For my Grandmother Knitting by Liz Lochhead

For my Grandmother Knitting

 by Liz Lochhead

Poem Analysis:

This 5 stanza poem, written by Liz Lochhead, re  presents the life of an old lady, going in chronological order from when she was young. However, unequal lengths in the lines don’t relate to the meaning of the poem, which is how the elderly is treated in the society along with some deeply personal details. There are many themes related to this poem such as: Self-perception, generation gap, misunderstandings.

 Many points in the poem helps us understand her feelings, and sometimes her family’s too, which encourages us to feel for the grandmother. The line “There is no use they say”, this shows that the uselessness of the grandmother keeps increasing and the word ‘they’ gets us to sense the distant relationship between the family members.

In stanza one she is reminded of the fisher girl she used to be, and how her hands still work in the same rhythm. Second stanza opens with words such as “old now” and “grasp of things not so good” shows the aging of grandmother. The other lines of the stanza further elaborate on her hands when they were young, how they were “master of your moments”, “Deft and swift”. In line 12, “you slit the still-ticking quicksilver fish.” the poet has used alliteration to show how strong the old lady’s had was in her youth.

Stanza 3 is dedicated to the time the old lady was a young housewife. It looks into the details of what she used her fresh hands for, like : “hands of the mother of six who made do and mended scraped and slaved slapped sometimes when necessary.” In stanza number four, the poet writes what the grandchildren says to their granny, that “they say grandma have too much already”. However the poet also shows that the grandma doesn’t only knit for the children, but also because the knitting reminds her of the sweet moments of her past.

In the last stanza, the poet further defines the hands as “Swollen-jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old.” using small, bitter words to make the reader wonder about the pain of aging. There is a repetition of phrases from the first stanza, “but the needles still move their rhythms in the working of your hands as easily as if your hands”. The poem is concluded by saying that the constant movement of her hands haven’t altered.

Research Content:

Elizabeth Anne Lochhead was born on 1947 December 26^th to John and Margaret Lochhead, in Motherwell, Lanarkshire. She went to Dalziel High School and at the age of 15, she decided on going to art school, however many teachers wanted her to go by the Literature path. In 1965, after entering Glasglow School of Art, she wrote her first poem, “the Visit”. She also joined a writing group run by Stephen Mulrine. On 1970, after graduating from the art school, she went for a few writers’ workshops. On the following year she won a Radio Scotland poetry competition. After reading with Norman MacCaig at a poetry festival, her first collection was published by Gordon Wright, ‘Memo for Spring’. Her second collection received the Scottish Arts Council Book award. Liz has met many famous poets and has stood out to be a very inspiring woman. Liz took her first step towards drama on 1978.

While teaching art in secondary schools, she released her second collection, Islands, and was awarded the first Scottish/ Canadian writers’ Exchange Fellowship, both in the same year. Due to the award, she became a full-time writer, poet, and performer. She performed in ‘Blood and Ice’ on 1982; ‘Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off’ on 1989 and many more majestic plays. On 1985, she translated and adapted ‘Tartuffe’, into Scots. She also worked for the television are: ‘Latin for a Dark Room’ & ‘the story of Frankenstein’. Her poems written from 1984-2003, were published in 2003 as her collection, ‘The colour of black & white’. On 2006, ‘Good things’, which was a romantic comedy for stage was released.

She was awarded an honorary degree by University of Edinburgh in 2000 and on 2005 she was made Poet Laureate of Glasglow. In 2011 she became the Scots Marker, and her book: ‘A choosing: The selected poetry of Liz Lochhead’, was released in the same year. 

Lion Heart by Amanda Chong

Lion Heart by Amanda Jones

You came out of the sea,

skin dappled scales of sunlight;

Riding crests, waves of fish in your fists.

Washed up, your gills snapped shut.

Water whipped the first breath of your lungs,

Your lips’ bud teased by morning mists.

You conquered the shore, its ivory coast.

Your legs still rocked with the memory of waves.

Sinews of sand ran across your back-

Rising runes of your oceanic origins.

Your heart thumped- an animal skin drum

heralding the coming of a prince.

In the jungle, amid rasping branches,

trees loosened their shadows to shroud you.

The prince beheld you then, a golden sheen.

Your eyes, two flickers; emerald blaze

You settled back on fluent haunches;

The squall of a beast. your roar, your call.

