POETRY MIDTERM

Sonnet 60 - William Shakespeare

Theme: the relentless passage of time and human mortality, time takes away our youth

Tone: Philosophical, reigned but dignified.

Structure: Fluid imagery throughout the couplet asserts the verse as defiance of time.

Distinction: Characterized by time as a wave imagery and cyclical rhythm — the movement of time, nativity → maturity

Sonnet 64 - William Shakespeare

• Theme: Fear of loss — time as destroyer of human achievement and love.

• Tone: Dark, mournful, reflective.

• Imagery: Ruined towers, brass statues, “death’s conquest.”

• Structure: Observational — from decay in the world to personal loss; final line expresses dread (“That Time will come and take my love away”).

• Distinction: The bleakest — no triumph over time, only acceptance of decay.

• 🔹 Tip: If it feels haunted and hopeless

65 Sonnet - William Shakespeare

• Theme: Fragility of beauty and strength under time’s power — yet hope in poetry.

• Tone: Tense, questioning, meditative.

• Imagery: Strong materials (brass, stone, sea) weakened by time; ends in hope: “O, none, unless this miracle have might / That in black ink my love may still shine bright.”

• Structure: Builds an argument of destruction → ends with miracle of verse.

• Distinction: Closely related to Sonnet 55 but more anxious and reflective.

Sonnet 17 - William Shakespeare 

• Theme: The poet doubts that anyone will believe his praise of the beloved because the beloved’s beauty is beyond language.

• Tone: Humble, doubtful, reverent.

• Imagery: Future readers, “fresh numbers,” “a poet lies too much.”

• Structure: Final couplet resolves doubt — poetry can immortalize the beloved’s beauty if he has a child (“You should live twice, in it and in my rhyme”).

• Distinction: About the limits of poetry and the truth of praise; self-conscious about exaggeration.

• 🔹 Tip: If it’s skeptical about how words can convey beauty, it’s Sonnet 17.

Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare

• Theme: Beauty and love’s immortality through verse.

• Tone: Confident, idealizing, serene.

• Imagery: Summer, rough winds, “eternal lines.”

• Distinction: balance of nature + art.

• 🔹 Tip: The seasonal metaphor and smooth rhythm make this easily recognizable.

Sonnet 19 - William Shakespeare

• Theme: Time’s destructive power vs. poetry’s power to resist it.

• Tone: Commanding, defiant.

• Imagery: Violent — “blunt the lion’s paws,” “burn the long-lived phoenix.”

• Structure: Apostrophe to Time; final couplet asserts art’s triumph — “Yet do thy worst, old Time.”

• Distinction: The only one that directly addresses Time as a destructive force

Sonnet 29 - William Shakespeare 

• Theme: Personal despair and redemption through love.

• Tone: Begins mournful, ends joyful and grateful.

• Imagery: “Outcast state,” “heaven’s gate,” “sweet love remembered.”

• Structure: Emotional turn at line 9; ends in a triumphant couplet (“Then I scorn to change my state with kings”).

• Distinction: Only one centered on emotional depression and renewal rather than beauty or time.

• 🔹 Tip: Watch for self-pity to joy transition — very human and psychological.

Sonnet 55 - William Shakespeare

• Theme: Poetry outlasts physical monuments.

• Tone: Proud, assertive, immortalizing.

• Imagery: War, stone, monuments, time’s decay.

• Structure: Builds a case that verse > material legacy; concludes that the beloved will “live in this.”

• Distinction: Monument imagery — focuses on memory and endurance of art.

• 🔹 Tip: “Marble,” “monuments,” “war’s waste” = this sonnet.

They Flee From Me - Thomas Wyatt

• Theme: Changeability of women, loss of favor, shifting fortune.

• Tone: Bitter, nostalgic, wounded pride.

• Imagery: Animalistic — women as tame creatures turned wild (“They flee from me that sometime did me seek”). The bedchamber scene gives a sensual but regretful feel.

• Style: Personal and confessional; dramatic monologue tone.

• Distinctive feature: Uses past/present contrast and hunting imagery to show how power and affection shift.

• 🔹 Tip: direct, emotional voice; unique among his works for its personal betrayal tone rather than moral or political restraint.

My Lute, Awake - Thomas Wyatt

• Theme: The end of love and the futility of trying to revive it.

• Tone: Resigned but defiant; he speaks to his instrument as if it could echo his emotional exhaustion.

• Imagery: Music as metaphor for poetry and passion (“My lute awake! perform the last labour”).

• Style: Ballad-like structure; refrain-like repetition of “My lute, awake!”; regular rhythm.

• Distinctive feature: Addresses the lute directly — the only one of these poems that personifies an instrument.

• 🔹 Tip: Stands out for its musical, apostrophic voice (he’s literally commanding his lute to stop playing).

