your eyes were cinnamon

[littledust]

Anyone have any deep thoughts on 17th-century poetry that they would care to share? I'm unit planning for student teaching! Right now the running theme I've come across is: "Please, please have sex with me, because life is short." Well, that and all the stuff about God. I think Donne's "Holy Sonnet XIV" best encapsulates the era's crazy tension

Comments

[bonsoirdollface]

There's a really funny sonnet by Shakespeare that pokes fun at typical love poems of the era- I think it's 130, but the other title is My Mistress' Eyes.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

It sprang to mind because I have a recording of Allan Rickman reading it... >w

[littledust]

Hee, I love that sonnet. Unfortunately, the Shakespeare unit will be done with by the time I get back from break. We're doing John Donne, Andrew Marvell, etc. Fun stuff, but I need to figure out what to do with it other than lecture on it.

[sutariyubi]

Buffy's awesome :) There's a reason I've written a paper about the series :) (though for some reason I still don't have any buffy icons...)

[littledust]

Oh, cool! What was the paper about?

[sutariyubi]

It was about how Buffy should be studied academically if just for its use of music--its absence, its presence, and how the culture of music affected the show overall.

[littledust]

I need to download the S8 comics before I return to school and ready access to BitTorrent. Glad to hear that they're good!

[theroyalbrat]

We are going to have SO MUCH BRAINSEX when we get back. You're enabling my lust for John Donne and all of his miserable crazy. SHAME.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Is "The Relic" part of your Donne curriculum? Because it does a great job of portraying the tension between the ephemeral and the eternal, and he reconciles the seemingly impossible contradiction of loving someone in the flesh and the physical body and the idea of eternity outside of the body. And it's one of the sweetest love poems ever (...but maybe I'm just creepy). It's one of his few happy poems, and it still manages to kind of be about death 'cause that's how he rolled.

I doubt you get to teach His Most High Debauchedness, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, right? Public high schools frown upon the liberal use of "fuck" and "cunt" in Important Literary Courses, probably. But it's the Restoration! It's important!

...I apologize for the entirety of this comment. I usually try to keep a lid on my bizarre 17th Century obsession...but yeah. <3!

[twisteddave]

You keep no such lid. That's why we love you.

[theroyalbrat]

Also! "The Apparition" is super fun. It basically translates to "Fine, bitch, you know what? When I DIE because you're such a CHEATING SLUT, I'm gonna come back and haunt your ass so bad, you'll wish I didn't...haunt your ass so bad. You AND that douchebag you left me for, who is a total homo, by the way. Me: 1, Cheating Whores and Gay Douchebags: 0. Hah!" I might have exaggerated a bit...but it makes me giggle.

And Dave, it's a damn good thing you crazy folks love my insane nerdery, 'cause otherwise I'd be pretty much screwed.

[twisteddave]

I am also a fan of "The Apparition," for the same reasons, although it's more poignant and emo to me than your hilarious interpretation.

And dear, you're talking to a man with an idea of starting his own steampunk penny dreadful. Of COURSE I love your nerdery.

[swatkat24]

I discovered Donne at that age! Um, 17 year olds will appreciate 'To His Mistress Going to Bed', I think. You can then introduce them to poems like 'Good Morrow' and 'The Relic' and the tension between physical love and eternity and how he resolves it, like the poster above says! And then you can go on to Marvell and 'To His Coy Mistress', which, again, might be appreciated by 17 year olds!

[littledust]

Thanks for the input! :D