I had was taking a “great” poem, as Stephen Booth stated , and disfiguring it without impairing its brilliance or its artistry. My objective for this essay is an ambitious one: I will examine Milton’s Sonnet microscopically, I will analyze the procedure of how a poem with a rigid form was deformed into an abstract of words orbiting in cyclical …show more content…
Its structure – with the sequence of circles fading down infinitely – mirrors the immeasurable quality of time. Simultaneously, one of the procedures of my deformation involved reflecting that limitlessness in the way the poem is read. For instance, you can start reading the poem, and see this ungrammatical sequence of words: “measure Time soon slow youth three days late twentieth year”. Alternatively, the reader should be able to form smaller sequences that tie up together. For instance: “measure Time”, “slow youth”, “three days late”, “late twentieth year”, or even, depending on the readership, to re-think the position of some words in order to form different sequences. For instance the reader might fashion these sequences out of the word “Time”: 1) “fly Time” or “Time thief” or “fly Time thief”. As you are reading the deformed poem, you should be reminded of Milton’s original verses from “How Soon Hath Time”; verses which are grammatically correct. It is suiting that Prof. Jeffrey Robinson’s remarkable observation applies to this example - “as we read, we picture it in glimpses; we recognize it, but strangely.” I recycled words like “stol’n” and “arriv’d” from the original text, and used them in peculiar sequences with one another, in order to pop into the mind of the reader immediately and …show more content…
“How Soon Hath Time” is a deeply personal poem. It focuses on Milton’s inability – or denial to understand – the inevitability of time, evident by “stol’n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!” (line.2) William McCarthy shares this view in his biographical interpretation of the poem by saying that it “registers the poet’s anxious dismay at having arrived at maturity.” In deforming this poem my intention was to separate the poet from the poem and in a way to replace the personal aspect of Milton’s writing with a universal one. I wanted to universalize “How Soon Hath Time” in order to be applicable and relatable even to the most casual reader. The procedure of doing that was: a) using the economy of language to discard Milton’s personal agenda, as seen in “my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th”, b) by hand-picking all the words that pertain to Time, and applying Ezra Pound’s theory of “finding the word that corresponds to the thing.” In other words, including no unnecessary words “that distract from the most important factor of the meaning.” Therefore words like: “soon”, “slow”, “youth” and “year” were included in my deformed poem because they all share archetypal allusions of Time. In that way the poem shifts from something we can relate and connect to into a poem exclusively about
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
Nature, that washed her hands in milk” can be divided structurally into two halves; the first three stanzas constitute the first half, and the last three stanzas make up the second half. Each stanza in the first half corresponds to a stanza in the second half. The first stanza describes the temperament of Nature, who is, above all, creative. This first stanza of the first half corresponds to stanza four, the first stanza in the second half of the poem. Stanza four divulges the nature of Time, who, unlike Nature, is ultimately a destroyer. Time is introduced as the enemy of Nature, and Ralegh points out that not only does Nature “despise” Time, she has good reason for it (l. 19). Time humiliates her: he “rudely gives her love the lie,/Makes Hope a fool, and Sorrow wise” (20-21). The parallel between the temperaments of Nature and Time is continued in stanzas two and five. Stanza two describes the mistress that Nature makes for Love. This mistress, who is made of “snow and silk” instead of earth, has features that are easily broken (3). Each external feature is individually fragile: her eyes are made of light, which cannot even be touched, her breath is as delicate as a violet, and she has “lips of jelly” (7-8). Her demeanor is unreliable, as well; it is made “Only of wantonness and wit” (12). It is no surprise that all of the delicate beauty Nature creates in stanza two is destroyed by Time in stanza five. Time “dims, discolors, and destroys” the creation of Nature, feature by feature (25-26). Stanzas three and six complete the parallel. In the third stanza, the mistress is made, but in her is “a heart of stone” (15). Ralegh points out that her charm o...
The poem begins by explaining the sluggishness of time and sets the mood for the rest of the piece. The repetition of the word “slow” was employed by the author in order to emphasize that changes in life occur very slowly and may even pass unnoticed. However, it is still important to recognize that time is progressing, but it takes so long that it’s hard to realize so. The last sentence expands on this idea by introducing “palsied apples”, comparing time’s speed of movement with that of a paralyzed being. It is also important to highlight the relevance of the syntax present in the first lines of the poem, as its analysis will lead to an interesting contrast with the last stanza. Nevertheless, in the first stanza, the author describes a “copper-coated hill”, and in fact, the author continues to describe the setting of his poem by employing a variety of warm colors to capture the true essence of autumn.
Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.
In Gwen Harwood’s poetry, the changes in an individual’s perspective and attitudes towards situations, surroundings and, therefore transformations in themselves, are brought on by external influences, usually in the form of a person or an event. These changes are either results of a dramatic realisation, as seen with shattering of a child’s hopes in The Glass Jar, or a melancholy and gradual process, where a series of not so obvious discoveries produces similar reformation. An example of the later case would be Nightfall, the second section of Father and Child, where the persona refers to her forty years of life causing “maturation”. For the most part these changes are not narrated directly but are represented by using dynamic language techniques to illustrate constant change in the universe of the poem.
Strand, Mark and Evan Boland. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New
...vocal statement about the ?organic? possibilities of poetry than optimistic readers might have expected. ?Mayflies? forces us to complicate Randall Jarrell?s neat formulation. Here Wilbur has not just seen and shown ?the bright underside of? a ?dark thing.? In a poem where the speaker stands in darkness looking at what ?animate[s] a ragged patch of glow? (l.4), we are left finally in a kind of grayness. We look from darkness into light and entertain an enchanting faith that we belong over there, in the immortal dance, but we aren?t there now. We are in the machine-shop of poetry. Its own fiat will not let us out completely.
The central scenes contain the heart of the drama, that for which the rest exists – the drama of the revelation. The poet’s task here is to make its effect adequate to the expectation. He manages to spin it out to nearly 500 lines, and, instead of thinning, increases the excitement by spreading it out; it becomes a threefold revelation rising to a climax (36).
has the gentle heart of a woman but is not inconsistent as is the way
...undending sense of time “the slow clock ticking” she conscious of the unusual slowness of time. The poem ends by Mariana addressing God 'Oh God, that I were dead', here we have an ironic reference to Measure for Measure, indeed in the play Duke Vincentio diguised as a fiar reunites the two lovers.
Robert Herrick’s poem “Corinna’s going a Maying” at its surface is a love poem from a young man to his lover asking her to come with him to celebrate the festival and activities that surround the famous May Day. But on a deeper examination of the poem’s core is a lesson about exploring and experiencing our days before they fly by “as fast away as do’s the Sunne”(61). Within the last stanza (lines 57-70) the apprehension towards time is used to persuade Corinna to experience life before it begins “decaying” like time always does (69).
“The Divine Image” has five ballad stanzas that, with the use of repetition throughout each stanza and a meter that alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, has a hymn-like quality; making the poem seem very simplistic and natural. He pairs repetitive diction with a flowing syntax to charac...
...ness into one ball. What does he mean by that? Why would they roll their strength and sweetness into a ball? The “sweetness” and “strength” are used as symbols for a cannon in which the narrator uses to establish his triumphant victory in successfully persuading his mistress to give in to his wishes. He goes on saying they should vent their frustrations through the act of sex because “thus though we cannot make our sun stand still, we will make him run.” What does he mean we make our sun run but we cannot make it stand still? The allusion of the sun is used as the narrator’s vengeance against time, with him ultimately stating that instead of being controlled by time he will attempt to control it himself. His frustrations with time will be relieved as he and his mistress force the sun to race them, instead of giving in to the essence of time (Poetry for Students).
... feared time. At times he seemed as if he was angry at the fact that time went by too quick and not enough time allowed him to spend summer with his beloved. Other times he spent glorifying how beautiful his beloved one was and how the beauty can’t ever be taken away. It makes it difficult for the audience to take his reason serious at times because at one point in the poem he seems to have contradicted himself. I found out that this poem had a portion of metaphors, similes, and imagery and personification throughout the entire poem. He begins the poem with a simile and ends it with a personification on the poem.
... is romantic and at ease, but he turns brisk and honest as time disintegrates. This image becomes crystal clear with words and phrases such as, "heart", "beauty", "youthful hue sits on thy skin", "our sweetness", "virginity", "breast", and "pleasures". All of these words provide the reader with an illustration of the man's desires. The use of imagery permits the author to fully describe the necessity of time, and allows the reader to visualize the thoughts and feelings that the characters experience.