Nocturnal
- Created by: Freddie Kitchen
- Created on: 12-05-13 14:56
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- Nocturnal (Roman martyr- died blind for christ)
- Structure
- Triple rhyme; ABBADDDEE. Simple and coherent rhyme scheme- contains incoherent thoughts
- Uneven meter and line length, contained by rhyme like 'chaos' described
- Monosyllables 'as to the bed's feet life is shrunk'
- Triple rhyme; ABBADDDEE. Simple and coherent rhyme scheme- contains incoherent thoughts
- Imagery
- Light: 'midnight' 'squibs' 'st lucie's day' (itself is winter solstice- darkest possible time). Lack of light = ominous
- 'unmasks' mystery of death? hardly revealed
- 'Nothingness' 'privations' 'emptiness' 'shadow of light' 'squibs'
- Death; 'bed's feet life is shrunk' 'dead and interred' 'epitaph' 'long night's festival'- her death is glorified compared to his 'interred'
- Nature: 'sap is sunk' - trees microcosm of earth/ him- weakness. Hydroptic earth; thirst - in need of something (her). 'Nor will my sunne renew' (she will not be reborn, sun will not shine- spring will not come.)
- 'Yea plants, yea stones' less lifeless than plants and STONES have more character than him. (A sermon of his suggested stones are life forms)
- Religious 're-begot'- resurrection 'ruined' fall of humankind?
- Creation and Great Flood; 'oft a flood' - God's punishment is their own fault
- Light: 'midnight' 'squibs' 'st lucie's day' (itself is winter solstice- darkest possible time). Lack of light = ominous
- Techniques
- Hyperbole; 'i am every dead thing', 'whole world's...' Macrocosmic metaphors. Only really HIS world . Also 'dull privations'
- Personification of love as a male 'his art' 'he ruined me'. Symbolic of a patriarchal love?
- Lists; eternal nature- 'absence, darkness, death' ... 'life, soul, form, spirit'. Also all encompassing so give illusion of no escape
- Paradox- finishes on ' day's deep midnight is' - unnerving finish + ominous? Also first line- cyclical, no escape- problem hasn't been resolved
- AO4
- Alchemy; 'in whom love wrought new alchemy' 'limbeck'- he is a failed experiment. Believed it could be done at time. Other lovers futile as possible for them- false
- Neoplatonism; ' withdrew our souls and made us carcasses' - emptiness without soul- physical love is not substantial 'carcass'
- ' Oft a flood' 'we two wept' 'drowned the whole world' - Petrarchan convention
- Flattery? Written for a subsidee? Tactical
- Astronomy; 'Goat' - lustful image .. 'lust of spring'
- Alchemy; 'in whom love wrought new alchemy' 'limbeck'- he is a failed experiment. Believed it could be done at time. Other lovers futile as possible for them- false
- Structure
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