Cavalier + Metaphysical Poetry
Cavalier Poets
Graceful, polished, witty, even often brazen lyrics
Exalted love, women, and gallant actions
Poets are often referred to as “Sons of Ben”
Influenced by their pressor, Ben Johnson
DUAL MEANING
NOUN: a courteous, gallant gentlemen
ADJ.: careless in manner, off-hand, free and easy
Disdain Returned (Thomas Carrow)
1st Stanza
Lines 1-4= Love based on physical attraction
METAPHOR: fuel=characteristics/fires=attraction to person
Rosy cheeks, coral lip, star-like eyes = FACIAL FEATURES which fuel his fire of love
USES WORDS THAT RHYME ON PURPOSE
“Cheek”+ “seek”= PHYSICAL
“Admires” cause “fires”
“Decay” love “away”
Lines 5-6 = when physical attributes decay, is someone’s love is only physical, LOVE WILL DECAY
“Time makes these (physical attributes) DECAY
“Time” is personified as being able to waste away
“So his FLAMES must waste away
flames=metaphor for love
2nd Stanza
Lines 7-10= Love based on personality
“Smooth and steadfast mind/gentle thoughts and calm desires”
“HEARTS with EQUAL love COMBIN’d”
They both love EACH OTHER
“Kindle never-dying FIRES”
Reinforces metaphor
LOVE THAT IS NOT PHYSICAL= will last
Personality>physical attraction
Lines 11-12= SCORN for purely physical love
“Where these(the values described before like steadfast mind and gentle thoughts) are not, I despise/Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes”
3rd Stanza
DIRECT ADDRESS TO CELIA
“No TEARS”= she’s crying because fine shyt won’t take her back
“My resolv’d heart to return” = love will return
METONYMY (reference something associated with something else): HEART is associated with LOVE
“search’d thy soul/ found pride and scorn” = inside you CHOPPED SHYT
“learn’d thy arts”=being scornful, skills for pride
“Can disdain as much as thou”= can be the same as you
“Some power, in my revenge, convey/ That love to her I cast away.”
2 INTERPRETATIONS
Casting away love from her even though HE DOES LOVE HER
By casting her outside, he is making amends for doing the same (being prideful and scornful) to someone else.
Two people in the poem
Speaker/Man: in love with someone because of physical attraction BUT develops more mature view on love
Celia: spoiled, vain, manipulative, shallow, self-centered
To Daffodils (Robert Herrick)
Daffodils= one of the first flowers ever to bloom in spring
spring=life returning
1st stanza:
“You haste away so soon”= quickly run to death
“early-rising sun/ has not attained his noon”
sun=lifespan
Sun isn’t even halfway through journey
Life is still so young
“But to the evensong/having prayed together/ will go with you along”
Transition between DAY and NIGHT/ LIFE AND DEATH
Diction:
“haste” and “run”= QUICK fleeting nature of time
“prayed”= life is a religious experience
“we”= ALL PEOPLE
2nd Stanza
“We have short time to stay, as you:”
EQUATES daffodils life with human life
: means he will list more and explain further
“As short as spring” = SHORT YOUTH
“As quick as a growth to meet decay” = WE grow to DIE
“As you, or anything./we die,” = Growing to death is Universal experience
“As your hours do, and dry/Away”
Emphasizes how short daffodils life is because it can be measured in HOURS
“Like to the summer’s rain;/Or as the pearls of morning dew/ Ne’er to be found again”
Image of summer rain and morning dew= LIFE
Once it is there but it evaporates as if it never existed
pearl= life is PRECIOUS
TONE: somber, melancholy, fatalistic, meditative
APOSTROPHE: speak to inanimate object/person(daffodils) not present
CONCEIT: quick lifespan of a daffodil=quick life of human
To the Virgins, to Make the Much of Time (Robert Herrick)
Make the best of time while you can, because life is limited
CARPE DIEM POEM
Youth is the best part of time
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may/Old time is still a-flying”
GET WHAT YOU CAN EXPERIENCE while you can BECAUSE TIME IS FLYING
Rosebuds: still young
Time: personified as flying
IS PERMANENT + GOES ON FOREVEr
“flower that smiles today/ tomorrow will be dying”
Metaphor for life: alive one day, dead the next
Life is impermanent
“glorious lamp of heaven, the sun/ higher he’s a getting/ the sooner will his race be run/ and nearer he’s to setting”
The higher the sun goes, the closer to death
Most important word is “race”= moves quickly towards something (death)
Life is a metaphor for race to death
Sun goes through a cycle, the higher it gets, the closer it is to death
Youth is the best age/time
“But being spent, the worse, and worst/ Times still succeed the former”
When you is being spent/gone, the older you get the worst and worse times are
STILL: constant process, always been life this
Then don’t be falsely modest/coy and instead use your time
Direct address to the virgins
When you get the chance marry someone BECAUSE when you are old NO ONE WILL WANT YOU
Tone: somber, realistic, urgent
An Ode For Him (Robert Herrick)
Ode= lyric poem that treats a noble subject in a dignified manner
Him= Ben Johnson= poet that everyone looked up to
1st Stanza
Focuses on events where Johnson + Followers went to bars/taverns to drink and read poems/ have LYRIC FEASTS (Where the feasted on each others poetry)
Speaker refers to himself as a guest=inferior to Johnson
“Made us nobly wilde, not mad”= NOT INSANE, because they feasted on poem
“Each verse of thine/outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine”
His poetry was better that the meat and wine
Meat= nourishing
Frolic wine: lively wine=intoxication
Even tho the wine was intoxicating HIS POEMS WERE MORE
Tone: nostalgic, reminiscent, admiring, affectionate
Stanza 2
Send us what poems Johnson never got to use (the surplus)
“Thy wit’s great overplus. . . teach us to husband it”
Teach us how to CONSERVE it and use it wisely/prudent manner so we don’t run out it.
