2008 BM1 Assignment 1: Poetry

Task

Please address the following five tasks and questions. You may write up to three pages of text, according to the formatting specifications of the style sheet. Any text beyond the first three pages will be ignored.

1. Identify the speaker, the addressee(s), the communicative situation.
2. Identify the various sections of the poem and comment on the development of the theme(s) from one section to the next.
3. Comment on metre and rhyme scheme.
4. Find and analyse at least one metaphor in this poem and give examples of two other figures of speech from the poem.
5. Briefly comment on the sonnet in relation to the other poems you have dealt with.

Sonnet II from William Percy, Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia. London, 1594.

Oh happie houre, and yet vnhappie houre,

When first by chaunce I had my goddesse vievved,

Then first I tasted of the svveetest soure,

Wherevvith the cup of Cypria is embrevved.

For gazing ferme vvithout suspition,

Loue coopt behind the charet of her eye,

Iustly to schoole my bold presumption,

Against my hart did let an arrow flie:

Faire sir, quoth he, to practise haue you nought

But to be gazing on deuinitie?

Before you part, your leare you shall be tought,

With that attonce he made his arrovves hie:

Imperious God, I did it not to loue her

Ah, stay thy hand, I did it but to proue her.

Explanations

The poem is given in its original spelling, be aware of the v/u distribution (v at the beginning of words, u elsewhere), of the initial I that standing where a modern J would stand, of the vv use for w. The following lexical explanations might be of further help:

l.4: Cypria = Venus (supposed to come from Cyprus) — embrewed = stained with blood

l.5: ferme = firm

l.6: coopt = confined in a small space — charet = chariot

l.8: hart = heart

l.10: deuinitie = divinity

l.11: leare = lesson

l.12: attonce = at once

Source

William Percy "Sonnet II." Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia. London, 1594. EEBO