1/18/2016, 19:09 P.M.
Donne's poems have a beautiful sense of a suggested narrator, a rather shadowy sort of character about whom you may infer rather a lot simply by reading the poem thoroughly. This is something that rather interests me, particularly regarding A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Another aspect which deeply interests me is his sometimes oddly specific yet completely helpful word and image choices. This, coupled with his abundance of metaphors, would be an interesting topic. Along with these things, I believe it would be interesting to write about how he uses these (sometimes hard to manipulate) aspects in his favor in terms of stating (perhaps gloriously) his arguments.
1/18/2016, 19:38 P.M.
Firstly, listening to these (especially Ecstasy) read by Richard Burton made me feel like I was listening to something almost sacred. Often, I have found that listening to a text (such as poetry contemporary or earlier than this, or Shakespeare) aloud can often help me to understand a character, or sometimes even the words themselves, better than I might on my own. In this case, I rather liked the sense of solemnity that the reader gave Ecstacy. It is something that modern audiences can often brush off. Much of Donne's word choice, which I spoke about previously, sounds better in this reader's voice than in my own mind, even! It is a great aid in helping me to gain a better grasp on why Donne wrote the things that he did--they sound even better when you read them right.
1/19/2016, 16:19 P.M.
Did a bit of outlining and brainstorming!
1/20/2016, 10:46 A.M.
Whoop! Finished that. A rough estimate, time-wise, would probably be around 2.5 to 3 hours, with a little distraction from lovely people. I think the idea of comparing the metaphoric language surrounding the two poems worked out pretty well, and I think I hit a few pretty good points, but I do believe that if I'd been able to sit down and have a discussion with someone about the topic, rather than only consulting my own romantic self, I may have been able to add a lot more sustenance to my ideas.
I agree that (as stated in your first paragraph) Donne's word choice is very artful and specific. The emotion of the piece is made possible with his particular words. He has a style with wrods that feels very care-free but on closer inspection is actually very carefully chosen.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about listening to the poem helping to understand the characters. I definitely had a better feel for the poem and its characters after listening to the audio file.
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