File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9712, message 50


Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 13:47:44 -0500
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: Marvell


At 01:01 PM 12/3/97 -0500, you (Pat Sloane) wrote:
>> How vainly men themselves amaze
>>  To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
>>  And their uncessant labours see
>>  Crowned from some single herb or tree,
>>  Whose short and narrow-verg`ed shade
>>  Doth prudently their toils upbraid -- 
>>  While all flowr's and all trees do close
>>  To weave the garlands of repose.
>>  
>>  See what I mean about withdrawal from a problematic society for
>>  contemplation? And stylistically, see the conceits/puns?
>>  
>Puns where?
>
>pat
>

If you have to explain a joke it's no fun (he said, utterly annihilating his
professional existence). Well, here's one: upbraid, literal and figurative.
Find others if you're of a mind. Donne was the previous major poet to do
that particular kind of "conceit" in a really prominent way in English.

I silently corrected two haste-induced typos from my earlier version (narrow
not narrpow and gralands not garland).

Gregory {Greg} Downing, at greg.downing-AT-nyu.edu or downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu 



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