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In the article “How to Read a Poem” from the Poets.org website, the poet William Carlos Williams, in acknowledging the challenges of reading poetry, writes that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun.
With specific reference to one of this week’s poems, explain how you “completed” what the poet set in motion. In your answer, be sure to refer specifically to the article and to quote from your chosen poem to illustrate your response.
Please be sure to address comments to others by name.
41 thoughts on “Week 3 Discussion”
In reading “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch, we are given many tools to work with for uncovering a most imaginative understanding of what the author is expressing. Hirsch states that “a real person formed the moment of the poem, and it’s wise to seek an understanding of that moment.”
That moment in “My Mistress’s Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun” by William Shakespeare can be found in the couplet. At this point in the sonnet, Shakespeare changes his tone completely, and instead of listing more of his lady’s shortcomings, he tells the reader that her superficial flaws do not matter, and that she is just as special and beautiful as other female muses in poetry. He even goes on to say that most other poets overexaggerate the beauty of their subjects anyway.
“And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare” (Shakespeare).
We know that Shakespeare often commented on aging of the human body in his work, so this couplet could also be a commentary of sorts on this fact of life.
In any case, Edward Hirsch cites William Carlos Williams in stating the reader must “complete what the poet has begun.” By looking at the “moment” of the sonnet (as described above), Shakespeare’s poem can be completed in the realization that he loves his mistress through and through. He is not ill-intentioned regarding her at all. He doesn’t mean to make fun of her, embarrass her, or degrade her in the quatrains leading up to the couplet. Instead, he is stating that whether a woman’s beauty is completely overamplified, or a poet is completely honest about her superficial flaws, the overall message is still the same. She’s unique and beautiful to him. Instead of poking fun at his mistress, Shakespeare is actually poking fun of those that overemphasize theirs.
Hello Marc!
As usual, great description!
I also agree and I declassed it in my review. The poet constructs the whole description of his love. His description is opposite the generally accepted patterns of the idea of beauty. I agree that he doesn’t want to make fun of her. He loves that imperfections, and that its so true to everyone who ever was in love. If he use humor, he makes fun of himself and the fact that he so much in love with someone imperfect.
Thank you! Great work!
For this activity I chose SONNET 18 “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day.” by William Shakespeare. This poem stood out the most for me as it focuses on the beauty of a friend or lover. In this sonnet the speaker is comparing the lover or friend to a summer’s day.
In “How to Read a Poem,” by Edward Hirsch, the essay explains how the reader can go about “completing” a poem. According to the article, completion starts as the reader enters the imaginative play of a poem. I followed the steps Edward Hirsch suggested such as, “To begin, read the poem aloud. Read it more than once. Listen to your voice, to the sounds the words make.” I began the “completing” of the poem by studying and reading the verses, even if I did not understand initially. I did not expect to completely understand it at first; however, I got the general idea as I carefully read it out loud a second time. At first glance, in the first line I can tell the sonnet was about a lover or a friend and that it was somehow a tease with a question for the speaker and reader. As I continued to read the poem, I understood that the poem was more about appreciation of the physical beauty. The speaker claims that while the summer is short and hot, the unknown lover’s beauty will remain eternal. The speaker states in line 9 “But thy eternal summer shall not fade,” claiming the unknown persons beauty is not subject to decay or change. In the final lines 13 and 14, the speaker expresses that even though the unknown person might die, the poem will stay alive and give life to the lover’s beauty as it will be read and spoken about.
“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”
Hey Roselyn,
I read this poem as well and had difficulties understanding. Which is mostly why I did not pick it! After reading your comment, I was able to understand it more in different ways. You are completely right about reading it out loud. Sometimes it won’t even be enough the first two times and I’d have to read it a couple more times. Reading out loud definitely does help, you hear it and are able to visualize more. This is a beautiful poem..great choice! Kudos to you, and thanks for help because I was able to understand it more thoroughly. We really have to analyze the poems line by line to truly understand it.
Beaubelle, I’m so glad you read Roselyn’s post, and I hope others will too.
Hi Beaubelle,
I am glad my post could help. I did have difficulties with this poem at first as it did not make any sense. I read each line out loud and began to comprehend its meaning as I went along. This poem in my opinion is very lovely. The speaker is comparing the unknown person to a summers day and saying that the person is lovelier and the perfect temperature. The last lines stood out the most to me, as the speaker expresses, that even though the lover might die, this sonnet will continue to live on for as long as men can breathe or have eyes to see. The lover’s beauty will be eternal.
