western literature week7

Shakespeare's Sonnets 

Shakespeare's Sonnets is the title of a collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare, which covers themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man; the last 28 to a woman. The sonnets were first published in a 1609 quarto with the full stylised title: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Never before Imprinted. (although sonnets 138 and 144 had previously been published in the 1599 miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim). The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint", a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal – though some scholars have argued convincingly against Shakespeare's authorship of the poem. The sonnets to the young man express overwhelming, obsessional love. The main issue of debate has always been whether it remained platonic or became physical. The first 17 poems, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are addressed to the young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty by passing it to the next generation. Other sonnets express the speaker's love for the young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name. The final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little love-god" Cupid. The publisher, Thomas Thorpe, entered the book in the Stationers' Register on 20 May 1609: Tho. Thorpe. Entred for his copie under the handes of master Wilson and master Lownes Wardenes a booke called Shakespeares sonnettes vjd. Whether Thorpe used an authorised manuscript from Shakespeare or an unauthorised copy is unknown. George Eld printed the quarto, and the run was divided between the booksellers William Aspley and John Wright.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist,Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and Yankee attention to practical detail.He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. Thoreau is sometimes referred to as an anarchist. Though "Civil Disobedience" seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government—"I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government"—the direction of this improvement points toward anarchism: "'That government is best which governs not at all;and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."

Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father, Pater Noster,and the Model Prayer is a venerated Christian prayer originally recorded in Aramaic that, according to the New Testament, was taught by Jesus to his disciples. Two forms of it are recorded in the New Testament: a longer form in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount, and a shorter form in the Gospel of Luke as a response by Jesus to a request by "one of his disciples" to teach them "to pray as John taught his disciples." In the fourth petition, the original text of the prayer (in Greek) uniquely contains the word epiousios, which does not appear in any other extant classical or Koine Greek literature, and is also the only adjective in the prayer. The prayer concludes with "deliver us from evil" in Matthew, and with "lead us not into temptation" in Luke. The first three of the seven petitions in Matthew address God; the other four are related to human needs and concerns. The liturgical form is the Matthean. Some Christians, particularly Protestants, conclude the prayer with a doxology, a later addendum appearing in some manuscripts of Matthew.

Pentameter

Pentameter is a poetic meter. А poem is said to be written in (a particular) pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of five feet, where 'foot' is a combination of a particular number (1 or 2) of unstressed (or weak) syllables and a stressed (or strong) syllable. Depending on the pattern of feet, pentameter can be iambic (one of three two-syllable meters alongside trochaic and spondaic) or dactylic (one of two three-syllable meters alongside anapestic).

Iambic pentameter is a commonly used type of metrical line in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm that the words establish in that line, which is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". The word "iambic" refers to the type of foot that is used, known as the iamb, which in English is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The word "pentameter" indicates that a line has five of these "feet". Iambic rhythms come relatively naturally in English. Iambic pentameter is the most common meter in English poetry; it is used in many of the major English poetic forms, including blank verse, the heroic couplet, and some of the traditional rhymed stanza forms. William Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in his plays and sonnets.

supplement

Similes and metaphors 

both used to make comparisons or elucidate concepts

Metaphors simply state a comparison.

Similes use the words “like” or “as” to compare things.

vocabulary

metaphorical: expressing one thing in terms normally denoting another