In crackling boats, seeds arrived, wind-blown,

You summoned their colours to the palm

of your hand, folded them snugly into loam,

watched saplings swaddled in green,

as they sunk roots, spawned shade,

and embraced the land that embraced them.

Centuries, by the sea’s pulmonary,

a vein throbbing humming bumboatsyour

trees rise as skyscrapers.

Their ankles lost in swilling water,

as they heave themselves higher

above the mirrored surface.

Remember your self: your raw lion heart,

Each beat a stony echo that washes

through ribbed vaults of buildings.

Remember your keris, iron lightning

ripping through tentacles of waves,

double-edged, curved to a pointflung

high and caught unsheathed, scattering

five stars in the red tapestry of your sky.

Poem Analysis: 

This poem proudly describes Singapore, the home of the Poet, with its 6 stanzas, each containing 6 lines, except the last one which contains 3 lines, and no rhyme scheme. The poet cleverly uses the Merlion to symbolize the magnificence and pride of her home country.

Alliteration has been used in places like “rising runes”, “saplings Swaddled”, “spawned shade”, to create better descriptions. The poet labels that the Merlion rises out of the sea, clutching the its prey under its fists. “You conquered the shore” shows that now the creature has settled down in that island. This line is also supported by “trees loosened their shadows to shroud you”.  Later on, in the 4rth stanza, the line “In crackling boats, seeds arrived wind-blown” shows how other people (seeds) became attracted to the beautiful island. The rest of the stanza uses powerful imagery in order to represent how it welcomed the beings with warmth and how they prosper.  The next stanza is dedicated to the progression of the country, saying “your trees rise as skyscrapers”

The last 2 stanzas remind the Merlion of its pride, “your raw lion heart”, its strength, “Iron lighting ripping through the tentacles of the waves”. The author concludes the poem by using a wonderful metaphor, “five starts in the red tapestry of your sky”, to signify the flag of Singapore.

Research Content:

The young poet, Amanda Chong was a published writer since she was 11 years old and also an award winning poet at the early age of 16. She is the latest student of Singapore to win the Angus Ross Award. Her story, named “What The Modern Woman Want” was bagged in the top spot in Commonwealth Essay Competition, in the year of 2004. In 2005, she took the most prestigious poetry prize, “Foyle Young Poets of the Year”. Being an A-level topper of English Literature, she is now studying Law at Cambridge University.  

Tiger in the Menagerie by Emma Jones

Tiger in the Menagerie by Emma Jones

No one could say how the tiger got into the menagerie.
It was too flash, too blue, 
too much like the painting of a tiger.

At night the bars of the cage and the stripes of the tiger
looked into each other so long
that when it was time for those eyes to rock shut

the bars were the lashes of the stripes
the stripes were the lashes of the bars

and they walked together in their dreams so long
through the long colonnade 
that shed its fretwork to the Indian main

that when the sun rose they'd gone and the tiger was 
one clear orange eye that walked into the menagerie.

No one could say how the tiger got out in the menagerie.
It was too bright, too bare.
If the menagerie could, it would say 'tiger'.

If the aviary could, it would lock its door.
Its heart began to beat in rows of rising birds 
when the tiger came inside to wait.

Poem Analysis:

This poem by Emma Jones, has 7 short stanzas which vary between 2-3 lines each with no rhymes. Various words have been used creatively my Emma in order to give a descriptive display of the tiger’s nature.

In line 2, imagery has been used to emphasize that a tiger is too fast and unnoticeable to be caught “too flash, too blue”. The use of simile in “too much like a painting of a tiger”, shows that it is too unrealistic. The appearance of the tiger is described in the line “too bright, too bare” with the use of alliteration. “The bars were the lashes of the stripes the stripes were the lashes of the bars” is where intense imagery is used to describe how incredibly uncomfortable and tight the cage was for the tiger that the bar of the cage where leaving permanent marks like his stripes. The fact that the animals of the menagerie were terrified of the tiger is shown in the line “If the menagerie could, it would say ‘tiger’”. 

Research Content: 

Emma Jones was born in Sydney and educated at Universities of Sydney and Cambridge. On 2006, Jacob Polley had organized a small gathering for writers and poets of Cambridge University, and Emma’s unpublished poem had left him speechless. Later on, Polley had emailed her in order to ask for more of her work and forwarded them to Matthew Hollis and had it published, making her the second Australian after Geoffery Lehmann, way back in 1994. Plus, she was the only debut writer that year.