Roselyn, this is very well expressed. I hope everyone will read it. Sometimes , if a reader does not go through the process you describe so well here, he or she can read this as simply a love poem about a person. As you note so well, the sonnet is both a homage to the subject and a reference to the enduring nature of poetry. In a way, the sonnet is a praise offered by Shakespeare to himself.
Hi Roselyn, thank you for sharing! I had a similar experience reading the poems, I intuitively started reading them out loud to understand them better, and when I did they made much more sense. Even though this is such a popular sonnet by William Shakespeare, and I have heard parts of it before, it was much deeper than I expected when I read it repeatedly. I am starting to enjoy the challenge of reading poetry more after working on these week 3 assignments!
Hi Roselyn, I have the same mind with Beaubelle, Sonnet 18 “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” isn’t an easy piece to digest and your explanation is a great help to understand it. For me, the poem is challenging because of the archaic words employed in it, such as dimm’d (dimmed, faded?), untrimm’d (can’t be controlled?), ow’st (own, posses?), that make it harder for us to put all parts together and understand it as a whole. I often find reading out loud (not only poetry) doesn’t help me much but reading repeatedly and carefully like what you did and as the article suggested helps me a lot. In addition, Marc who chooses Shakespeare’s “My Mistress’s Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun” says much of Shakespeare’s works are commentaries on facts of life, such as capturing the aging of humans. It makes think that Shakespeare also makes us see the beauty in the impermanence. And in this sonnet 18 he finds a way to preserve the physical beauty, that certainly will fade, through the poem, so it can be everlasting.
hi ,Roselyn, i also found interest in the way he describes his beloved one. it was so emotional and hard to assimilate as he focuses on the things that makes her special and how his devotion to his love will always belong to her. but i will never understand love since it is so ironic and irrational. but i really liked the use of metaphor and voices in the stanzas because it gave me a sense of unity and a way to always remember there will be someone by your side.
Hi Roselyn, I really like your views on this poem. I was deeply attracted by this poem like you. This poem is very difficult to understand, so I read it many times. Your understanding of this poem is very profound. Although your understanding of this poem is different from my understanding of this poem, your views have inspired me a lot. After I read this poem from your perspective, it gave me a new feeling about this poem.
The creativity of literary geniuses amaze readers! When we read Shakespeare’s sonnets, we does not think about their complex poetic form and the author’s skills of mastering this form. Shakespeare’s lyrics are thrown into something more than a literary work. It makes us feel a special poetics, sophistication of sound, which moves according to certain mysterious laws of harmony. We have got full-fledged philosophical treatises in only fourteen rows of his Sonnet 130. These amount is more than enough. As they say, neither add nor subtract. The sophistication of the sonnets is in their sound construction. Sonnet 130 is captivating, striking and somewhat shocking. This is not complete simplicity, it is shocking simplicity.
The poet William Carlos Williams, in acknowledging the challenges of reading poetry, writes that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. It is true. Our imagination analyze and creates prequel and sequel of the poetry. The poet constructs the whole description of his love. His description is opposite the generally accepted patterns of the idea of beauty. The attitude towards a loved one is complex, contradictory. We see his ecstatic love, as well as slavish devotion, and a sound assessment of her shortcomings, and forgiveness, sometimes also condemnation and worship.
Lizaveta, it’s interesting what you write here about forming a prequel and sequel to a poem as part of the process of completing it. Good poetry lingers in the mind, doesn’t it? The great American writer Flannery O’Connor said that about good stories too—that they don’t just fade away; they hang around in your brain and coalesce there. You make a good point too about the complexity of Shakespeare’s sonnets. They tend to be not only about romantic love but offer other layers of meaning.
Lizaveta, I really liked what you had to say about sonnets! The statement you used, “shocking simplicity’’ is very accurate. It’s amazing how much beauty can be packed into such short phrases, and only 14 lines. Shakespeare makes the writing seem so effortless, but I know simplicity is often the most difficult to achieve. What you said about our imagination creating the prequel and sequel of the poetry is also true. I love that endless interpretations are possible with one single piece of poetry.
Everything is well written. I agree when you say “our imagination analyze and creates prequel and sequel of poetry.” I love your interpretations to the sonnet and i agree with them.
John, please address comments to others by name and make sure your post meets the length requirements. Thanks!
