The Brownings
Hi Everybody, I apologize to everyone in advance if I ramble or go off topic. I have the flu and am medicated, Go Tylenol Cold and Flu!, and thus take no responsibility for what I write down. However, I do hope it's at least slightly interesting :) Before I go into what I thought about the poems I just have to add something that I heard a while back about the Victorians. I heard that before Victoria and Phillip? marriage was mostly a political or business meeting of two families. It was only after these two that people started to marry for love, at least that's what my Families in Canadian Society teacher taught. Now onto the poems! I must admit that I enjoyed Robert's poem better than Elizabeth's, his "My Last Duchess" has the air of a murder mystery. I believe it was Janice who remarked upon this also, I'm sorry if it was someone else. The reader is left wondering if the duke became tired of his wife's, "heart ... too soon made glad, too easily impressed..." (Norton 1013) and killed her. From the sound of the poem it wasn't only her "looks" that went everywhere. The line where he says, "...I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together" (Norton 1013) is very ominous indeed. The poem is also like a thriller movie as the killer has not been caught and it becomes obvious that he has another victim in his clutches, the fair Count's daughter. In complete opposition to this is the poem "When Our Two Souls". For this poem appears to be about two lovers who wish to revel in their togetherness alone. So far as to aspire to stay alive and out of heaven so as not to have to share what they feel with the angels. For on Earth,
"the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it."
(http://www.bartleby.com/101/686.html)
The sonnet is very sweet but the subject matter seems strange to me. Maybe because I can think of a whole lot of other reasons to stay on Earth. I may also be entirely wrong about what the sonnet means, which is probably closer to the truth :) Well, I'm going to bed. Ciao all,
-Tricia
"the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it."
(http://www.bartleby.com/101/686.html)
The sonnet is very sweet but the subject matter seems strange to me. Maybe because I can think of a whole lot of other reasons to stay on Earth. I may also be entirely wrong about what the sonnet means, which is probably closer to the truth :) Well, I'm going to bed. Ciao all,
-Tricia