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¶ … Jewel Stairs' Grievance: Li PO / Ezra Pound
We can assume from the poet's heritage that the speaker is an Asian woman. However, there are further contextual cues that aid in the understanding of "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance." For one, the opening line refers to "jeweled steps," which indicates a place of some wealth or importance. There is sexual innuendo throughout the poem: the dew, the gauze stockings, and the "crystal curtain" symbolize female sexuality. The moon is also a female symbol, corresponding with her monthly cycle. The moon also corresponds to the fact that it is late, signifying that the speaker is likely to be a concubine.
Shakespeare's Sonnet 73
The speaker is likely to be an older or mature man. He states, "In me thou seest the twilight of such day." The first half of the sonnet is filled with imagery of autumn, symbolizing aging and even possibly impending death. It would seem this is a speaker acting as a mentor, and relating...
Sleep is "death's second self," and "rest" is the act of sleeping. The next few lines divulge the fact that the speaker is someone who is growing older, but who is not yet old. He is no longer a youth, and is coming to terms with that fact in the first half of the sonnet. Yet the person is also still filled with life and creativity. "In me thou see'stthe glowing of such fire / That on the ashes of his youth doth lie." He is very much aware that one day he will die (As the death-bed whereon it must expire) but he is not ready yet; he still has life to live and wisdom to give. The entire sonnet is a meditation on the transient nature of life, and the transient nature of all things. We are not taken off guard by the ending, because the speaker has prepared us for…
References
Jewel Stairs: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178420
Shakespeare Sonnet 73: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/73.html
Shakespeare Sonnet 3: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/3detail.html
Shakespeare Sonnet 18: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html
The narrator is on his "death-bed" and recognizes that his youth was good and he lived a good life. The "glowing of such fire" seems like it would relate to Hell, but really it refers to the fire and passion of youth, that burns out as people grow older, and is extinguished entirely by the time a person has lived a long life and is ready to die. He
Greeenblatt also points out that to truly grasp the meaning of the poem and the transience alluded to therein, readers must consider the social code for homosexual love. The Church did not tolerate sodomy and it would make sense that men would be attracted to other men considering how women were often treated as lower-class citizens. Through this "seesaw game of acknowledgment and denial" (253), Shakespeare "stages his sexual
Shakespeare's Sonnets 18, 73, 97 Poets have often looked to nature for inspiration and as a vehicle for self-expression. Throughout his lifetime, William Shakespeare is known to have written 154 sonnets, which cover various topics such as love, mortality, and the passage of time. Of these sonnets, sonnet numbers 18, 73, and 97 incorporate seasonal symbols that allow Shakespeare to express his love, the passage of time and its effect on
Shakespeare Sonnets In both Sonnet 71 and in Sonnet 73, the narrator contemplates old age and death. Both poems use rich and dark imagery to convey the theme of human mortality, although Sonnet 73 is more filled with metaphor than 71. However, both poems are composed according to the strict rules of the poetic form: in iambic pentameter with fourteen lines organized into three quatrains and a final couplet. Iambic pentameter
The rhyme scheme of this sonnet follows Shakespeare's usual structure, wherein the quatrains all have an independent alternating rhyme (ABAB CDCD EFEF), and the final two lines form an heroic couplet (GG). This adds to the feeling of receiving discrete steps of an argument, and enhances the divisions of the versification. There is also a noticeable prevalence of "l's and "s's in the poem, particularly in the first and third
Renaissance The word renaissance means a complete change in modes of art, literature, music, and architecture, as well as an altered sense of morality and ethicality during a given period of time. This change stems from an expansion of thought and with that a new sense of what matters in the world. In literature, the term renaissance means an adoption and adaptation of new rules with regard to form, function, and