July 27th, 2020
A poem that I have read from this week’s discussion board is “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. According to William Carlos Williams, a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. According to Williams, “This act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing to it your experience and point of view. If a poem is “play” in the sense of a game or a sport, then you enjoy that it makes you work a little, that it makes you sweat a bit. Reading poetry is a challenge, but like so many other things, it takes practice, and your skills and insight improve as you progress.” This poem was about a woman, most likely, who looked past her previous lovers and experiences with them that she might’ve forgotten. She also expresses her regret and her loneliness. The poet used setting to allow me to enter an “imaginative play.” I was able to put myself in her shoes and analyze her poem the way I can connect to it. Poems are supposed to have multiple meanings. There would be no set answer or definite message to a poem since there would be too many “codes” to “crack.” Millay starts off the poem by saying, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning;” I picture this setting of a woman visualizing the men she slept with, the arms she would be wrapped around in. She also used personification to describe her mood. For example, she mentions a tree “standing in the winter”, giving it a lonely tone. Millay’s poem was not that much of a “game” for me to figure out just like Williams said but I was able to interpret the poem through my experience as a woman. The poem was able to speak to me through my own understanding.
Beaubelle, I find “What My Lips Have Kissed” to be a very poignant poem. I appreciate how you are able to complete the poem by referring to your own experience as a woman. I wonder if you have given thought to that metaphor of the lonely tree “standing in winter” and what this might suggest about the age of the woman. There are other references to seasons in this poem, which suggest the seasons of life she is in, adding to the rich nostalgia and poignancy of the sonnet.
Edward Hirsch wrote “Literature is, and has always been, the sharing of experience, the pooling of human understanding about living, loving, and dying”. This statement is reflective of the view expressed by William Carlos Williams who states that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. in the Poem The mother Gwendolyn Brooks utilizes rhyme, metaphor and visual imagery to express the life that children would have lived had they not been dirived life. “Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,”. this is an emotional outpouring of a sense of guilt by a mother who has performed one or more abortions. ” I Have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. I have contracted. I have eased My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck”.
Reading this poem I felt the pain the sadness of the mother and wrong she blame herself for the decision made, I felt the confusion expressed about the aborted fetuses, at some point she seems to be talking to herself , then to her unborn children and at some point talking to a none existing audience. ” And your lives from unfinished reach, If I stole your births and your names”.
The ending of the poem shed some light into the struggles the mother may have from a economic viewpoint, that her expression of endless love spoke to a future they could have “Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I Loved, I Loved you”.
Conroy, thanks for this affecting post. The fact that you are a man and can respond so viscerally to the poem “The Mother” reflects the amount of introspection you have done to complete this poem. You have gone a long way here, I think. You have been able to enter the mindset of a woman, replete with emotions of guilt, loss, and love.
This poem hit close to home Professor Conway so I have a visceral understanding to some extent.
Conroy Wright well said. I liked how you interpreted and applied what Edward Hirsch said about literature being a shared experience. I agree with you, “My Mother” is a powerful outpouring of emotional trauma that a woman experience having gone through an abortion. For me, the 11th line of the second stanza was gut punching.
“If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.”
In keeping with the idea of sharing the poet’s experience, she seems remorseful about her decision of abortion, to the naked inexperienced eye it might appears as if her decision was well planned. I get the feeling that had she knew then what she knows now she wouldn’t have gone through with the abortion.
Sherika Morrison thanks for the comment and observation, that is true the felling of guilt and loneliness seems to have pelted her at this point and her actions reflects that, the use of imagery and allusion speak to the fact that the abortions could have been force base on the circumstances as she said “If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.”
Hey Conroy,
I just checked out the poem as soon as I read your feedback on it. I agree with Professor Conway, you have the ability to access how a woman might think. Which I think is a very important trait to have nowadays. It’s mind blowing how intense a poem can make you feel. It’s a very powerful and loud poem. Overall, great interpretation!
We can all agree that understanding poetry is no easy task. William Carlos Williams “suggests that a poet depends on the effort of a reader; somehow, a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun.” Applying this analogy, I found that “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning had many subliminal messages. By taking a walk into the speaker’s mind I found that the Duke was a prideful, powerful and controlling man. In a time when promiscuity was thoroughly frowned upon, he struggled to curb the flirtatious attitude/behavior of his wife. His frustration was visible in the following lines:
“Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
[45] Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.”