Her very first book, name “The Striped World”, had won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award as well as the Felix Prize. In 2009-10 she was the poet in residence at Wordsworth Trust.

Right now she lives in a cottage, the home of William Wordsworth. There she concentrates on her writing peacefully. 

Lovers' Infiniteness by John Donne

Lovers' Infiniteness by John Donne

If yet I have not all thy love,

Dear, I shall never have it all;

I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,

Nor can intreat one other tear to fall;

And all my treasure, which should purchase thee—

Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters—I have spent.

Yet no more can be due to me,

Than at the bargain made was meant;

If then thy gift of love were partial,

That some to me, some should to others fall,

         Dear, I shall never have thee all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,

All was but all, which thou hadst then;

But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall

New love created be, by other men,

Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,

In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,

This new love may beget new fears,

For this love was not vow'd by thee.

And yet it was, thy gift being general;

The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall

         Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet,

He that hath all can have no more;

And since my love doth every day admit

New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;

Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,

If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it;

Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,

It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it;

But we will have a way more liberal,

Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall

         Be one, and one another's all.

Poem Analysis: 

This poem of 3 stanzas, each containing 11 lines, written by John Donne is about the poet being so frustrated about fighting so hard for his love by giving her his “sighs, tears, and oaths and letters”, using imagery to emphasize the amount of pain you need to go through to secure your love. Lovers’ Infiniteness, obviously themed as love, contains a rhyming scheme of ABABCDCD. Throughout the poem he tries to persuade to her that he will always love her and he wants the vice versa. He wants her heart alone, without having to share it with others, which he detests, and proves by saying “If then thy gift of love were partial, that some to me, some should to others fall”. Each stanza ends with a line which gives different meanings of the word “all”.  This poem is relatable to one of John’s other, named “The Flea”, where he again tries to convince a young lady to be his.

The first and the second lines in stanza 1, shows some jealousy in the poets heart as he claims that he wants “all” of the maiden. He is has no faith at all in the fact that maybe she can return to him. John tends to believe that if she doesn’t give him “all” of the love, then it isn’t love.

Lines 14-17, is where the poets says that even if there was a time in which she had given him all,  after the other men, a new love of theirs might have been created. “This new love may beget new fears” shows that this fresh love will be the cause of his new suspicions. He, then brilliantly uses a metaphor in the lines “The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall grow there, dear, I should have it all.” Which explains that if something grows in a land, the owner owns it, therefore he describes her heart as his, and everything that grows in it, especially her love.

Stanza 3, line 2 says “He that hath all can have no more” where the poet means that he expects his wife’s love for him to grow each day, and yet he wishes to have all of it, but how can a person who has all have anymore? “Thou canst not every day give me thy heart, If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it” is when the poet says that if she gives him her heart every day, it means that she hasn’t given it to her in the first place. In the conclusion of the poem he says “Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall be one and one another’s all” where he means that he doesn’t wish no more to change each other’s hearts, but to join them together and have one whole.

                                                                                                         

Research Content: 

John Donne was born to a Catholic family on 1572, January 22. John is mainly known as the founder of Metaphysical Poetry, and was in a group with other poets such as: George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, John Cleveland as well as Andrew Marvell. This team had the ability to capture the reader’s attention, and also change the perception or plant a new perspective in many ways.

When his father died on 1576, his mother married Dr. John Syminges, who raised the Donne children well. John had first visited the University of Oxford and later on to the University of Cambridge, yet he received no degree from either of the Universities because he was Roman Catholic. At the age of 20, John had his mind set to becoming a lawyer and began studying law in Lincoln’s Inn.  

While spending plentiful of his inheritance on Woman, books and travel, he had started to write his poems from 1950s. Although he didn’t have many fans at that time, his poem books, named “Satires” and “Songs and Sonnets”, very highly valued among a small group. The religious themed poems took a step forward when his brother Henry died in prison after being imprisoned of Catholic understandings.

John was appointed as the private secretary of Sir Thomas Egerton, The Lord of the great Seal of England. During the year 1601, John became a Member of the Parliament and also married the niece of Sir Egerton, Anne More. However, both Anne’s father and Sir Egerton, highly disapproved of the marriage and refused to give dowry. Moreover, John was fired from his job and was sentenced in prison for a short time. Finally, after 8 years of John’s release, Anne’s father paid the dowry.

