Renaissance Rogues

Sodomy

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:36:55 -0400

Definition: The term sodomy refers to any act of unnatural sex. Depending on jurisdiction, “unnatural” sex could include any non-genital to genital sex between a man and a woman. Thus, things like oral sex, anal sex, homosexual sex, non-procreational sex, and more would count as sodomy.
Sentence: Pietro Aretino’s sonnets depicting sixteen various sex positions would be classified as sodomy because they include a variety of positions that are “unnatural” forms of sex.

Interpretive Crux

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:24:00 -0400

Definition: The point at which critics disagree about a work and the goal is to try to find textual evidence for support.
Sentence: The interpretive crux of Aphra Behn’s poem “The Disappointment” is that it is not clear why Lysander is unable to attain an erection.
The poem doesn’t tell us why he can’t have an erection. We are just provided with metaphors that are all about excess. But the question is why would the excess of love be problematic? If you want to figure out the cause of Lysander’s problem, click here to read the entire poem:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn

Tautology

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:18:24 -0400

Definition: A self-referential truth; A statement that’s always true because it refers back to itself
Sentence: The phrase “safe haven” is tautological because a haven already refers to a place of refuge and safety.

Horatory

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:09:10 -0400

Definition: An effort to persuade; marked by a strong urging
Sentence: In Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis,” Venus gives a horatory plea to get Adonis to make love to her.

Personification

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:40:00 -0400

Definition: Personification is a type of metaphor in which an object or abstraction is given human characteristics
Sentence: In Ben Jonson’s epigram “To Sickness,” to speaker personifies disease by asking “Why, disease dost thou molest ladies and of them the best?”
Read the entire epigram here:http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/forest8.htm

Poetic Blazon

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:54:53 -0400

Definition: A blazon is a list of a woman’s admirable features. It is a common feature of lyric poetry and often involves the use of hyperbole and simile in describing things.
Sentence: My boyfriend wrote me a love letter and included a blazon listing off all of my body parts that he adored most and how each one had been made by a different god.
Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” makes use of the blazon as the speaker lists how much time he would spend adoring different parts of the addressee’s body.

An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

Another example can be seen in Shakespeare’s famous sonnet “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” However, in this poem, the speaker mocks the conventions of the blazon when describing the mistress.

Apostrophe

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:43:00 -0400

Definition: An apostrophe is a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an imaginary person, abstract idea, or object.
Sentence: In his poem “81,” Sir Philip Sydney begins the poem with an apostrophe by directly addressing a kiss.

“Oh kiss, which dost those ruddy gems impart”

In the line, the speaker is addressing the kiss and also personifying it by giving it the human qualities needed to be addressed. Renaissance poets often used apostrophes to personify objects. Also, in many dramatic works and poetry like this one, apostrophes were often introduced by the exclamation “O”.
Another example of an apostrophe can be seen in the title of Ben Jonson’s epigram “To Sickness,” which directly addresses sickness it as if it were a person.

Paradox

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:35:14 -0400

Definition: A paradox is a proposition or statement that is self-contradictory.

Sentence: In Sir Philip Sydney’s “81,” the poet is using his words to try to convince the addressee to stop him from embarrassing her, but the paradox is that the only way she can stop him is by stopping his mouth with a kiss.

Cony-Catching

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:26:21 -0400

Definition: Cony-Catching was a practice in Renaissance England in which devious people on the street would try to con or cheat vulnerable or gullible pedestrians.
In Renaissance England, you were the victim of cony-catching if someone tricked you into giving them your money
Robert Greene wrote a pamphlet entitled “The Defence of Conny-catching,” in which he argued that it really wasn’t that terrible and there were worse crimes to be found among “reputable” people.

