Earn Extra Points for doing one or all of the following:
20 points: Comment on Obama’s Inaugural Speech
20 points: Comment in response to Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem
50 points: Post the sonnet you selected for Explication with a brief comment on why you picked it in the comment section for this post. Do not post your explication in your comment.
18 comments:
Sonnet 71
When I am dead, mourn for me only as long as you hear the funeral bell telling the world that I've left this vile world to go live with the vile worms. No, if you read this line, don't remember who wrote it, because I love you so much that I'd rather you forgot me than thought about me and became sad. I'm telling you, if you look at this poem when I'm, say, dissolved in the earth, don't so much as utter my name but let your love die with me. Otherwise, the world, in all its wisdom, will investigate why you're sad and use me to mock you, now that I am gone.
Sonnet 72
(Continuing from Sonnet 71) Oh, in case the world challenges you to recite what merit I possessed that would justify your loving me, forget about me entirely after I die, dear love. For you won't find anything worthy to say about me unless you make up some generous lie, which makes me sound better than I deserve, and attach more praise to my dead self than accords with the stingy truth. Oh, to prevent your true love from becoming false, as it will, in part, if you make false statements out of love for me, let my name be buried with my corpse and no longer bring shame to you or me. For I'm ashamed of what I produce, and you should be, too, to love such worthless things.
Sonnet 71
When I am dead, mourn for me only as long as you hear the funeral bell telling the world that I've left this vile world to go live with the vile worms. No, if you read this line, don't remember who wrote it, because I love you so much that I'd rather you forgot me than thought about me and became sad. I'm telling you, if you look at this poem when I'm, say, dissolved in the earth, don't so much as utter my name but let your love die with me. Otherwise, the world, in all its wisdom, will investigate why you're sad and use me to mock you, now that I am gone.
Sonnet 72
(Continuing from Sonnet 71) Oh, in case the world challenges you to recite what merit I possessed that would justify your loving me, forget about me entirely after I die, dear love. For you won't find anything worthy to say about me unless you make up some generous lie, which makes me sound better than I deserve, and attach more praise to my dead self than accords with the stingy truth. Oh, to prevent your true love from becoming false, as it will, in part, if you make false statements out of love for me, let my name be buried with my corpse and no longer bring shame to you or me. For I'm ashamed of what I produce, and you should be, too, to love such worthless things.
this sonnet is extremely sad. someone should not have to hear this before someone dies. but i think it was his way of saying you loved me enough when i was here and i know your still going to love me, just don't show it. he wants her to be happy after he's gone. so she shouldn't grieve.
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee tonight.
This said—he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing,
Yes I wept for it—this . . . the paper's light. . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . 0 Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Well I didn't really choose to do this sonnet on my own I had a little help.:) But after reading this it started to make sence of what it ment. This lady who was reading old letters from past love. She seems so emotional over these letters! Another reason i choose to keep this letter is becasue I like reading things like this,like love poems and things like that.
I watched the inaguration assemby on Tuesday,January 20th. This was a very emotional time. If it wouldn't have been for the assembly I most likely woudln't have watched the inaguration,in which I would have never felt the feelings i felt. The excitment for the new president.I can only imagain the flitter flatter feeling Barack Obama had. He was so nervous but he did a wonderful job speaking to the nation. Speaking in front of 3 million people and keeping his emtions and flitter flattery feeling under control.
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impedimetns. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be erroe and upon me proved, I never writ, nor man ever loved.
On Tuesday January 20, 2009 I got to witness a moment in history. I am glad that i got to watch this happen. I didn't think i would live to see the day. I watched the first ever African American president get sworn in. Speaking in front of 3 million people isn't easy. But he did it with pride. He held his calm and made the country proud.
Elizabeth Alexander's poem is so true about everyday life. She got everything that truly does happen. You live your life day by day, not knowing what you will see walking down the street or when you get to work or school.
SONNET 17
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies:
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers yellow'd with their age
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.
I chose this sonnet because my original sonnet that I picked didn't go how I planned lol.
but I do really like this sonnet
it's not so complicated and hard to understand. Overall I think that this was a good pick.
I chose this sonnet because it takes about love. It syas that you make alterations for love. They are saying this sonnet that everyone is looking for love, and everyone can find love in the end.
On January 20, 2009, over 3 million people watched as the first African American was sworn in as president of our nation. I am proud to say that I was one of those people. President Barak Obama is an inspiration to everyone in this nation and he is going to do wonderful things for our country. He spoke with so much emotion and even though he was nervous he did a very good job speaking in front of that many people. All we can do now is wait and see if he can now do for the country what he said he will do, and I personally can't wait to find out.
Elizabeth Alexander read a poem at the inauguration of President Obama. The poem, Praise Song for the Day, is very inspirational and she did a very good job at reading it. People need to listen and read the poem to understand what she was trying to say about every day life. This poem has a strong message and if you can read it and honestly say you don't understand it then you aren't reading it right.
Millay Sonnet:
I think that the sonnet is talking about how everything in life changes. Everyone goes through different phases in life and all of the phases eventually leads to death. This is what scares people, not that they will die, because everyone has to, but that they are running out of life to live.
SONNET 14
Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well,
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
I chose Sonnet 14 because it talks about Love and how you can learn everything you know from love. It also talk about procreation which is a big part of my life right now :)!
Sonnet 126 by William Shakespeare
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.
I chose this sonnet because I wanted to explicate a sonnet that we hadn't covered in class.
“Now” by Eleanor Alexander:
'For me, my friend, no grave-side vigil keep
With tears that memory and remorse might fill;
Give me your tenderest laughter earth-bound still,
And when I die you shall not want to weep.
No epitaph for me with virtues deep
Punctured in marble pitiless and chill:
But when play time is over, if you will,
The songs that soothe beloved babes to sleep.
No lenten lilies on my breast and brow
Be laid when I am silent; roses red,
And golden roses bring me here instead,
That if you love or bear me I may know;
I may not know, nor care, when I am dead:
Give me your songs, and flowers, and laughter now.'
I'm very moved by this particular sonnet because it reminds me so much of my great-grandmother, that's why I've chosen to write my explication on it.
Sonnet 154
The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;
And so the General of hot desire
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
"Sonnet 154", was written by William Shakespeare, and goes along with Sonnet 153. I chose this sonnet randomly, but after reading it and understanding its story, I ended up really liking it. This sonnet illustrates the passion of love, and how even the purest of people long for it, and how many people want to find the cure for their "love sickness".
Sonnet 147
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
I chose this sonnet because I came across the couplet being quoted in a book I was reading, about a couple that longed to be together, but could not. After reading the whole sonnet it made all of sense to me why that character quoted this sonnet from Shakespeare. I love the book I read, and it made me love this sonnet.
Watching President Obama's inaugural speech, on Tuesday Januaray 20th, was the first presidential inauguration I had seen. On the day of his inauguration, I was excited to watch a piece of history, and was a little proud, because I was able to vote this year, and it goes to show how we have the impact and voice to make a change. After watching the inauguration, and hearing the words said by many, of hope and change; I really hope that we get the chance to witness that change so many have been talking about.
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