John Donne won the King’s favor when he published his anti-Catholic Polemic and put forward that the Roman Catholics can support James I without altering their traditions. When John transformed to Anglicanism, he was appointed as the Royal Chaplian. John devoted his poems and time to more

religious subjects when his wife died after delivering their 12^th child. Donne became Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions” was published on 1624, while John was going through a serious illness. John was blessed by death on 31^st March, 1631, as his state worsened. 

Father Returning Home by Dilip Chitre

Father Returning Home by Dilip Chitre

My father travels on the late evening train

Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light

Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes

His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat

Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books

Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age

fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.

Now I can see him getting off the train

Like a word dropped from a long sentence.

He hurries across the length of the grey platform,

Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,

His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward.

Home again, I see him drinking weak tea,

Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.

He goes into the toilet to contemplate

Man’s estrangement from a man-made world.

Coming out he trembles at the sink,

The cold water running over his brown hands,

A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.

His sullen children have often refused to share

Jokes and secrets with him. He will now go to sleep

Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming

Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking

Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.

Poem Analysis:

This poem represents a life of an old man in a multinational city, leading a very lonely life, being ignored even by his children. The short, appealing poem themed after “Loneliness”, has 2 stanzas with 12 lines each, contains no rhymes.

Stanza one is dedicated to the train ride back home. It is proved that he is not surprised or interested in any of the scenery passing by him since they are way too familiar, when the poet says “Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes”. The poet’s father’s state is then described by phrases like “stained with mud”, “bag stuffed with books is falling apart” and it also shows that the old man doesn’t seem to have any problem with his state, or that he doesn’t seem to care. An effective use of simile and imagery in the line “like a word dropped from a long sentence” shows that nothing about the train changed when the man got off. It made no change if he was there or not, he was practically invisible. “His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onwards” gives another example of his condition, it also shows that he is in hurry to get home. It is possible that he no longer wants to be a part of this surrounding and feels uncomfortable.

Stanza number 2 continues the poems by describing the scenes inside the house. Words such as “weak tea”, “stale chapatti”, gives strong meaning to the life the man is leading. It shows that he is not treated as to what is expected but he doesn’t seem to care in any ways or another. The action of him trembling at the sink, shows that he is disturbed by what he was thinking in the toilet. With his children ignoring him, he has nothing to do but sleep, listening to his only company, the radio. 

Research Content: 

Dilip Purushottam Chitre, born on September 17 1938 in Baroda, was one of the foremost writers and critics to emerge the post-Independence India. While being a writer of both English and Marathi, he was also a painter as well as a film-maker. He was often described as “legendary”, “all-rounder”, etc. His early poems have been described at stylish, erotic, but later on, he themed his poems to being able to related with major themes of life and death. Since he wrote poems in both English and Marathi, he was an accomplished translator. He had won the Sahitya Academy Award, which is known as India’s highest literacy award, in 1994. 

On 1951, the family moved to Mumbai, where Chitre was enrolled in an English- medium school, but after 3 years transferred to Marathi-medium. During school years he become fluent in Gujarati, Hindi, English as well as Marathi. Later on he learned Urdu & Bengali. Even from the age of 16, Dilip was seriously into writing poems, which was then published in the Marathi magazine, Satyakatha. He graduated in English honors and continued by working as a journalist & a college tutor. In 1954 he started his own magazine along with Ramesh Samarth and Arjun Kolatkar, named Shabda, which was dedicated exclusively to poetry. 1959, Dilip issued is first poetry book entitled, Kavita. On 1960, he agreed on teaching English in government schools in Ethiopia for 3 long years, this was how he learned yet another language, Amharic. After returning to Mumbai at the age of 25, Dilip was hired as Creative Executive in the Indian Express.

On 1969, Mr.Chitre started his film career with documentaries and short films. His only movie, ‘Godan’ had released in Hindi on 1984 and won several awards.

He was invited to join the University of Lowa for their International Writing program, as a Fellow in 1977. When he returned to India at the end of 1977, he had already conducted creativity writing workshops for kids at Cedar Rapids, back at US.

Throughout his later years Dilip had directed and give many speeches, readings, along with participating in seminars. While all of this, he also conducted many workshops in both India and abroad.

