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short note on puritanism
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Earthly Pleasures in Virtue by George Herbert and Go Lovely Rose by Edmund Waller
There are clearly opposing views of how individuals should spend the short time they have on earth. In George Herbert's poem, "Virtue", and in Edmund Waller's poem, "Go, Lovely Rose", the poets have contradicting values of what should be done with our time on earth. Herbert is a puritan who believes that earthly pleasures should be ignored, as life should be spent preparing for another world after death. In contrast, Waller suggests individuals take advantage of earth's beauty and surrender to life pleasures. Though both poems recognize the ideal world that surrounds us, "Virtue" indicates earthly pleasures should be ignored, while "Go, Lovely Rose" suggests we succumb to the bliss of life.
Herbert begins the poem with an appropriate title, "Virtue", which helps convey the underlying meaning of the poem. A short definition of virtue is moral goodness. The decisions individuals make in life should be moral and exclude earthly distractions. People should spend their time on earth preparing for the next place after death. Through the title, the author already examines how ethical decisions are the road to salvation.
The poem "Virtue" acknowledges secular wonders that surround us everyday, but the poem also recognizes that these wonders are unimportant. To indulge and be intrigued by earthly pleasures is mindless behavior. The "rash gazer" (Herbert 6) is mindlessly obsessed by the world and follows urges with no purposeful intent. Obsession with worldly pleasures is useless as it does not better an individuals soul. This behavior distracts people from preparing for the next world as earthly influences cloud the path to righteousne...
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...hysical world. While some believe there will be consequences for those who allow temptation into their life the choice is up to each individual.
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There are clearly opposing views of how individuals should spend the short time they have on earth. In George Herbert's poem, "Virtue", and in Edmund Waller's poem, "Go, Lovely Rose", the poets have contradicting values of what should be done with our time on earth. Herbert is a puritan who believes that earthly pleasures should be ignored, as life should be spent preparing for another world after death. In contrast, Waller suggests individuals take advantage of earth's beauty and surrender to life pleasures. Though both poems recognize the ideal world that surrounds us, "Virtue" indicates earthly pleasures should be ignored, while "Go, Lovely Rose" suggests we succumb to the bliss of life.
Louden opens this section with this statement: “… it is commonplace that virtue theorists focus on good and bad agents rather than on right and wrong acts.” This is a good th...
Hursthouse, R. (2003, July 18). Virtue Ethics. Stanford University. Retrieved March 6, 2014, from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/ethics-virtue
Virtue, then deals with those feelings and actions in which it is wrong to go too far and wrong to fall too short but in which hitting the mean is praiseworthy and good….
Centuries apart Robert Herrick and Robert Frost wrote poems illustrating the brevity of life. “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time'; by Herrick and “Nothing Gold Can Stay'; by Frost are the two poems which address the limited time humanity, especially the time of youth, has to spend in this life. Both authors use nature to symbolize the shortness of life and the time spent in youth.
The ethical life of the poem, then, depends upon the propositions that evil. . . that is part of this life is too much for the preeminent man. . . . that after all our efforts doom is there for all of us” (48).
The World Is Too Much with Us, written by William Wordsworth in 1807 is a warning to his generation, that they are losing sight of what is truly important in this world: nature and God. To some, they are one in the same. As if lacking appreciation for the natural gifts of God is not sin enough, we add to it the insult of pride for our rape of His land. Wordsworth makes this poetic message immortal with his powerful and emotional words. Let us study his powerful style: The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! (Lines 1 - 4) Materialism, wasteful selfishness, prostitution! These are the images that these lines bring to me! Yet, is it not more true today than in Wordsworth’s time, that we are a culture of people who simply consume and waste?
Gerard Manley Hopkins, born in 1844 and who is an optimist, is also one of the greatest poets of the Victorian Era (Academy of American Poets). There's also William Wordsworth born in 1770 is another optimist and another great poet, but of the Romantic Era (Harriet Monroe). Both of these poets from two separate time periods have the same idea of society and the human population in general. Materialism is a trait that can torment both the rich and the poor and is described as both culturally destructive and very much self destructive (George Monbiot). In both poem of “God's Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins and “The World is too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth, both of these poems have similar ideas of expressing their opinions of the advancement of technology and the growth of complexed architecture.
During the industrial revolution of England, humans engaged in monotonous work and lost harmonious unity with nature. In the nineteenth century, when the poet William Wordsworth wrote his sonnet “The world is too much with us,” the aspects of industrialized society had changed a factory worker’s life, leaving no time or the desire to enjoy and take part in nature. In his Petrarchan sonnet, Wordsworth criticizes humans for losing their hearts to materialism and longs for a world where nature is divine.
“Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart.” This is a saying Longfellow read in Germany where his wife died. The words gave him hope for the future. It inspired him to want to write a series of psalms. The first one, “A Psalm of Life” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is an uplifting poem that compels us to feel hope for the future. After reading it the first time it had a powerful effect on me. Surprisingly, he wrote this poem few months after his first wife died. Longfellow took his wife’s death and interpreted it as a sign to look at life as fleeting and it passes quickly. I feel that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, after his wife’s death, had an optimistic view on life in the poem, “A Psalm of Life”.
To begin, Wordsworth shows fear of mortality throughout the lines in the poem The World is too Much with Us. He explains that we continue to waste our lives by only being concerned with material things. Once we start caring more about money, we are lost! The speaker claims that our obsession with "getting and spending" has made us insensible to the beauties of nature. "Getting and spending" refers to the consumer culture accompanying the Industrial Revolution that was the devil incarnate for Wordsworth .(Shmoop Editorial Team) We lose our chances to do better and accomplish things when we give away our hearts because we become enthralled with love. Soon we become blind from what really matters in life and drift away from Nature. We take for granted the little things in life and become out of tune.
In summation, when considering poetry looking at the complexities of it and considering their worth is imperative. “The World Is Too Much with Us” and “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” are both wonderful poems with deep, wonderful meanings and are sprinkled with literary devices that add depth and understanding to them. The poems of Wordsworth are beautiful sonnets that embody the Romantic era of poetry completely.
Then on the other hand, the poet says that his beloved is not like the extreme summer days, that his youth will not fade, he will not lose the beauty he currently possesses and beauty will not die, but live forever (and that he will be immortal), at least in this poem. As long as people exist on earth, this ...
The fifth stanza of Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” is especially interesting to me because of the images it presents. It is at this point in the poem that Wordsworth resumes his writing after a two-year hiatus. In the fourth stanza, he poses the question, “Whither is fled the visionary gleam?” Stanza five is the beginning of his own answers to that question. Contrary to popular enlightenment ideas, Wordsworth suggests that rather than become more knowledgeable with age, man if fact is born with “vision splendid” and as he ages, that vision “dies away” and he left empty.
During Wordsworth time as a poet he made it his mission to have poetry be read by not only the aristocrats but also now the common man something that has never been done. In both poems Wordsworth makes his poems relatable by incorporating themes that everyone can relate to even if they haven’t personally had that experience, although both poems do differ when it comes down to structure and form but also when trying to convey a message, these poems are important because these ideas have never been done before and now even the average Joe can finally participate in a conversation about poetry and this brings two world together.
Through the poems of Blake and Wordsworth, the meaning of nature expands far beyond the earlier century's definition of nature. "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." The passion and imagination portrayal manifest this period unquestionably, as the Romantic Era. Nature is a place of solace where the imagination is free to roam. Wordsworth contrasts the material world to the innocent beauty of nature that is easily forgotten, or overlooked due to our insensitivities by our complete devotion to the trivial world. “But yet I know, where’er I go, that there hath passed away a glory from the earth.