OVERPLUS: related to harvest= store stock of something
Compare his wit to a harvest that needs to be conserved
“That precious stock, the store/Of such a wit the world should have no more.”
Wit: intellect
The world is a poor place without Johnson
Delight in Disorder (Robert Herrick)
Something delightful because it's chaotic
He finds her disorderful state delightful because it's all his imagination
EMBLAZON: picture or describe conspicuously= He’s emblazoning the ways she dresses
TONE: humorous, admiring, joyful, curious, playful
Everything she wears is sloppily put on (chaotic), coming undone
He finds this attractive
Distracted by thrown around shoulders (shawl)
Laces coming undone
CRIMSON STOMACHER: red=love/lust
Ribbons flowing slopiliy
Crease in petticoat
Untied shoestring
STORMY petticoat
He sees “wild civility”
Juxtaposition/OXYMORON
He believes there is a wildness underneath the civility she wears
BY NOTING ALL HER IMPERFECTIONS HE IS MORE FASCINATED
So he can leave it up to his imagination to imagine under
He is bewitched/put under her spell
Is art was too precise he would not be so fascinated because you know
On My First Son (Ben Johnson)
Elegy- dignified poem mourning the death of someone or something
lament=express sorrow
WHOLE POEM IS = Apostrophic because this talking to dead kid
Tone= elegaic
He is stoic through it= he is not crying but being rational
WRITTEN IN RHYMING COUPLETS
Benjamin means fortunate BUT IRONIC BECAUSE HE DIED ON HIS BIRTHDAY WHICH IS UNFORTUNATE
Quatrain 1
His mistake was that he had hoped for too much for his boy
“Seven years thou went lent . . . thee pay/exacted by thy fate on the just day”
These words are words of describing so sort of transaction
God lent him the boy and he pays through death
Preordained that the boy was going to back to god on the day he was born
Quatrain 2
“O could I lose all father now/will man lament the state he should envy/ ‘scaped world’s and flesh’s rage/ no other misery yet age”
Could i lose all feelings of fatherhood to help lessen the pain
ENvy that state of being in heaven (he’s in a better place now)
Escaped the pain, horrors, evils of the world
At least the kid won’t age
Quatrain 3
“Rest in SOFT peace/here doth lie ben johnson his best piece of poetry/ for whose sake HENCEFORTH all his vows be such/as what he loves may neve LIKE too much.”
SOFT PEACE: shows that this is not an ANGER-FILLED poem, BUT he GENTLY accepts his son’s death
HIS SON IS HIS BEST THING THAT HE HAS EVER CREATED
In the future he never wants to love something that might hurt/pain him
He will never be hurt so deeply because of liking something too much but his daughter also dies
TONE: resigned, nothing i can do
MOOD: somber, gentle, calm, BITTERSWEET, doleful
Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount (Ben Johnson)
Greek myth: echo never shutted up, curse by athena to only repeat what other say, narcissus a good look dude sees echo, calls her ugly, narc gets cursed to fall in love with the first person he see, falls in love with his reflection + rots away and dies
Echo talks to a stream/fountain
Analogy between water and tears, tells stream to run at the same rate her tears are falling
“List . . . music bears/woe weeps our her division, when she sings”
lListen to the music of the streams
Sounds of her crying compared to streams= stream should match her crying
“She sings: other music she is referring is her lamenting Narc’s death
“Droop herbs and flowers/fall grief in showers”
Wants them to cry with her as well/ petals leaves falling off
USE OF APOSTROPHE
“Our beauties are not ours, could i still/ like melting snow upon some craggy hill”
Reference to narc/ oh can i die like the snow melting
“Drop, drop drop, drop” = PENULTIMATE LINE
quiets down + slows down, like her dying
Effective because it creates rhythm and repetition emphasizes how ECHO wants to DIE
“Since nature’s pride is not withered daffodil”
narc= victim of his own pride
withered=dead
SATIRE OF A STUPID WOMEN WHO CRY OVER SOMEONE WHO CALLED HER UGLY
ELEGY
SIN OF SELF-LOVE
Metaphysical Poetry
Study of the ultimate causes and underlying nature of things
Tres to explain reality and nature of the universe
John Donne is the most notable
Characteristics:
Intellectual tone
Ordinary speech lime puns paradoxes(two ideas that collide) and HIGHLY ORIGINAL IMAGERY
METAPHYSICAL CONCEIT (may function as the controlling image of the entire poem)
Abstruse terminology (diff. To understand)
Irregular rhythmic patterns (not in iambic, moving pentameters)
Linking intelligence with emotions (the more emotional the more intelligent
Realistic view of Psychological tensions of sexual love
To His Coy Mistress (Andrew Marvell)
