preview

Ben Jonson's On My First Sonne Essay

Better Essays
Open Document

Ben Jonson's On My First Sonne

Ben Jonson writes On My First Sonne from a father’s point of view grieving over the death of his very young son. The title alone suggests which time period this poem is from i.e. it is from the 17th century (1603)- when the poet’s son Benjamin died- through the use of language of the time. This poem has been written in memory of a seven year old child whose death has dealt a great blow to a father.
Throughout the poem, the use of religious comparisons and words creates a vivid picture of the thoughts running in the mind of Ben
Jonson and we know almost exactly what he feels.

The inter-relation of father and son in this piece of poetry leads us back to the beginning of the poem. The son, …show more content…

The mixed emotions, rhyming couplets and the intensity of the imagery help understand the moving exploration of a father's feelings on the loss of his son, made all the more emotional by the difference between its affectionate, resigned tone and Jonson's usually satirical and biting comic voice.

Here we have a poem at once brief, tender, learned, and tough: perhaps the learning may seem to make it a strange tribute to address to a child who died on his seventh birthday from a father’s point of view.
On the other hand, the second poem in consideration, i.e. Chinua
Achebe’s- Refugee Mother and Child, is from a mother’s point of view about the soon-to-come death or parting of her child from her (being refugees). As for the language, it is pretty much contemporary English but yet creates the same kind of images as those in On My First Sonne.
Here too, a little bit of religion is introduced as the poet is comparing this mother and child’s bond to that of Mary and Jesus. This adds a sense of spirituality in the poem. Upon reading both poems in sequence and comparing them, dramatic pictures are ‘painted’ in our minds which add a sense of seriousness and intensity to both of them.
Simply put in words, the parents’ love is a child lost in a large maze which represents the sorrow and remorse, ironically over the death of that very lost child!

The poem is

Get Access
Related
Get Access