ENG L317 Midterm

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.

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