Read it here:http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Greene/Defence_Cony-catching.pdf

Ventriloquize

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:17:00 -0400

Definition: A literary feature in which writers take on the voice of certain characters in an authoritative way
Sentence: In Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare uses the character of Venus to ventriloquize women’s desire.
In many Renaissance texts, it was common for male authors to ventriloquize the voice of women. Although the texts were written by male authors, they were voiced by female characters and so, the men would be taking on the female voice.
Additionally, In Aphra Behn’s “The Disappointment,” we get an instance of ventriloquism when the poet narrator ventriloquizes Lysander’s voice in the third person. (http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/the_disappointment.html)

Petrarchan

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:54:00 -0400

Definition: The Petrarchan sonnet is a verse form that traditionally refers to the concept of love that is idealized and addressed to a distant lover. The form is named after the Italian writer Francesco Petrarca. Sonnets that follow the Petrarchan form typically portray the woman being addressed in a highly exaggerated manner, placing her on a pedestal of perfection and absolute beauty.
Sentence: In his poem “To His Coy Mistress,” Andrew Marvell uses Petrarchan conventions when the speaker addresses a woman who has been slow to his sexual advances.
Marvell also satirizes Petrarchan conventions in his poem in the ways the speaker lists off all the addressee’s body parts and how he would like to spend hundreds of years admiring each one:

Read the entire poem here:http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm

Complaint

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:29:00 -0400

Definition: In a 17th/18th century context, the word complaint refers to a poem about unhappy love; a lament in which the speaker points out the injustices done to him/her
Sentence:Isabella Whitney’s “To her unconstant Lover,” is an example of a complaint because the speaker is lamenting the loss of her lover who has left her and secretly married another woman.
In the poem, the speaker addresses her former lover and what she essentially says to him is: “You didn’t tell me that you were going to get married, jerk. But I still wish you well. AND, there is still a chance you can win be back as well.”
Another example of a complaint can be seen in Aphra Behn;s “To the Fair Clarinda.” In the poem, the speaker characterizes her words as a “soft complaint.” She finds Clarinda extremely irresistible and feels liberated in their relationship. Although not necessarily a poem about unhappy love, the speaker still struggles with her desire for Clarinda as she might with desires she would experience in a heterosexual relationship.

Conceit

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:17:00 -0400

Definition: A conceit is an extended metaphor, simile or pun, or a combination of all three. Conceits are used when a poet extends and expands his original trope throughout the body of a whole poem or a section of a poem.

Conceit is often characterized by outrageousness and this is referred to as metaphysical conceit

Sentence: John Donne utilizes conceit in his poem “The Bait,” when he makes the outrageous comparison between a woman and a worm throughout the entire poem.
Examples: John Donne was probably the most famous Renaissance writer to use conceit regularly in his poems. As described in the sentence above, Donne used metaphysical conceit to yoke together two seemingly incompatible things (woman and worm) and show and underlying similarity. (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/bait.php)
Similarly, in his poem “The Flea,” Donne uses witty medical conceit to persuade a resisting woman to make love. The speaker describes a flea that bit both he and the woman and thus, their blood has mingled together and and through the flea. Donne is using this conceit to demonstrate to the woman that they have already experienced a communion between their bodies and souls. (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/flea.php)
In both of the poems, Donne knows that there is no logic to his arguments and that his ideas are crazy. But the pleasure he is trying to impart is more of an intellectual rather than physical pleasure. The beauty of the poem is its intellectual brilliance and art of putting it together. He is hoping to impress by means of his intellectual sophistication.
Indeed, the the elaborate conceit’s Donne establishes within his poems indicate exceptional skill. If you are interested in reading more of it, I encourage you to check out Donne’s poem “To his Mistress Going to Bed.” This poem utilizes the conceit of a woman a colonized territory. You can find it here: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/elegy20.htm

Analytical Term

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:35:42 -0400

An analytical term is a concept that allows you to make sophisticated historical and/or critical analyses of texts

Erotic Friendship

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:32:00 -0400

Definition: Friendships based on passion and erotic desire. Renaissance erotic friendship was often same-sex. Sex is still a question in erotic friendship because erotic friendship is not necessarily erotic love. The term is ambiguous because both the word love and the word friend were used to describe non-erotic love and erotic love
Sentence: Shakespeare’s sonnet 42 touched upon the idea of erotic friendship as the speaker proclaimed his love for the young man and explained that the highest form of love was that between two men.
Example: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne’s essay “Of Friendship” illustrated the Renaissance beliefs and ideas of erotic friendship. It focused on male-male erotic friendship and explained that friendship between men transcended the erotic attachments between men and women. This was because men were believed to be more rational beings and having two men affectionately love each other was the most idealized form of relationship because it was the epitome of rational.
You can read Maontaigne’s essay here: http://www.bartleby.com/32/105.html
Shakespeare’s sonnet 42 reiterated Maontaigne’s ideas. When the speaker states that “My friend and I are one,” he is drawing on the discourse that male friends were two souls in one body.
To read the entire sonnet, click here: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/42.html

Misogyny

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:17:25 -0400

Definition: Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women.
Sentence: Literature of the Renaissance that depicted women as fickle, wandering, and inferior illustrated the misogyny of the era.
Example: Shakespeare’s sonnets to the young man and dark women demonstrate the misogyny present in the Renaissance. Sonnet 20 in particular represents women as dishonest, false, and fickle. It describes the young man as less false than women and having all the good qualities of the sex, but none of the disadvantages.

You can read the entire sonnet here: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/20.html

Patriarchal

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:08:00 -0400

Definition:Patriarchy is a social organization in which the role of males is supreme. Institutions of patriarchy are dependent on female subordination and males have all the privilege and authority over them.
Sentence: Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays often displayed the patriarchal society in which women were inferior and daughters and wives were submissive to men.
In the film Shakespeare in Love, the patriarchal organization of the Shakespearean era was presented. However, the film also included dynamic female characters that had agency and their own autonomy. This was especially true for Viola who found agency by cross dressing and acting on the stage even though it was forbidden for women to do so. Despite Viola’s efforts however, patriarchy ruled and she was forced to marry and give up her dreams of acting. Here is a link to the film trailer for you to enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Zi2N1Q8-Y

Convention

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:49:17 -0400

Definition: A convention is a rule or practice that is accepted and upheld by society. In literature, it’s a device that is a customary feature of a literary work or genre.
Sentence: A popular convention in children’s stories is the inclusion of a moral or lesson.
A popular convention in shakespearean tragedies is the use of omens

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quotes/shakespeareonomens.html

Binary Opposition

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:27:00 -0400

Definition: A Binary Opposition is a structure used in literature to highlight a structure or system that is composed of two parts of opposing classes. These opposing classes are mutually exclusive and thus, something in one state cannot be in the other.
Sentence: shakespeare’s favorite bone of structure to use for his sonnets was binary opposition.
Examples of binary opposition in Shakespeare’s writing can be found frequently in his sonnets. Perhaps my favorite example is in sonnet 144 in which he creates a binary opposition between the young man and the dark lady. He portrays the young man as a good angel using words like ‘saint,’ ‘purity,’ and friend’ to describe him. Conversely, he portrays the dark lady as an evil devil using words like ‘fiend,’ ‘worse,’ and ‘foul’ to describe her.

To read the full text of sonnet 144, click here: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/144.html

Throughout his sonnets, Shakespeare also made use of the binary aesthetics of light and dark and this is part of an emerging racialist discourse today.

Pun

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:23:00 -0400

Definition: A pun is a humorous play on words and phrases which suggests or emphasizes different meanings. This is done by exploiting multiple meanings of words or of similar sounding words.
Sentence: There is a pun on the word prick in Shakespeare’s sonnet 20, line 13, which states, “But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure.”
What Shakespeare is trying to say as the speaker by punning on the word “prick” is that by giving you a prick, the woman chose you and gave you sex. You can read the entire sonnet here: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/20.html
An example of a pun can also be seen in Aphra Behn’s poem “To the Fair Clarinda” (http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/to_the_fair_clarinda.html). The pun can be seen in the last line which states: “The love to Hermes, Aphrodite the friend.” By placing the words Hermes and Aphrodite next to each other, Behn is punning on the word hermaphrodite.
Sit Thomas Wyatt’s poem “Whoso List to Hunt,” uses puns that play on words with similar sounds. The poem is structured around the gender dynamics of the man/speaker as a hunter and the woman as a deer/object of desire. The word deer is a pun on the word dear.