Robert Herrick on Julia's Mythic

Robert Herrick On Julia's Mythic Undergarments Robert Herrick's poem "On Julia's Petticoat" is somewhat reminiscent of the stereotypical serial killer - on the surface it is such a nice fellow which couldn't possibly hurt a fly, educated and well mannered as a poem could be, but underneath there's a secret history of abuse and misogyny.

The poem is a subtle joke and a smart dressing up of the most tawdry of stories, for in elegant and mythic language it describes the feelings of a jaded Profrockian voyeur as he secretly admires a young woman's underwear. The fancy language, non-offensive and classic tretrameter, and the mythic overtones are all present to hide from the approving reader this sorry and obscene actuality of the poem's content.

In the end, it is a lie - the dehumanization of fetished desire is written beautifully so that people will think that it is beautiful - but every word chosen and even the punctuation itself tells an ugly story of fantasized rape and objectification. The mythic elements of the poem are introduced immediately, and they serve to disarm the reader who might otherwise quickly flip over to another work. In these first l two lines, Herrick invokes "Thy azure robes..

The leaves of gold." This creates a royal image for the reader, calling up the bright colors of statuary or a van Eyck painting. Blue robes are associated with the Virgin Mary or other revered mothers such as Isis. Extolling the robes of an honored and beloved woman are acceptable in classical art, and have a certain mythic overtone, which Herrick uses to subtly seduce the intellectual reader. However, he is not actually speaking of robes, in the sense that springs to mind associated with honored women.

Rather (as the title makes clear) he is speaking of a petticoat - an undergarment, and a private thing. This is linguistically a long way from a childish taunt "I see Julia's underwear!" But it has the same dirtiness secreted inside it. Herrick continues to refer to the unintentional displaying of this underwear (which "wanders" from beneath her clothes) as a transgression. This word choice, like many of those that follow, has subtle sexual overtones.

To transgress is not only to infringe upon rules of propriety or normality, but also to mean the physical moving of one body over another (as in the sea's transgression onto the shore). This is a sexual term, displaying the speaker's keen interest in physically transgressing Julia's body. This alone would not be enough to make the point, but subsequently the sexualized terms pile one upon another.

Her petticoat is spoken of as something that will "pant, and sigh, and heave," all bodily words which cannot refer to actual clothing, but only to bodies. It is "pounc'd" with stars - pounced being a word that does not really pertain at all to a sprinkling of lights across the sky, but vividly evokes the image of a predatory man pushing himself onto (or into) a weaker woman, as a cat might pounce a mouse.

He even speaks of the petticoat wildly flinging and closely clinging "to thy thighs," evoking the movements of sex and the bodily language of intercourse once again.

In the end, this sexualization of language is transformed into words that speak of orgasm and the loss of erection, so often referred to by poets as that "little death" and here labelled as that which is "Drown'd in delights, but could not die" as the speaker grows soft with a passion that did "melt me down" until "I there did lie." The physicality of these lines might be merely beautiful, as much sexualized love poetry is, had not Herrick's narrated also chosen a wealth of words hinting at the dirtiness of this act, and the fact that it was resisted (in mind) by the woman.

" I follow'd still," he says, as Julia walks away from his hungry eyes. The words of transgression are certainly present, as when the author is speaking of how this action "scarce had leave." Yet the beauty is present. The reader must see this imagined rape through levels of metaphor and fancy language.

Archaic, poetic terms are used, such as "thy" and "twould." The petticoat over which he fixates - though it is merely a bit of blue crinoline showing under a skirt - is refered to as canopy of sky and a blaze of fire. (One wonders if he isn't peeping like a Tom from under some stairs, to be able to see her petticoats moving like a sky above him) the poem is beautifully ordered in eleven conjoined cuplets, each with crafted rhythm and pretty (if occasionally quaint) rhyme.

The form is unobtrusive and reassuring, the shape of classical beauty and.