Reading and Writing for 1 April 2020
Let's get organized- I hope to scan some scholarly and critical pieces that are excerpts from longer texts and thus not available on line.
So, to get us started, let's focus on just four john Donne poems for Wednesday 1 April 2020.
These poms are on Moodle at Topics 12 and 13
"Good Friday, Riding Westward;" "Holy Sonnet #10- 'Batter My Heart';" "The Sun Rising;" and "The Canonization.".
Start making a brief, but compelling list of those special features you find in Donne and contrast them with our earlier readings (especially Petrarch, Wyatt, Sidney, and Shakespeare).
Think about the Petrarchan Conceit versus the Metaphysical Conceit- How does the use of Paradox and Oxymoron differ? How is the poetic persona presented and developed? What is the "music" of the verse? How does the poet use language ?
For Wednesday, Write two focused paragraphs on how Donne uses the Microcosm/ Macrocosm trope in "The Sun Rising;" OR Explore his use of deeper paradox in "Holy Sonnet # 10- 'Death Be Not Proud."
For all four poems at hand, do some deeper thinking about personification and the way in which Donne embodies abstractions and other "people"- is the woman addressed in the poems also a kind of personification. How does the deeply personal perspective of Donne let us get inside the "Otherness" of the other- Go back to the grounding question in Petrarch-- when we look in the eyes of the other, do we see their heart and soul or only a reflection of ourself enriched by the mirror we admire?
We have our work in front of us- to paraphrase Milton- we are free to choose our path.
Look forward to working together as best we can