A Genuinely Useful Post

TODAY IN CLASS--long but important.  Yes, there's homework given at the end.
We went over Shakespeare's Sonnet XII ("When I do count the clock that tells the time . . ." in detail, and set up both the Shakespearean rhyme scheme and the basics of its structure.  We looked at the poem line by line, noting how the content fit into the quatrains and the closing couplet. 

We talked a little bit about Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spenser (p. 238), noting that this poem also deals with the effects of time.  But instead of suggesting that the way to "defy" time was to have children who will live on after the older generation has died, the speaker  tells his beloved that her name (and their love) will be preserved in the poetry he writes.

We got started on a paraphrase, but only got a few lines into it.  A paraphrase is a detailed "translation" that puts a poem, particularly one in archaic language or filled with dense imagery, into clearer, more direct terms.  It is NOT a "slang" version or shortened form that leaves material out. Nor is it an "interpretation"; your job is to lay out what the poem SAYS, not to look for multiple levels of meaning. You can present it in line form or paragraph form, but don't try to paraphrase strictly on a line-by-line basis; because of word order, you'll probably need to look ahead.  Since we didn't finish the paraphrase together in class, I've finished it here.  Obviously there are different ways to word the paraphrase, but this should give you the idea:

PARAPHRASE:  Edmund Spenser’s Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name in the sand at the beach,

But the waves came in and washed it away:

I wrote it out a second time,

But the tide came in again and ruined my efforts.

“Vain man,” she said, “who in futility attempts

To immortalize (preserve forever) a mortal being,

For I myself will die and decay, and my identity will vanish

Just like my name was erased from the sand.

“No, that’s not true,” I said, “let more ordinary beings die

(and become dust), but you will live by what people remember and know about you:

My poetry will spell out your rare virtues for all eternity,

And write your glorious name in heaven.

So after death conquers all the rest of the world,

Our love will still live and renew our life by the memory of it.

HOMEWORK

Now you try your hand at paraphrasing the next one in the book:  Sonnet 31 by Sir Philip Sidney (p. 239).

Write out your paraphrase neatly in ink, or else type it.  Due at the beginning of class on Wednesday.