LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son,
|
Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire,
|
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
|
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
|
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
|
On smoother, till Favonius reinspire
|
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
|
The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.
|
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
|
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
|
To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice
|
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
|
He who of those delights can judge, and spare
|
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.
|
Now the way I would go about taking it apart would be first to explain why I like it. In other words, the starting point is that there is something notably good about it, and that that is what the analysis must account for. I think what it is at work here is a tone pitched exactly right between an informal and formal register. There is potential conviviality between the two men, but couched in a Horatian rhetoric. We see tonal shifts in things like "Favonius reinspire / The frozen earth," where Milton plays on the etymology of inspire (to breathe into) and then enjambs into an Anglo-Saxon phrase. Milton and Lawrence are Puritans, so it takes some justification to spend time aimlessly, wasting it, as he says. So the pleasures are not excessive ones, they are Attic, or simple in the Greek style; the feats is not a heavy, indulgent one, but in the "not unwise" style of Horace. A biblical allusion also works to justify the seeming idleness: "consider the lilies of the field..." The ending is famously ambiguous, where wisdom consists either of indulging in these pastimes frequently or infrequently. The litotes in the last phrase is a nice touch, rhetorically. It implies that someone might think of this behavior as unwise, but that it is really not so bad after all.
Milton's famously enjambed style works well in the sonnet, but is not typical of the sonnet form. He has odd groupings of lines, and makes effective use of the "jumps." "by the fire / Help waste a sullen day."
3 comments:
I love this post. I was never taught how to analyze poetry, and I find it impossible to teach what I never learned. This is very helpful. I love the suggestion to start the analysis explaining why I love the poem and what makes that happen. Somehow I never thought of that before.
The advice to start with what you like about the poem is good. (For one thing, this may push you to articulate aspects of the piece that wouldn't have been on an a priori checklist.)
So how do you write about things you don't like?
I'd probably start with what I don't like.
Or try to get in the head of someone who would like it.
You can't approach analysis neutrally. It has to be based on value judgments. They give you valuable information that you have to use.
Post a Comment