At the age of 22 years, he married Viju. In the sad event of the Bhopal Gas tragedy, his only son was held victim. Dilip Chitre also passed away, while suffering of cancer for 5 years and after a lengthy illness, he breathe his last on December 10^th, 2009. 

She was a Phantom of delight by William Wordsworth

She was a Phantom of delight

 by William Wordsworth  

SHE was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament:
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death:
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly plann'd
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.

Poem Analysis:

“Phantom of delight” by Wordsworth, yet another Romance themed poem, describes how his perspective about his wife changes. The 3 stanzas of the poem filled with metaphysical features and the title itself carrying an oxymoron, holds 10 lines each, representing those 3 stages in which Wordsworth got to know his wife better. Except for lines 1 &2 on the 2^nd stanza, the entire poem is rhymed with couplets.

In stanza 1, the poet is fascinated by his wife’s looks, he sees her as a spirit “to haunt, to startle, to way-lay”. Words such as “apparition” gives her characteristics of a rather perfect woman. This is also supported by the similes used to compare her to the seasons and nature. Later on, in stanza 2, William tends to have seen glimpses of her soul, still not ignoring her outer beauties, through her household motions which he describes as “light and free”. The use of loaded words like “virgin liberty”, convinces us of her pureness and how her steps are as free as a birds. “Not too bright or good” presents to us that she is just right for William Wordsworth, that her features are all equally decent.  The final stanza signifies Mary Hutchinson as a conscientious, elegant housewife in William’s eyes. Her form has solidified to be a real woman throughout the stanzas, her “reasons firm”. To William, she is described as the only being with “Endurance, foresight, strength and skill”. 

Research Content:

  William Wordsworth was born April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, to John and Anne (Cookson) Wordsworth, the second of their five children. He is famous for his capturing  style of romantic poems. His father was law agent and rent collector for Lord Lonsdale, and the family was fairly well off.

Wordsworth’s mother died when he was 7, and he was an orphan at 13. Despite these losses, he did well at Hawkshead Grammar School—where he wrote his first poetry—and went on to study at Cambridge University. He did not excel there, but managed to graduate in 1791.

He visited France in 1791 and fell in love with Annette Vallon, However, the declaration of war between England and France in 1793 separated the two. At this time, Annette was pregnant. Also on 1793, his very first publication of poems were published. These poems, featuring in “An evening Walk” as well as “Descriptive sketches”, earned William over 900 pounds, stating his career as an official poet.

In 1794 he reunited with his sister, Dorothy. She soon became his support, his companion, close friend as well as housekeeper.The next year he met Coleridge, and the three of them grew very close, the two men meeting daily in 1797-98 to talk about poetry and to plan Lyrical Ballads, which came out in 1798. These Lyrical Ballads helped grow the Romantic Era of English Literature.

In 1802, a temporary lull in fighting between England and France meant that Wordsworth was able to see Vallon and their daughter, Caroline. After returning to England, he wed Mary Hutchinson, who gave birth to the first of their five children in 1803. However in 1805 William’s Brother John died, then 2 children passed away on 1812. In 1813 the Wordsworth moved to a home in Grasmere called Rydal Mount, where William and Mary lived out their lives. By this time people were catching on to Wordsworth’s new school of poetry and he had serious fans. While Dora was his only surviving, he gained inspiration on writing a whole poem dedicated to her, titled “Addressed to my infant daughter” as well as “The Traids”.

In 1829, Dorothy Wordsworth came down with a serious illness that left her an increasingly senile invalid. Coleridge died in 1843. Later, on 1847, His beloved daughter Dora breathe her last, due to tuberculosis at her parents’ home. Wordsworth was devastated and seemed to lose his will to write after her death.

William Wordsworth breathe his last breath on April 23 1850, at the age of 80. He had pleurisy, an inflammation around the lining of the lungs.

After few months, his widow Mary published the poem to Coleridge, The Prelude.

Song by Lady Mary Wroth

Song by Lady Mary Wroth

LOVE, a child, is ever crying;
Please him, and he straight is flying;
Give him, he the more is craving,
Never satisfied with having.
His desires have no measure;
Endless folly is his treasure;
What he promiseth he breaketh;
Trust not one word that he speaketh.
He vows nothing but false matter;
And to cozen you will flatter;
Let him gain the hand, he’ll leave you
And still glory to deceive you.
He will triumph in your wailing;
And yet cause be of your failing:
These his virtues are, and slighter
Are his gifts, his favours lighter.
Feathers are as firm in staying;
Wolves no fiercer in their preying;
As a child then, leave him crying;
Nor seek him so given to flying.

