Let me start off by saying that yes dr.kilgore, you can in fact read enough george herbert!!!
John Donne
The Good-Morrow
I didn't really care for this poem too much. I thought it was kind of boring, and it causes you to think. I like poems that are blunt and don't cause a whole lot of thinking on my end. However, I did think about it and here is what I came up with. He is obviously talking about his life before he fell in love. This part was obvious considering his first few lines were:
"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and IDid, till we loved?"
I often wonder these things as well. I have been dating the same guy for three years and I often think to myself "self, what did you used to do before you met him" He goes on to question himself on how he could have been missing out on this thing called love and how he was incomplete until he found it. Once he found his lover, he was whole and realized that he did not want to be without love again. I get this from whe he says "Let us possess one world;"..its like he is saying let us be whole. I don't know if I am on the right track or not but thats what I get from it. I think it makes sense though because I think once you get a taste of what love is like, its like a drug and you become addicted. Maybe thats why people "rebound" to the next woman/man right after a relationship because they feel the need to constantly be in a relationship.
“Elegy 19. To His Mistress Going to Bed”
I really liked this poem! It was written in "easy" context so I could actually understand it withouth having to think very much. I thought it was humorous as well. The fact that he wants her to get naked and makes it sound so sweet by saying "Your gownes going off, such beautious state reveales" but once she is naked he ruins by saysing "O my America, my new found lande" although it is really funny that he said that, I am sure she didn't much appreciate it. Actually, I would think the guy is kind of weird and I would put my clothes back on and run. Oh and this is after he talks about putting his hands below, beaneath, above, and everywhere else. But maybe he means it in a sweet romantic way? I don't know the tone of the poem. My favorite line is definetley the last one "What need'st thou have more covering than a man". How funny and clever is that. He is saying that he is laying on top of her and he is her covering. She doesn't need clothes if she has him. I loved it. I would give it an A+! :)
George Herbert
"The Altar"
Here we are back to the boring, hard, make-you-think poems! So I'm assuming Herbert isn't really talking about an actual Altar, but rather a human heart. I am just guessing considering he used the word "heart" in capital letters a few times throughout the poem. I guess what he is trying to say is that everyones hearts are different shapes depending on what they go through. You have to shape each persons heart differently. For example, some people have experience way harder times than others, or have experienced extrememely good times and have not yet had to endure bad things in life. In this case, those two peoples hearts would be shaped differently. Im not really sure where I am getting this from but he says
"Is such a stone,As nothing butThy pow'r doth cut.Wherefore each partOf my hard heartMeets in this frame"
"Love"
I really did not like this poem. At all. In fact it was probably the least favorite poem I have ever read. I don't get it. It probably has something to do with the bible which I know nothing about and therefore cannot link the two together.
Henry Vaughan
"Regeneration"
So here we have spring time again!! What is it with this season?? I don't really understand this poem either. i guess i am just not a poem person?? I like to write them though! Anyway I don't get this poem....
Kelli, I KNEW you'd react to that statement about reading too much Herbert! -- And that's why I kept it in! :)
ReplyDeleteOK, I can't make you love Herbert, but you are so right that the Altar is a heart. The cool thing, for me, is that Herbert's talking about a structure -- a piece of church furniture -- and then saying that the external isn't as important as the Heart. For Herbert, that Heart can only be cut by God, like you'd cut a stone to make an altar. The "heart alone / is such a stone / as nothing but / thy power doth cut."
I guess one of the connecting threads throughout all this metaphysical poetry is how space becomes bigger and small, and big things are folded into small ones. The outside becomes in: the altar is the Heart; the World (in Donne's "Good Morrow") becomes the room that the lovers are in, and finally the two lovers themselves, looking into each others' eyes.
I think "Love (III)" by Herbert, is about being welcomed into that interior space -- or being insisted upon to enter it -- no matter our reservations. I guess we could see that as creepy, though.