Here the speaker gave hints to the anger and frustration that he felt whenever the duchess smiled at someone else. I’m of the opinion that even though he was very powerful, he was also insecure. He alluded to the fact that she was dead however, he didn’t clarify how she died. When he said, “This grew; I gave commands”, to ‘complete’ what the speaker has begun I believe that perhaps he was overcome by rage and jealousy. His “commands’ could mean that he ordered her to stop and/or that he ordered his men to kill her.
Sherika, you most certainly did complete this poem by following the threads and discovering the unsaid horror at its center. We are never told what the Duke is like, but you have gleaned so much about his character by listening to both what he says and to what he doesn’t say. Great post!
Williams suggests that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun in order to understand the poem for if the poem can’t be understood by others, it becomes useless for the poet to write it as he depicts it in “January Morning” (qtd. in Hirsch). So, I perceive a poem to resemble the drawing exercise that I used to work on when I was a kid – an obscure picture with dots outline that must be connected if you want to see the complete picture. A poet writes a poem based on her/his individual perspective and experience. And since every individual has unique thoughts, we likely only see the dots outline, the pieces of information contained in poet’s sentences, instead of a readily clear picture that tells us exactly what she/he means. Then we must do our part, connecting the dots by employing our curiosity, aligning our perspective with the poet’s to understand what the poet intends to convey.
In order to connect the dots to get a complete picture in “White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey we need to be curious towards its many elements, such as the meaning of the words and phrases in the poem, the form of the poem, the scenes created by the words, the culture depicted, the time period, the background of the author, etc. Trethewey’s usage of color imagery, such as white lies, near-white, black place, pink and green, Maison Blanche, Ivory soap are found all over the poem signifying that the subject matter likely is related to color. Although I can’t figure out what “pink and green” (line 9) means, the word “shanty and tracks” (line 10) compared with “white folks and uptown” (line 7) makes me think that the narrator likely is a low economic minority.
In 2nd stanza she says that she can pretend the dresses she wears are from “Maison Blanche” or “White House” (line 14), which can mean upscale brands tied with the upper class, and that she keeps quiet when a white girl in her class assumes that they belong to a same group (line 18). It signifies that she is a mixed-race who can pass as a white person. Then I’m more certain that the 1st stanza that says “The lies I could tell, when I was growing up, light-bright, near-white, high-yellow, red-boned in a black place, were just white lies”, means she’s aware about her pretense of being a truly white while living in a predominantly black community is a lie, but she considers it a harmless lie.
Further, the last stanza depicts a scene where her mother washes her mouth with Ivory soap to clean her lying tongue. Finally, Trethewey’s own background completes the picture, it makes the title “White Lies” and the contents of poem reflect a picture of young Trethewey, a mixed-race girl in Mississippi (born to an African-American mother and a white Canadian father) who feels that she has to lie about her color/racial identity, which likely due to the racial segregation, racial discrimination, or prejudice of mixed-race or African-Americans during the time when she was young. Although she considers it a white lie because the lie is minor and for her own defense, she seems to have a hard time because of it too. It creates conflicts not only with her mother who doesn’t like her lying, but also with herself since she seems to also want to stop her own pretense by swallowing the suds. She thinks changing her mind will result in the change in behavior.
Hello Ella!
When we come to the idea of the poet William Carlos Williams: the challenges of reading poetry, writes that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun I love your focus on colors. Colors represent the mood, the idea of the poetry. White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey has a lot to think about.
I also love your choice in the poetry, as it touches the hard topic of prejudice towards mixed-race people, I felt so much for Trethewey.
Thank you! Great description!
Ella, thank you so much for bringing us through your process of completing the poem “White Lies.” Your discussion of the color imagery is excellent, and I appreciate your willingness to admit when you don’t quite understand a reference. The lines with the pink and green imagery refer to the garishly painted houses of a poor shanty town.
“I could easily tell the white folks
that we lived uptown,
not in that pink and green
shanty-fled shotgun section
along the tracks… ”
Interestingly, you understood the meaning by examining the context of the image. I very much appreciate your reference to the connections of dots that help fill in the contours of a poem. Great post!