Poem Analysis:

In the very first line of the 5-4 lined stanza poem, the writer, Lady Mary Wroth, has cleverly used personification to characterize love as a child who is “ever crying”. In my perspective, I believe that Lady Mary Wroth relates the poem to her husband, whose likes aren’t any similar to hers.The rhythm of the poem goes by couplets, with most works having 2 syllables. These heavily-rhymed lines are each end stopped by mostly commas and full-stops, except for line 3 of stanza 4. Clearly, the theme put out here is love, yet the fact that the imagery used makes us aware the poem is more about the negativity of love. Even with the personification used, the poem itself seems very straightforward, easy to understand. Not much effort of reading between the lines is needed to crack these phrases.

 Firstly, the title of the poem – “Song”, is selected with care since the rhythm of the poem is much like a song itself, moreover the rhyming of couplets used, gives the poem more harmony. Moving on, the first stanza shows us that love demands our immediate attention, much like the reason a baby cries; because it is seeking attention. Their demand for care is endless.

Nonetheless, stanza 2 starts a little confusion when Lady Wroth uses such ‘adult-like’ words, such as: folly, desire and later on through the poem, triumph. These vocab give the poem a new meaning. Gives the reader a thought that maybe this poem speaks of a one-sided relationship, since that would explain the use of the pronouns – he, him, and his. This change of thought gives a better meaning to the lines like “his desires have no measure”, where it shows that the wife is taken advantage of. The phrase “Trust not one word that he speaketh” warns us of the husband’s history of lies, which Mary would’ve been caught into. This saying is supported by the first line of stanza 3, “He vows nothing but false matter”

.

“His gifts and favors lighter”, shows the difference in the service of the man to the woman from the service of the woman to the man. Yet, I believe, that from the man’s opinion, he considers that his favors and gifts enough since the woman is just doing her job as a housewife and a partner.

My favorite line of the poem, “Feathers are as firm in staying” uses strong simile, in order to present that the husband does what he pleases and his words aren’t to be gambled upon. Feathers aren’t stable, they fly off whenever they please. The poem is concluded by advising us to not satisfy every need of our beloved in the phrase “As a child then, leave him crying”.

Research Content:

Born on October 18^th, 1587, as Mary Sidney, to a family connected to the Royal courts in the days of Elizabeth I and James I, Lady Mary Wroth was the first Englishwoman to write a complete sonnet sequence along with original work of pose fiction.  Being connected to the Royal family, she had access to education, which otherwise was quite rare for women of her time. Born to Sir Robert Sidney (had written a manuscript of 66 poems), later Earl of Leicester, and Lady Barbara Gamage (also known as the patron of arts). She didn’t attend school, like all other girls, however she was home schooled by private tutors. Wroth was heavily influenced by her father’s works. Even though Mary had quite a literary family, she was married to Sir Robert Wroth, who preferred hunting. Due to Roberts relation’s with the King, Mary grew close to the Queen Anne. She performed for the Queen in court masques during the years of 1605, 1608.

After 10 years of marriage, on February 1614, Mary’s first son James was born. Unfortunately, after 10 months of such a joyful incident, Mary’s husband passed away, leaving all his debts upon her shoulders. Wroth’s financial issued worsened when the child died on July 1616 causing her to lose the estate to John Wroth. To add to the problems, she had become deeply involved in a relationship with her first cousin, William, third Earl of Pembroke (the title which he had gained due to being a favorite of Queen Anne). Being the mistress of William, she bore him 2 children named William & Catherine.  

Urania, however, brought quite a lot of misunderstanding between the Queen and the politicians because it repeatedly refers to a powerful Queen, who is filled with jealousy and does what’s in her power to obtain her lover. Many at that time thought that the reference was made to the Queen and Lady Wroth, fighting over Herbert. Due to these reasons, Urania was drawn from sale on December 1621.

Wroth left King James's court and was later abandoned by William Herbert due to the publication issues that “Urania” had caused. Other than the fact that she still struggled with financial issues, no information has be discovered of her later life. Wroth died in either 1651 or 1653.