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Critical Analysis #1
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roxane
Senior Member
since 1999-09-02
Posts 505
us

0 posted 2000-01-05 11:28 PM


i have no title for this.  really, i'm not very proud of it, but anyways, hack away.


could i feel love half as strongly as i write it,
then i'd resign myself to complacency.
i'd give up on hopes of the romantic ideals
and sacrifice myself to sheer vacancy.
when we lay together, tender, alone
there's something about it, not quite real
and frustratedly i sigh, pulling you close;
make your love something that i feel!
let no one know the numbness i suffer.
your breath on my mouth, revive me.
swallow my heartbeat with more noble flesh,
leave my corpse, my love, survive me!
devoid of passion, a dead girl not yet buried.
how can i love when to my sorrow i am married?

 "Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too long in such a place as this." Charles Dickens


roxane



© Copyright 2000 roxane - All Rights Reserved
John Foulstone
Member
since 2000-01-01
Posts 100
Australia
1 posted 2000-01-06 12:21 PM


Hi, Roxane. As invited, I shall hack this almost Shakespearean sonnet, if only lightly. First, content. The quatrains build nicely to the predicament of the final couplet. I feel a bit of a contradiction in the use of the word tender in line 5. Tender is good, which seems at odds with the rest of the feelings in this second quatrain.
Construction. x/a/y/a rhyme pattern in the quatrains is untraditional, at least, tho' I like the half rhyme of the closing couplet. And the iambs fall over in places. I've had my little hack. Strange, we all marry for love, and so often lose it.

jbouder
Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534
Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash
2 posted 2000-01-06 12:36 PM


Roxanne:

I see sonnet fever has spread to the lovely and talented Roxanne!  See simplyYRREHS's recent post "To Trust Again" for the technical information I posted on sonnet structures.  You may already know all of it, but if you don't, take a look.

I love the movement of this poem.  You develop the conflict well then ... BANG.  I love your couplet.  A little tweaking will get it into the correct meter/syllable count for the Shakespearean sonnet (if that is what you were intending this to be).  This should be easy enough for you to do.

I've been reading sonnets for several months and they all begin each line with caps.  Your "trademark" lowercases were a little distracting in this one.  Maybe that's just the rebel in you shining through, huh?  

Anyway, nice work.  Let me know if I can be of any help.  I'm no expert but I've written a few of these things.  Later.

 Jim

"If I rest, I rust." - Martin Luther


Hawk183
Member
since 1999-12-24
Posts 130

3 posted 2000-01-06 12:37 PM


Roxane,

I think you should be proud of this piece...
It flows very nicely and paints a truly tragic picture...after several readings I felt very sorry for this person...great writing.

haze
Senior Member
since 1999-11-03
Posts 528
Bethlehem, PA USA
4 posted 2000-01-06 12:41 PM


I have never been one to be bent by iambic and sonnet syntax is just not my way.
Could you hone the rhyme and meter?-Yes
BUT
It is the layers here that capture me;
First-I read this and feel that it is the subject's spouse that leaves the love flat, and then again, on the second read-it is a lack of love within the subjects self that prohibits the shattering-love-lust emotions.

I would say you have the makings of a very good sonnet here and an excellent poem full of emotional alleghory. I'll leave the slicing and dicing of style to others but I certainly think you should not abandon this.

TA
~haze

Tim Gouldthorp
Member
since 2000-01-03
Posts 170

5 posted 2000-01-06 09:57 PM


You say your not too proud of this poem but I liked it a lot.  Aside from questions of format that you and the above repliers know much more about, I really felt the idea the poem conveyed strongly, the idea was carried through from the first line to the last.
warmhrt
Senior Member
since 1999-12-18
Posts 1563

6 posted 2000-01-06 11:26 PM


roxane,
This is a moving, very expressive piece of work, and I greatly identify with it. I could have written similar words. You did a wonderful job.
My only suggestion would be to leave the first four lines out, or rework them, as they are a bit contradictory to the rest of the piece. "sheer vacancy" would be feeling nothing, and If you felt "love half as strongly as you write it", then you would be feeling something, I presume. I'd keep working on this...it has prime possibilities.

warmhrt

jenni
Member
since 1999-09-11
Posts 478
Washington D.C.
7 posted 2000-01-07 10:39 AM


roxane--

i had the same reaction as warmheart...the first four lines seem out of place here, unconnected with the remainder of the poem.  if the speaker felt something, even half as much as maybe she wants to, why THEN would she resign herself to complacency?  and if she felt something, there wouldn't be "sheer vacancy," as i see it.  are we missing something?  

the remainder of the piece is great... echoes of another poem of yours that i loved (remember which one?  it was called ... umm ... "untitled".  you gotta at least start numbering them, lol.)  "make your love something that i feel" can be read both as a plea and a reproach, this is where haze gets her 'layering' (right, haze?), and maybe you could develop that more?  

this is a very nice piece, rox... keep 'em coming.  

jenni

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