Paraphrase – Page 4 – Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 50: ‘How heavy do I journey on the way’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) And so we come to the 50th sonnet in Shakespeare’s sequence of 154 sonnets. In this poem, Shakespeare describes a journey on horseback in which he travels away from his beloved. From the sonnet’s second word, ‘heavy’, onwards, the language of Sonnet 50 invites close analysis as the emotion … Read more

A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘This World is not Conclusion’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘This World is not Conclusion’ is poem number 501 in Emily Dickinson’s Complete Poems. According to the best editorial guess, the poem was written in around 1862. ‘This World is not Conclusion’ sees Emily Dickinson exploring and analysing our attitudes to death and what awaits us beyond.

A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 49: ‘Against that time, if ever that time come’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Against that time’: these three words begin the first, fifth, and ninth lines of Shakespeare’s 49^th sonnet – each of the poem’s three quatrains, in other words. In this poem, in other words, the Bard considers a dark day in the future when the Fair Youth will realise that he, Shakespeare, is not worthy of his love, and will go off him. The poem deserves some close analysis for its treatment of an all-too-familiar theme: how you cope with loving somebody who you think is just simply too good for you.

Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advis’d respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here,
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:

A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 48: ‘How careful was I when I took my way’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘How careful was I when I took my way’ opens up a series of what Don Paterson calls ‘pessimistic sonnets’. From Sonnet 48 onwards, we’re in for a spate of gloomy meditations on love, as Shakespeare begins to fret over losing the Fair Youth’s affection.

How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;

A Short Analysis of John Donne’s ‘The Canonization’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love’: such an opening line demonstrates with refreshing directness John Donne’s genius for grabbing our attention right from the first line of a poem. ‘The Canonization’ is a difficult poem, but closer analysis of its language and imagery is rewarding.