N & Q on Ralegh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"

1. How through imagery, content, and tone does Ralegh answer or satirize Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"?

2. How do metrics help foster balanced antithesis (used for irony and satire) in the poem?

3. What puns are there on spring (line 12) and fall (line 12)?

4. How does Ralegh's poem compare with the following poems in the long line of poems satirically evoked by Marlowe's lyric poem? Why has Marlowe's lyric evoked so many satiric replies?
 

Ogden Nash (1902-1971), "Love Under the Republicans  (or Democrats)" (1931) Come live with me and be my love And we sill all the pleasures prove Of a marriage conducted with economy In the Twentieth Century Anno Donomy. We'll live in a dear little walk-up flat With practically room to swing a cat And a potted cactus to give it hauteur And a bathtub equipped with dark brown water. We'll eat, without undue discouragement, Foods low in cost but high in nouragement And quaff with pleasure, while chatting wittily, The peculiar wine of Little Italy. We'll remind each other it's smart to be thrifty And buy our clothes for something-fifty. We'll stand in line on holidays For seats at unpopular matinees, And every Sunday we'll have a lark And take a walk in Central Park. And one of these days not too remote I'll probably up and cut your throat. C[ecil] Day Lewis (1904-1972), "Song" (1935) Come, live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove Of peace and plenty, bed and board That chance employment may afford.

I'll handle dainties on the docks And thou shalt read of summer frocks: At evening by the sour canals We'll hope to hear some madrigals. Care on thy maiden brow shall put A wreath of wrinkles, and thy foot Be shod with pain: not silken dress But toil shall tire thy loveliness. Hunger shall make thy modest zone And cheat fond death of all but bone - If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love. Peter De Vries (1910-1993), "Bacchanal" (1959) "Come live with me and be my love," He said, in substance. "There's no vine We will not pluck the clusters of, Or grape we will not turn to wine." It's autumn of their second year. Now he, in seasonal pursuit, With rich and modulated cheer, Brings home the festive purple fruit; And she, by passion once demented - That woman out of Botticelli - She brews and bottles, unfermented, The stupid and abiding jelly.

N& Q On Ralegh's "What Is Our Life?" or "[On the Life of Man]"

1. In what way does the diction* of the poem suggest Ralegh's philosophical inclination? Abstract or concrete nouns?

2. (a) How might Ralegh's use of rhymed couplets* help impart a trenchant, dark, and pontificating tone*? What other tone, typical of Ralegh, pervades the poem? How so? (b) How might rhythmical and sound effects (prosody*) help express Ralegh's ideas and tone?

3. (a) What might the puns* (multiple meanings) be on the following words in the poem: play (1), passion (1) (look up "passion play" in PDLT or HTL), division (2), dressed (4), short comedy (4), judicious (5), sharp (5), mark (6), still (6), act amiss (6), searching sun (7), play (8), march (9), playing (9), rest (9)? (b) What is the archaic meaning of lates t(9) that applies in this line, rather than its familiar modern sense? (Compare latest in line 9 of Drayton's "Since There's No Help" [Idea 61].) (c) How does the repeated use of the pun help, through the figure of speech itself, to suggest the poem's idea of doubleness? (d) What word is repeated in the poem, including a cognate form? How many times? To help express what ideas?

4. How does each metaphor or simile both accurately and suggestively describe what it does in the poem? How is vehicle* suited to tenor*?

5. What paradox* occurs in line 9, and how does it help suggest the "comedy" of human life?

6. How does the last line of the poem draw on the spheres of life and drama, satirically comparing or contrasting them?

7. (a) In what sense is the by-now cliche (uttered, as well, in Shakespeare's As You Like It) of the comparison of life to drama really true in our own experience? (b) Comparison or contrast (or both) to Spenser's Amoretti 54?
 

N & Q on Ralegh's "[Sir Walter Ralegh to His Son]" or "Three Things There Be"

1. How can both the Italian form and English form of the sonnet be seen in the poem through rhyme scheme, grammar and punctuation, and the content of the various parts?

2. (A) How is the subject matter of this sonnet far different from most sonnets from the period as included in the assigned readings so far? (B) How might the sonnet genre be used for ironic contrast with this sonnet's content? (C) How does this sonnet appear to have Ralegh's characteristic tone?

3. What multiple applicable meanings can be found in grow (line 2) (appropriate to the items listed in line 5), weed (line 5), wag (lines 5 and following), tree (line 6), "it makes the timber rot" (line 11), and part (line 14)?

4. (A) How is metonymy or synecdoche a key repeated figure of speech in the references to wood and weed, used to convey ironic contrasts in the poem? (B) Where is apostrophe used, and how does this figure of speech relate to question 1, above, relating to the structure or form of the sonnet? (C) How is alliteration used ironically and for an ironic tone in the poem? (D) How is paradox used meaningfully in line 14 and elsewhere in the poem?

N & Q on "The Lie"

1. How does the poem have the following envelope pattern, how does each group function as a thought or content unit: stanzas 1 & 13 (the envelope or loop), 2-5, 6-8, and 9-12 (comprised of the subunits of 9-10 and 11-12)?

2. How does the rhyme scheme of each stanza contribute to the poem's generalizing, ironic tone?

3. How do the repeated apostrophes and imperatives work thematically and tonally in the poem?

N & Q on "Farewell, False Love"

1. How does the rhyme scheme of each stanza contribute to the poem's generalizing, ironic tone?

2. How does this poem compare or contrast with Wyatt's poem "Farewell, Love"?

3. The poem has a kind of welter in its catalogue of items; how might this very welter be thematic in any way or ways?

N & Q on "Nature, That Washed Her Hands in Milk"

1. How does the rhyme scheme of each stanza contribute to the poem's generalizing, ironic tone?

2. How is the poem structured into the two halves of stanzas 1-3 and 4-6 by the content of each part?

3. How does the use of monetary vocabulary or imagery in the poem's last stanza compare or contrast with use of this vocabulary or imagery in a sonnet of Sidney, sonnet of Shakespeare, and in George Gascoigne's "The Lullaby of a Lover" (this last item can be found on the Norton Online Archive on the Internet)?

N & Q on "Methought I saw the Grave Where Laura Lay"

1. This poem is one of the most explicit in its reference to Francis Petrarch -- really Francesco Petrarca -- the most prolific pioneer and popularizer of the 14-line sonnet, as the genre has come to be known; how does the poem in its form or content have relevant ties to the Petrarch and his genre?

2. Where does the poem have a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, and how does this compliment relate to question #1, above?