preview

thatcher

Decent Essays
Open Document

1. G. M. Hopkins, “The Windhover”, “I wake and feel the fell of dark…”
2. William Shakespeare, Sonnets 1-7
3. John Donne, “Valediction Forbidding Mourning”, “The Flea”, “Hymn to God, My God in my Sickness”
4. George Herbert, “The Collar”, “The Altar”, “Love III”
5. Andrew Marvell, “To his Coy Mistress”
6. T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, “Journey of the Magi”

2. Poems for individual reading:
1. William Shakespeare Sonnet 73 (“That time of year…”)
2. John Donne, “Holy Sonnet I” (“Thou hast made me…”), “Holy Sonnet IX” (“If poisonous minerals…”),
3. George Herbert, “Easter”, “Denial”, “Paradise”
4. Andrew Marvell, “On a Drop of Dew”
5. Richard Crashaw, “On the Wounds of our Crucified Lord”
6. Gerard Manley …show more content…

A great number of verbs are packed into a short space of lines, as Hopkins tries to nail down with as much descriptive precision as possible the exact character of the bird’s motion.
“The Windhover” is written in “sprung rhythm,” a meter in which the number of accents in a line are counted but the number of syllables does not matter. This technique allows Hopkins to vary the speed of his lines so as to capture the bird’s pausing and racing. Listen to the hovering rhythm of “the rolling level underneath him steady air,” and the arched brightness of “and striding high there.” The poem slows abruptly at the end, pausing in awe to reflect on Christ.

2. Donne John
John Donne, whose poetic reputation languished before he was rediscovered in the early part of the twentieth century, is remembered today as the leading exponent of a style of verse known as “metaphysical poetry,” which flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. (Other great metaphysical poets include Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick, and George Herbert.) Metaphysical poetry typically employs unusual verse forms, complex figures of speech applied to elaborate and surprising metaphorical conceits, and learned themes discussed according to eccentric and unexpected chains of reasoning. Donne’s poetry exhibits each of these characteristics.
A Valediction: Forbiding

Get Access