A flower from my liebchenI filled-in for my boss today who teaches English and Afrikaans at the school I'm employed at. I had forgotten how much fun teaching English poetry could be!
We analysed Edmund Spenser's Sonnet nr. 75 in preparation for a critical appreciation essay the students had to write, and I have to say, I think my scientific brain got it's heiney kicked for an hour or so while I luxuriated in the romanticism of English once more.
Sonnet 75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quode I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
(Edmund Spenser)
On that note, have a great weekend in the month of lurve ;-)
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quode I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
(Edmund Spenser)
Tres romantic, n'est-ce pas?
On that note, have a great weekend in the month of lurve ;-)
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