Edward Hirsch provided detailed explanations of the success and challenges of writing poetry. A challenge that Hirsch states, “Readers must complete what the poet has begun.” In my opinion, interpretation of poetry is very much subjective. Poetry is left to ones’ interpretation. What is wonderful is that it can tap into ones’ imagination and allows for deeper thinking and understanding of what is happening and possibly what has caused it to happen. I have chosen to focus on, White Lies by Natasha Trethewey. This excellent narrative poem is very descriptive. Description of oneself, based off of physical appearance of pigmentation, description of physical environment of where she lives, what she wears, perception of others and evidence of insecurities. In the poem the poet states, “I could act like my homemade dresses came straight out of the window of Maison Blanche.” This is a clear example of insecurities and fear of being judged by her peers. In this poem I believe the poet wanted the readers to use imagery but most importantly to be confident and comfortable with our physical appearance, place of residence and the importance of being truthful if not there will be consequences.
Hi Kaila!
I did a little research and found that Natasha Trethewey was born of a black mother and white father in 1966 Mississippi, so the struggles that she dealt with as a youngster are not surprising at all! This is a heart-breaking commentary on the insecurities that Trethewey felt as a child in the south and what, I assume, many children born of miscegenation went through. The whole idea of the “white lie” is really what creates the darkness of this poem. It’s like she is saying, “What is the problem with lying about my skin color if it makes life just a bit easier for me?”
But this poem doesn’t just stop with the lie about her skin color, does it? It’s wrought with lies. She lies about where she lives and the origin of her dress. She doesn’t speak up when her classmate is thrilled that there’s yet another white girl in the class. And the final “nail in the coffin” in this passage is when she admits that she wanted the Ivory soap to wash the black out of her from the inside.
And that is the completion here. A girl who is lost in insecurity, and may never find her real identity. These are deep rooted insecurities that she will carry with her for a lifetime because of society’s flaws. And it’s not her fault. I don’t know if she really is saying to be “confident and comfortable with our physical appearance,” as you stated. I think she is making a flat statement that society is cruel. But like you said, this is my own interpretation, and you were spot on when you wrote that poetry allows for deeper thinking. Nice work.
Marc, this response is worth reading for everyone in its discussion of the layers of lies told by the speaker in “White Lies.”
Kaila, thanks for the good comments. I do want to mention though that as readers we can interpret a poem any way we want—as long as we can tie our interpretation to the text of the poem. A poem cannot just mean anything we want it to mean. A poet has a reason for writing a poem. That doesn’t mean readers can’t experience different things from a poem, which happens all the time. I’m sure that in our group different people relate more strongly to different poems. We can see this in the variety of works people have chosen to discuss as we explore the “completion” of a poem that takes place in a reader’s mind.
Hi class, the poem I chose to “complete” was “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. It took me several tries to understand it. I was unable to grasp the meaning until I listened to the Professor’s video lecture reading. It’s amazing how when it was read slowly, and only a few lines at a time, it had such a different effect on me. I love how poem’s are meant to be read aloud, and only then do they come to life in a new way.
I’m grateful for the article “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch, because it helped me to be patient with myself when reading poetry. In the past I have often been frustrated when I didn’t understand something straight away, but reading this was a perfect reminder to slow down, and remember to enjoy the art of reading poetry.
“Embracing Ambiguity” is a concept that I can apply to the rest of my life, this is a very profound article to read during this pandemic. What a great time to dive into historical art and literature, it’s very grounding to read amidst the uncertainty of the current times!
“We have to give up our material attitude, which makes us want to possess the poem. Maybe we’ve bought the book but we don’t own the poem. We have to cultivate a new mindset, a new practice of enjoying the inconclusive.”
Poetry can be quite healing, knowing that the people who lived many centuries before us also experienced the same human emotions we did, they survived plagues, and deaths, and heart breaks, and so will we!
Caitlin, you say so many quotable things in this post! First, you are so right that “My Last Duchess” must be read slowly and aloud. “My Last Duchess” is written in iambic pentameter and is composed entirely of couplets, which are pairs of rhyming lines. But you can’t hear most of the rhyming if you read aloud because of the use of what is called “enjambment.” Enjambment occurs when the end of a line runs into the following line without punctuation or pause. You really do have to take your time with this one, but if you do, you will be rewarded with a dark and sinister story. I also love what you write about having patience with yourself when it comes to reading poetry. I think most people feel a little fear that they might not understand a poem. Being patient, sitting with it, walking away from it, and coming back can sometimes be part of the process. And yes, “embracing ambiguity” and not insisting on possessing the poem are wonderful ideas and actions. The other wonderful observation you make here is about the universality of literature. It was Aristotle who wrote that “poetry is a higher form of literature tha history” for the very reason that you express here. History tells the story of a single person or culture at a certain point in time. Literature speaks of the human experience across all cultures and spans of time.