The Long Love That In My Thought Doth Harbor - Thomas Wyatt

• Theme: Love as a noble but painful force; the struggle between desire and virtue.

• Tone: Stoic, formal, restrained — a Petrarchan meditation on love’s battle.

• Imagery: Extended military conceit — Love as a soldier dwelling in his heart, bearing a banner of obedience, finally retreating in shame.

• Style: A Petrarch translation — structured, abstract diction, focused on reason over emotion.

• Distinctive feature: Entirely sustained metaphor of love as war.

• 🔹 Tip: If you see “love as a knight/soldier” → it’s this poem.

Whoso List to Hunt - Thomas Wyatt

• Theme: The futility of pursuing a woman already claimed by power (often read as Anne Boleyn / Henry VIII allegory).

• Tone: Tired, cynical, weary of the chase.

• Imagery: Hunting and deer imagery — the deer wears a collar engraved “Noli me tangere” (“Touch me not”).

• Style: Classical Petrarchan octave/sestet; ends in despair and warning.

• Distinctive feature: The only one using explicit Latin inscription - “Noli me tangere”  and the political allegory of power/lust.

• 🔹 Tip: “Deer with a diamond collar” = this poem it’s about pursuit, exhaustion, and unattainable love.

I Find No Peace - Thomas Wyatt

• Theme: Inner conflict and contradictions of love.

• Tone: Tormented, introspective, philosophical.

• Imagery: Full of paradox — “I burn and freeze like ice; I fly above the wind; I love another, and thus I hate myself.”

• Style: Petrarchan sonnet; a chain of opposites and contradictions.

• Distinctive feature: The catalog of paradoxes — classic translation of Petrarch’s Pace non trovo.

• 🔹 Tip: When you see contradictory emotions or oxymorons, it’s this one.

My Galley - Thomas Wyatt

• Theme: Despair and lack of direction; life as a ship in stormy seas (metaphor for political and emotional turmoil).

• Tone: Hopeless, bleak, meditative.

• Imagery: Nautical imagery — “My galley charged with forgetfulness / Thorough sharp seas, in winter nights doth pass.”

• Style: Petrarch translation; metaphor of the ship of state/self; dense, compressed syntax.

• Distinctive feature: Only poem with sea voyage imagery; blends love and danger.

• 🔹 Tip: If you see storm, ship, pilot, or sea, it’s this one.

Sonnet 34 - Philip Sydney 

Theme: Frustration with writing as a means of love; the tension between poetic creation and real emotional connection

• Astrophil wants to write love poetry to win Stella’s favor, but she questions his motives — exposing the gap between art and sincerity

Style & Structure:

• Petrarchan sonnet form (octave + sestet).

• Begins as an internal monologue but quickly turns into a conversation — rare in Sidney’s sonnets.

• If the poem sounds like a conversation with Stella questioning the poet’s purpose, it’s Sonnet 34.

  • Keywords: “Come, let me write… to what end?”, “She asked”, “truth in love, and love in truth.”

Sonnet 71 - Phillip Sydney

Theme:
The connection between outer beauty and inner virtue; Stella’s physical beauty reflects her moral perfection.
Sidney explores how visible beauty reveals invisible goodness — the classic Renaissance idea of the body as a “book of nature.”

Tone:
Reverent, admiring, devotional
Less self-tormented than other sonnets, this one reads like praise and contemplation.Imagery:

• Book of Nature: Stella’s body is a “book” where moral truth is inscribed.

• Eyes and soul imagery: her eyes convey purity and wisdom; he “reads” her virtue through her beauty.

Tip: If the poem uses book, nature, virtue, and beauty as moral reflections — it’s Sonnet 71.

The Faerie Queene - Edmund Spenser

• Memorize the stanza form — if you see 9 lines with ababbcbcc, you’ve identified the poet.

• Theme — focus on temptation, beauty, destruction.

• Remember allegory — every character or object represents a moral quality.

• Revisit the ending stanzas — your professor said those are important! (BCC pattern) 

Verses with a Diamond - Elizabeth I

Tone: Stoic, restrained, dignified — a queenly voice of quiet defiance.
There’s no bitterness or emotion — just clarity and calm pride.

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury - Elizabeth

Delivered to soldiers gathered at Tilbury, Essex as they prepared to defend England against the Spanish Armada.

Elizabeth was in her mid-fifties — still unmarried — ruling as both political and spiritual leader of her nation.

The speech was meant to inspire loyalty, courage, and unity, emphasizing that she was both monarch and servant of her people.

• Prose, not verse

• Direct address to an audience (“my loving people”)

• References to England, soldiers, or God’s protection.

• Contrasts between female body / male heart.

• Tone of courage and unity.