***Syllogism**= arguments comprised of 3 parts, 2 premises and one logical conclusions from premises
1st Premise
If time weren’t a problem, this is what I would do:
I would try everything to woe you
She’d be searching for rubies in the Ganges (which would take her for ever)
I’d be complaining that you are so far from be in the Humber River in England
EMPHASIZES TIME AND PATIENCE
I will wait from ten years before Noah’s Arc ( a time no one knows the date of) until the Jew are converted (a time so far ahead in the future)
My love will grow as slow as a vegetable and grow on and on
Would worship each and every part of her body
You deserve to be adored
Refers to her as “lady” to show respect and flatter her
2nd Premise
TIME IS A PROBLEM
“Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”
Time is limiting how much I can adore you
Time is chasing them in a winged chariot
All that will be left are “deserts of vast eternity”
Lifeless, after we dies, nothing is left but desters for all eternity
You will be ugly/chopped shyt and I’ll be dead
You will turn to dust and worms will take your virginity
There won’t be any action after death, yes its nice and peaceful, but nothing will do its embrace
3rd Premise
CARPE DIEM, you want to do it and so do i so let's just do it
While you are still young and beautiful do it with me
You are just as “willing” as I am to do this
“Like amorous birds of prey” = eagles, vultures consume other birds
Consume each other with love
“Rather at once our time devour/than languish in his slow-chapped power”
Let's be more sigma than time and defeat it and use it to our best advantage
“Through the iron gates of life:/Thus, though we cannot make our sun/stand still, yet we will make him run”
Can’t just crash through the gates to heaven but if we do it and we can go right through
Sun: time
We cannot make our sun: we cannot stop time
But we can make the most of time
Orinda to Lucasia (Katherine Phillips)
Katherine=Orinda
Lucasia=her friend Mary Aubrey= SUN OF LIGHT
1st Stanza
The tired and weak birds yearn for the sun to come up
“Tardy sun”
The birds call the sun late, the birds need the sun
The can’t fly because their is morning dew on their feathers so they need the sun to dry them
They court the glorious planet to appear before them
The sun is the energy it gives them life and renews their spirits
The flowers “droop” their heads and are lifeless, losing energy without the sun
The brooks (small stream) more bold and fierce than the flowers and birds openly demand the day to appear. All things drink sunlight need it
Because streams run faster at night, this shows how the brooks say it boldly we need the sun
2nd Stanza
“Thou my Lucasia art far more to me/Than he to all the under-wrold can be”
Hyperbolic statement
Underworld: afterlife where everything is bleak and dark and its a unimaginable darkness and no light penetrates
He: the god of light (Apollo or Helios)
Directly addressing lucasia=apostrophe
You give me light (life) and without you it always night (death)
The time aways from you is growing longer so nights are longer
“Sadness weighty . . . darkness strong . . . my tears its dew dwell on my cheeks”
Connection back to dew on birds feather weighing them down to the tears on her cheeks weighing her down
Everything from the first stanza calls for sun like i seek your dawn
“And to thee mournfully it cries . . . too long i wait. . . mayst come too late . . . and not restore my life, but close my eyes”
I’m gonna dies if i don’t see you again: HYPERBOLIC STATEMENT
Metaphysical characteristics
Controlling image + Metaphysical conceit
Nature’s dependency on sun=friend’s importance to Katherine
Irregular rhythmic pattern: some is in tetrameter
Highly original imagery
The poem is an ARGUMENT
Arguing the need for lucasia to show up with scientific facts
Holy Sonnet 5 (John Donne)
“I am a little world made cunningly”
God I praise you for how skillful and cleverly you made me
Homage: tribute to someone/praise
When you made me I was pure like an angel made of Body and SOUL
But because of my evil sins both my body and soul MUST DIE
Astronomers discovered new skies/places above the heavens (planets)
Explorers discovered new lands
You guys should POUR SEAS OF WATER IN MY EYES so i cleanse of my sins and purify myself. I NEED TO REPENT
Or it should be washed because you promised no floods after Noahs Arc
NO!!!! I NEED MY SOUL TO BE BURNT! MY SINS NEED TO BE BURNT OFF THE SOUL(like iron being smelted to become pure). Only then will I be cleansed. Then I wont BURN IN HELL.
Lust and envy two of the deadly sins.
PARADOX: “eating heal”= if sins are eaten from my soul= i will be cleansed and won't have to burn in hell.