By utilizing the many tools in “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch, readers can understand how a poem should be read in order to truly understand what the author is trying to convey. One of Hirsch’s steps when it comes to poetry is “the reader of poetry is a kind of pilgrim setting out. To read a poem is to depart from the familiar, to leave all expectations behind.” This step helped me and allowed me to have a broader perspective when reading Shakespears sonnet, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”. What I interpreted initially after reading the sonnet a couple of times is honesty. I feel that some people might take it as brutal honesty, but i disagree. What i think Shakespear is conveying is that you don’t need to complement people by comparing them to things that don’t resemble them or exagerating the comparisons. For example, the first two lines in the sonnet say “”My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips’ red, my mistress’s eyes look nothing like the sun; coral is far more red than her lips are.” The whole sonnet talks about the compliments people say to women and how his mistress is the complete opposite of all those compliments. He says this because he knows that she is not perfect, nor does he expect her to be. The last line of the sonnet “And yet, I swear before heaven, I think she is just as extraordinary as any woman that may be described with false comparisons.” I interpret this as he is content with women being described as they are. Not exagerated or compared to someone perfect.
Deyli Moran
In the article “How to Read a Poem” the poet William Carlos Williams is telling us as readers poetry isn’t always easy it is difficult due to the reason as to how readers view it or make it sound. There are many techniques to be able to read a poem such as “arrangement, sound, and rhythm” because of this poetry can be spoken in many different ways and that is the challenging part of it because it consist of being able to understand and be able to connect with it to have a better understanding on what it is about and be able to think thoroughly.
In the poem “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” by William Shakesspeare it consists of strong language and also be able to comprehend what he is saying but from this poem it is about how he is describing his mistress to objects that are beautiful but her body is different it is not from how he compares it.
“I love to hear her speak, yet well i know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound”
What this indicates is how he symbolizes music and the mistress voice in way is how he would like to hear but regardless of the comparisons he is setting on her he still loves her for who she is.
I have “completed” what the poem set in motion by how Skakespare began to compare the mistress and although it was the opposite of what she was he still loves her for how she is and not just for how unreal his love is for her. He still sees his mistress better looking than any other woman as he stated “And yet by heaven i think my love as rare”. Shakespeare’s main focus was to make the readers understand that the love you have for a person should be about who they are and real not just because of abstract comparisons.
Every word at the end of the stanza creates visual impacts that represents the voices that each person in the words portray. giving out a picture, a kind of symbolic words that to describe the deep meanings in the stanzas. Williams emphasis that “some visually oriented poets present real challenges in the course of the poem may not be entirely clear” taking this ideas upon consideration I found confusion by reading “ My last duchess” by Robert browning his espouses a deep meaning in the aesthetics that he portrays by exposing the painting of his beloved first wife. His love and trust work are put into test for the women he loved are shown on these lines:
Her mantle5 laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,’ or ‘Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:’ such stuff
[20]Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy.
The lines used visual imagery to illustrate how these social norms about women were used against their own moral and since the lines expose a deep meaning of lost trust and regretful decisions about relationships. The duke killed his wife leaving out dark memories and a new beginning towards building a good relationship with ignorance pride and no respect towards women.
i have read “shall I compare Thee to a summer’s day.” By William Shakespeare. This is a very beautiful love poem.
When I read this poem for the first time, I didn’t understand the meaning. So I used the taught me in “How to Read a poem” by Edward Hrisch. read the poem aloud, and read it more than once. Every time I read this poem, my understanding and feelings of this poem are deeper . As stated in “How to Read a poem”, “This act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing to it your experience and point of view.” When I read this poem, I feel the body Immersive. I express my deep love to my lover, and hope that my lover can be by my side forever like that eternal summer. I also hope that my lover’s love for me can last forever like summer, never ending.
In the video “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch, The video shows a lot of explains that a poem should have such has rhythm, rhyme and always has some type of imagery that gives the poem definition on the moment they are explaining.
In “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W.B Yeats shows a lot of rhythm to the pome it has a type song rhythm to it just explaining how he will be going to Innisfree and the many things he could be doing over there. ” Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee and live alone in the bee-loud glade” This line rhyme’s with the some of the words he uses go together and always sounds a like a song, and from the video, they show a lot of comparisons on how a pome on things they use and noticed most of the time.