Sonnet Assignment #3

Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (A)

Admit impediments. Love is not love (B)

Which alters when it alteration finds, (A)

Or bends with the remover to remove: (B)


He says that he doesn't want to believe that love has any boundaries. And that true love doesn't just change because someone wants it to. true love is stronger than that.




O no! it is an ever-fixed mark (C)

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (D)

It is the star to every wandering bark, (C)

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. (D)

He says that true love can make it through anything. That it guides us through all that bad stuff in life.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (E)

Within his bending sickle's compass come: (F)

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (E)

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. (F)

He kind of says that love conquers all. That it doesn't just fade over time but lasts forever.



If this be error and upon me proved, (G)

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (G)

So here he says that if true love isn't like he says, then he might as well have not written anything and no one really ever loves or that it doesn't really exist.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edmund Spencer Sonnet 26


Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a briar; (A)
Sweet in the Juniper, but sharp his bough; (B)
Sweet is the Eglantine, but pricketh near; (A)
Sweet is the firbloom, but his branches rough. (B)

Here he talks about how sweet or pretty things are but then where they come from isn't so pretty.

Sweet is the Cypress, but his rind is tough, (B)
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill; (C)
Sweet is the broom-flower, but yet sour enough; (B)
And sweet is Moly, but his root is ill. (C)

Same as before. He shows that even though things are pretty, not everything about them is. So kind of a good but bad.




So every sweet with sour is tempered still (C)
That maketh it be coveted the more: (D)
For easy things that may be got at will, (C)
Most sorts of men do set but little store. (D)

So even though there are bad parts to all these great things, people still pursue them and it makes them want them more. Like roses are pretty, but getting them is hard and painful because of the thorns.



Why then should I account of little pain, (E)
That endless pleasure shall unto me gain. (E)

So here he asks why should he care about the pain or bad stuff when the outcome or reward is so pleasurable.

Sonnets Assignment #2

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (A)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (B)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A)
And summer's lease hath all to short a date. (B)

Okay.. here I think he is saying the positive things about whoever he is talking about. Pointing out how much better she is than the summer's day.

___________________________________
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (C)
And often is his gold complextion dimmed, (D)
And every fair from fair sometimes declines, (C)
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. (D)

Here I think he is pointing out the negatives about the summer's day. So he is still saying she is more beautiful, but from a different standpoint.

___________________________________
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (E)
Nor lose possesion of that fair thou owest, (F)
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade (E)
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st. (F)

He is still comparing the two, but I don't think it is about her getting the upper hand now. I think he is saying that even though she is more beautiful, she will eventually die but nature will go on being beautiful.

___________________________________
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (G)
So long lives this, and gives life to thee. (G)

I think here he is saying that as long as nature (like trees) lives on, it will give us life and air to breathe.







My love is like to ice, and I to fire; (A)
How comes it then that this her cold so great (B)
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, (A)
But harder grows the more I her entreat? (B)

So she is ice and he is fire. Which obviously makes a conflict. He wants to know why the heat doesn't make her leave and why instead it fuels his obsession for her the more he pursues her.

________________________________
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat (B)
Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, (C)
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, (B)
And feel my flames augmented manifold? (C)

Here he wants to know why he is entranced by her. Why is his love growing in intensity when it should be extinguished by their differences.

________________________________
What more miraculous thing may be told (C)
That fire which all thing melts, should harden ice, (D)
And ice which is congealed with senseless cold, (C)
Should kindle fire by wonderful device? (D)

He is asking why rather than ruin things it is making them more intense. It is proven that fire melts ice, yet the ice is only getting harder.. And rather than being numb and feeling nothing, she is feeling for him too.

________________________________
Such is the power of love in gentle mind, (E)
That it can alter all the course of kind. (E)

He just kind of says that this proves that love conquers all. That no matter how insane or against the rules it is, love will still remain strong and has the power to alter the way things should be or end up.

Sonnets Assignment #1

Examine the difference between the rhyme scheme Spencer uses and the one Shakespeare uses. Explain the difference. Which one do you prefer? (If you are unable to give a good answer to this question, it is time to come talk to me.)

I definitely prefer Shakespeare's rhyme scheme. I think it is a little more systematic. Spencer's kind of stretches throughout the whole thing and I'm sure it would be a lot more difficult to write that way. There are more rhyming words and they must be harder to fit together and I don't think it flows as well.

Renaissance Response

I think that it is a good idea that everyone decided to take on new paths and kind of change their ways after the Bubonic Plague. I definitely think that if I watch a third of everyone around me die, I'd want to make the most of my life. I learned quite a bit about this time from Mrs. Siegmund. We did an exercise where we had a pen and had to copy a passage word for word without making any mistakes, like the monks. It was really hard. This kind of reminds me of the later Glorious Revolution where people started turning away from Catholicism then too. I've always found this era very interesting to read about.

The Restoration Assignment #5

What do you think was most important to people living in this time? Write a 1-2 paragraph response to this question in which you use direct evidence from the texts you read to support whatever arguments you make.

Well, if you lived when the story about the plague happened, I'm sure the most important thing was your life. I think I would be absolutely terrified if in every direction I turned, there were people killing themselves or dying right there in front of my eyes. This was an excruciating time for the people of London. People were in awful pain, but who would help? Putting forth an effort to save someone or be by their side could cause your death too. Most people wouldn't risk their lives for others unless it was their child or loved one.
Then, in the lighter areas, it seems that progression was of great importance too. Finally, people aren't so blindsided by religion. Rather than saying it's God's will that everyone is dying, they are looking to the science of things. They have come to realize that there can be faith and reason at the same time. Which is illustrated in Mr. Siegmund's writing about the Restoration in general.

The Restoration Assignment #4

Read either "from the Diary of Samuel Pepys" or "from A Journal of the Plague Year" by Daniel Defoe, both of which can be found in the purple anthology. Once you have finished reading, write a 1-2 paragraph response to what you have read. Please be sure to include some direct evidence from the text to help show what you are responding to.

I chose, "A Journal of the Plague Year". It was really weird. I think it is extremely sad that all those people died. I wonder if he died after ending his story. The fact that almost 2,000 less people died was amazing. Those kind of numbers would definitely have me excited too, but I probably wouldn't be so quick to start touching people. It is scary that all the sudden you look down and are slowly deteriorating out of no where. Then, all the sudden you're marked and die. The plague was a very scary thing to live through, I'm sure. I probably would have wanted to kill myself just like the examples in the story. I would probably be affected like the guy who was following his wife and kids even though he really wasn't dying himself. This was a really said piece of literature.

Restoration Assignment #3

Read "A Modest Proposal", which may be difficult at first, but if you stick with it, the message will become more clear. Once you are finished reading, you should write a short response to what you read (4-5 sentences), and explain how this is a work of satire.

Okay. Apparently the English people are mean and cruel towards the Irish people. So, to be sarcastic as show them an example of how awful and heartless they are, he writes this. He gives statistics, reasons, and excruciatingly detailed work about raising children to be a year old, and then eating them. He believes that since they are so cold-hearted, they should have no issue commiting or agreeing with this proposal.

This is a satire because he takes a serious tone and points out a major flaw in the English's behavior towards the Irish people. He shows how brutally mean they must really be and how they act. So he uses this sadistic view to point out to them how terrible their people are.