Study Guide for Thursday, April 8, 1999
Be sure to read the introductions to Carew, Suckling and Waller and to re-read the introduction to Lovelace: recall that we have already read one poem by Lovelace ("Love Made in the First Age: To Chloris," the one that ended with the auto-erotic boast).  All of these poets are (like Herrick) "Cavaliers," writers following in the tradition of Ben Jonson and loyal to Charles I during the Revolution and in favor of the Restoration after it (royalists).  The cavaliers cultivated an image of suave sophistication and gentility; a frequent theme in their work is the classical Ovidian call to carpe diem, and they often present their seductions in a specifically anti-Petrarchan mood, refusing to worship from afar and insisting that all flesh is mortal.  They are largely interested in writing poetry with a witty, elegant feel to it rather than anything heavy, deep, or philosophically profound.  Even so, the ideas elaborated in some of their more accomplished works may be considered "philosophies" of a sort, including anti-Platonic ideas of love and thoughts on the nature of nobility.

 
Thomas Carew
"A Rapture"
1.  Underlying this poem is the classical idea of a "golden age" adapted for seduction purposes.  Re-read the passage from Golding's translation of Ovid on pp. 21-22 of the Anthology and note how Carew reworks the golden age paradise.

2.  Before he can get to "Love's Elysium," the speaker of Carew's poem must convince "Celia" to defy "The giant, Honour."  What is this giant?  What is the source of its power?  And how does the speaker propose to defeat him?  Compare the way that the speaker of Donne's "The Flea" handles the concept of "honor."

3.  Compare this poem to Donne's "Elegy XIX."  In what ways does Carew try to out-do Donne?

4.  How many sexual acts take place in the sequence events fantasized by the speaker?  Is this sheer overkill, or is there a point to the number and variety of activities?

5.  How do lines 79-90 (arguably the most embarrassing in the poem), respond to and revise the Petrarchan tradition?

6.  The second-to-last verse paragraph (lines 115-146) rewrites the history of various chaste heroines: Lucrece (the Roman matron who killed herself rather than endure the shame of having been raped by the tyrant, Tarquin), Penelope (the wife of Odysseus, who kept her suitors at bay for years while her husband wandered the seas following the Trojan war), Daphne (the nymph pursued by Apollo, who fled his embraces and was changed into a laurel tree), and of course Petrarch's Laura.  What is the point of this section?

7.  The last verse paragraph becomes very high-toned and philosophical.  Write a prose paraphrase of the speaker's argument in this section.

8.  The last sentence of the poem "Then tell me why / This goblin . . ." is the concluding stroke in the preceding argument.  How does it affect your reading of the poem as a whole?

Richard Lovelace
"To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" and "To Althea, From Prison"

1.  These poems are often cited as prime examples of the cavalier spirit.  How do they mingle politics and love?

2.  How does the speaker's idea of "honour" in "To Lucasta" compare to the idea of "honour" in Carew's "Rapture"?  Are they even talking about the same thing?

3.  How does "To Althea" define "liberty"?

Edmund Waller
"The Story of Phoebus and Daphne Applied" and "Song"

1.  At the heart of Petrarchan love poetry is the idea of unrequited for an ideal lady; Petrarch himself (an Italian poet of the 14th century) used the myth of Phoebus Apollo's pursuit of Daphne to capture the idea of how the unrequited lover finds his consolation in writing poetry that earns him the laurel crown of poetic achievement.  "The Story of Phoebus..." by Waller sums up the Petrarchan approach to love.  Note how it is precisely this approach that is repudiated in poems like Carew's "A Rapture."

2.  To what/whom is Waller's "Song" addressed?  Consider the interrelation of rose, lady, and poem: what is the function of each?  How does each communicate with the other?

Suckling's poems in the Norton and on xerox.
Read them for today, since Suckling, too, is a Cavalier; but we'll discuss them a bit later, in the context of Congreve's Way of the World, in which they are quoted.