Dr.
Stapleton ENG L317 Midterm
“Why I Write
not of Love”
SOME act
of LOVE'S bound to rehearse,
I thought to bind him in my verse :
Which when he felt, Away, quoth he,
Can poets hope to fetter me ?
It is enough, they once did get 5
Mars and my mother, in their net :
I wear not these my wings in vain.
With which he fled me ; and again,
Into my rhymes could ne'er be got
By any art : then wonder not, 10
That since, my numbers are so cold,
When Love is fled, and I grow old.
I thought to bind him in my verse :
Which when he felt, Away, quoth he,
Can poets hope to fetter me ?
It is enough, they once did get 5
Mars and my mother, in their net :
I wear not these my wings in vain.
With which he fled me ; and again,
Into my rhymes could ne'er be got
By any art : then wonder not, 10
That since, my numbers are so cold,
When Love is fled, and I grow old.
Here is a
famous lyric by Ben Jonson, one of the few poets we’ve read who did not write
much love poetry. What does the poem seem to declare, and what poetic
convention does it seem to be addressing?
Compare at
least three of the following passages from poems we’ve read this semester with
Jonson’s poem. What specific things do the fragments below have in common with “Why
I Write not of Love”?
Why does
your comparison matter? How will it help us understand the poetry of the period
better?
4-5
pp. Due Friday 31 March, 9 a.m., by
email stapletm@ipfw.edu
The grave’s
a fine and private place,
But none,
I think, do there embrace. Marvell, “To
His Coy Mistress”
Therefore
the love which us doth bind,
But fate
so enviously debars,
Is the
conjunction of the mind,
And the
opposition of the stars. Marvell, “The
Definition of Love”
It was my
heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale
which held that lovely deer;
My joy, my
grief, my hope, my love,
Did all
within this circle move! Waller, “On a
Girdle”
A HEART
alone
Is such a
stone
As nothing
but
Thy power
doth cut. Herbert, “The Altar”
I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these
to sing of cleanly wantonness. Herrick,
“The Argument of His Book”
Forbear,
bold youth, all heaven’s here
And what
you do aver
To others
courtship may appear,
’Tis sacrilege to her. Philips, “An Answer to Another”
Him whose
heart is all his own
Peace and
liberty does crown;
He
apprehends no killing frown.
He feels
no raptures, which are joys diseased,
And is not
much transported, but still pleased.
Philips, “Against Love”
But we, by
a love so much refined
That our
selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured
of the mind,
Care less
eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Donne, “Valediction”
Not Eve,
whose fault was only too much love,
Which made
her give this present to her dear,
That what
she tasted, he likewise might prove,
Whereby
his knowledge might become more clear.
Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum
