Silence : A Twelfth Century French Romance

The children are unnoticed by others and the mother is the only one that is protecting them. This poem shows the hard times that the mother must face because her children have died. However the mother is coping with them while still protecting her children after they have died, This is the mother's way of coping because she is not yet ready to let go of her children and still wants to care for them. This poem shows this through nature by portraying the mother as a bird who is protecting her nest. Also the poem uses nature by describing the harsh times as a winter wind that has caused harm to the mother and her children.

In the first stage of the poem, Morgan uses various poetic techniques to set the scene in the early evening by a Scottish loch. “The evening is perfect, my sisters. The loch lies silent, the air is still. The suns last rays linger over the water.” Morgan’s use of effective word choice creates a sense of peaceful tranquillity which is further developed with the alliteration

The Courtier, originally written as a “courtesy book”, can now be considered to provide significant insight into the norms and practices associated with courtship and gender during the Renaissance era. The book’s third volume is a particularly insightful window into 16th century romantic ideals. Throughout Book Three, Baldassare Castiglione builds an elaborate perspective on what makes the perfect court lady, what sexual and social behavior is acceptable, and how an ideal couple (both courtier and court lady) should function.

The lifestyle in France, just like in all other European countries, has changed dramatically since the early 1700’s. People went from farmers to factory owners to all of the professions of today’s society. The main reason for the great changes in lifestyle that occurred in France was the Industrial Revolution, which urbanized most of France. But the Industrial Revolution was not the only thing that changed France. The monarchy fell the church changed, and the role people had in their jobs and family life change drastically.

Now that you have read the poem and considered the meanings of the lines, answer the following questions in a Word doc or in your assignment window:

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere wrote Tartuffe during the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the main characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment was a push towards using reason over emotions to make decisions. The leaders of the enlightenment truly believed that the world could be made a better place if people did this. In Tartuffe, when the characters use their emotions to make their decisions they find themselves in undesirable situations. While those who let their emotions rule them find their lives spinning out of control, there are other characters in the play who try to approach them with reason and logic. Out of these characters the lady’s maid Dorine stands out as the voice of reason.

In the thirteenth-century French romance, Silence, translated by Sarah Roche-Mahdi, the titular character faces challenges because of her gender-identity for no reasons of her own. Silence is unable to achieve knighthood as long as she is a woman. The French romance was written to test the boundaries of this genre, and proved that in the end, the female archetype found so often in Arthurian literature will always remain the same.

The speaker glorifies what most take for granted and shows how significant certain objects can be within their own relationship. “ The loud voice is famous to silence,/ which knew it would inherit the earth/ before anybody said so” (2-4). The speaker is able to describe the importance of the inevitability of sound in any silence. To the silence, the sound that is going to be generated within it, both signifies the silences’ end as well as its necessity. For there cannot be a clarity of the sound without first the crushing nothingness of silence. The duality of the two is a perfect example of what the speaker was trying to convey within the opening stanzas of the poem, sound and silence are vague generalities that only matter to each other in their own distinct relationship. Outside of their relationship, sound is not just noise being generated; the message it carries is what is important. However, within the confines of their relationship the fact that the noise is simply sound where there was nothing before is what makes the “loud voice” famous to the

In the poem, the contrast of hard negative connotations and soft sensitive words indicates his purpose of writing. Examples of soft words are “gently its touch, rouse, kind old sun, whispering, full-nerved, still warm” Examples of hard words are “snow, clays of a cold star, clay grew tall, fatuous sunbeams, break earth’s sleep at all”. The word clay reminds us that we came from clay and we return to dust. The choice of cold star probably refers to earth before it was inhabited which was also expressed in the bible “thou hast made me of clay and wilt thou bring me unto dust again”. The word fatuous shows the anger and frustration of the writer. Whispering has the feeling of anxiety and dread. The last line is an old existential question of “why are we here?” With the use of sound effects, themes, technique and language, the poem clearly shows the genuine emotions of empathy, waste and the futility of

In this, one could see that the speaker might be talking about death: “And when at Night –“; and how the speaker prefers the comfort of his/her faith over the comforts of the world: “I guard My Master’s Head - / ‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s / Deep Pillow – to have shared-” (13-16). The tone of this poem ranges from emptiness, to fullness, to joy, to complete satisfaction, and one can follow this progression through the stanzas. In the beginning, the subject, or character, was flat

As a ship is without a sail or a king with no castle, so too is a courtier without a Court lady. In "The Book of the Courtier" Baldesar Castiglione not only included a perfect courtier, he also molded his female equivalent, a Court lady. "The Courtier" itself was a step by step guide intended to instruct the young, affluent and upwardly mobile in areas of manners, learning, sport and conduct. It was published in 1528, at a high point of humanistic thought and antiquarian chivalric interest in Renaissance Italy. Often overlooked or undervalued is the discussion of the ideal Court lady, described in eloquent and perfect detail by the characters of Caesar and Magnifico, who was assigned by the Duchess to

The nobility of the Kingdom of France has been evaluated by various scholars of history. There is something to be said, however, for those who chronicled their impressions while living them in the 17th and 18th centuries. The excerpts of Charles Loyseau’s A Treatise on Orders, written in 1610, and Isabelle de Charriere’s The Nobleman, written in 1763 provide two very different glimpses on the French nobility from differing time periods. From these two accounts, it is clear that there was a marked shift in the way some viewed the nobility and their role in the operation of the French state. While Loyseau praises the nobility nearly wholeheartedly,

Mabel had known there would be silence. That was the point, after all. No infants cooing or wailing. No neighbor children playfully hollering down the lane. No pad of small feet on wooden stairs worn smooth by generations, or clackety-clack of toys along the kitchen floor. All those sounds of her failure and regret would be left behind, and in their place there would be silence.4

In the second stanza, the speaker beholds a piper joyfully playing under the tress for his lover to find him with song. “Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared. The use of imagery of the senses is effective here. For I consider poetry to be more musical in nature than literary text. The speaker claims to be hearing melodies emanating from the urn, which for me the sound transmission from the urn correlates to the finite aspects of fleeting love. While the nature of art of the urn seems to me to represent the exquisiteness and infinity of the universe. Indeed, the sounds of silence from art is akin to vastness of space and time. “She cannot fade, though, thou hast not thy bliss,” (line19). Keats is asking the readers to not grieve for him. Because, her beauty will not diminish over time it is everlasting.

Here is the interpretation and analysis of the poem based on the sections that respect the grammar and meaning of its sentences: