Assignments Due Tuesday

Romanticism Reading

Please read and think about the following poems:

"Lines" (619-622)
"Ozymandias" (625)
"Ode to the West Wind" (626-628)
"When I have fears" (628)
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" (632-633)


At home "in-class" essay practice

You may choose to hand write or type the following assignment, but please try to spend no more than 45-50 minutes on the process.

In the following poem by Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), the speaker addresses the subject of desire. Read the poem carefully. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze how poetic devices help to convey the speaker’s complex attitude toward desire.

Thou Blind Man’s Mark

Thou blind man’s mark,1 thou fool’s self-chosen snare,
Fond fancy’s scum, and dregs of scattered thought;
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought;
Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware;
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought,
Who should my mind to higher things prepare.
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought;
In vain thou madest me to vain things aspire;
In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire;
For virtue hath this better lesson taught—
Within myself to seek my only hire2
Desiring naught but how to kill desire.

1 target
2 reward