I.  Ben Jonson
Jonson is known more for poems reflecting ideas of nobility (such as "Penshurst," the masques, and the Ode on Cary and Morrison) than for love lyrics, but he did write a few choice ones.  Here are some questions to guide our discussion of three I find particularly provocative.

1. Note that "Song: To Celia" reflects Jonson's humanism: it is entirely constructed out of translated fragments from a Greek prose writer of the 3rd century A.D.  This is a perfect example of humanist imitatio; but the poem itself is still Jonson's own creation.  What sort of love does it evoke?  Is the speaker requited or unrequited in his love for the addressee?  How does the metaphor of a toast function in this piece?  How does the floral imagery work?  How are lines 1-8 related to lines 9-16?

2.  "My Picture Left in Scotland" is a witty poem revising the myth of blind Cupid.  How does the speaker describe himself?  Why does he revise the myth?

3.  In the sonnet to Lady Mary Wroth (on xerox), what aspects of Wroth's work seem to have impressed Jonson most?  Is this a love sonnet of sorts?

4.  Analyze the forms of address, metaphors, imagery, and other verbal strategies Jonson uses in praising Wroth and her work.

II.  Robert Herrick
Be sure to read the introduction to Herrick's poems.  Herrick was one of the "Tribe of Ben," writers who followed in Jonson's footsteps by writing polished, sophisticated poetry with a decidedly Greco-Roman feel to it.  In some of Herrick's poems, there is great depth of feeling; in others, the point is only to create something pretty, delicate, and delightful.  As the Norton introduction explains, he can be very playful, and even when his subject is serious, he does not take himself too seriously.

1.  In his book The Classics and English Renaissance Poetry, Gordon Braden remarks on Herrick's "agility," noting that the "movement" of his poems is often "that of childlike discovery and amazement, a short but bright faculty of attention continually distracted by something new" (158).  Do you see this kind of movement in the poems assigned for today?  In which lines?

2.  Herrick's poetry delights in visual and tactile sensations.  Pinpoint specific words in "Delight in Disorder," "The Lily in a Crystal," "Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast," "Upon Julia's Clothes" and be prepared to explain what makes them effective in context.

3.  One of the most important genres of erotic poetry in the 17th century is the carpe diem poem.  (Carpe diem, as you probably already know, is the Latin phrase for "sieze the day").  Typically, carpe diem poetry stresses the shortness of life in order to persuade the addressee to make love while youth and beauty remain; images of aging, decay, and death are included in order to underscore the urgency of the situation and/or to play upon the addressee's fears.  Often, the poem relies a great deal on nature imagery (especially floral images), and the poems themselves are often brief and song-like in form.  Whereas sonneteers stress that they can immortalize their beloveds in ever-lasting verse, the carpe diem poem seems as fleeting as life and youth themselves.  "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time" is one of the most familiar carpe diem poems of all time, but it is not typical.  Who are the addressees?  What is the effect of the poem's being addressed to more than one person?  What sort of personality does the speaker project?  What are his motives?  How does the form (ballad stanzas -- four lines each,
alternating four-beat and three-beat lines, and rhyming ABAB -- affect the tone and feel of the piece?

4.  "Corinna's Going A-Maying" deserves particular attention, for it is both deeper and more complex than most carpe diem poems.  The setting is May Day, the first day of May, which was celebrated as a Spring festival in Medieval and Renaissance England but banned by the Puritan government after the Revolution.  The Puritans objected to the essentially pagan spirit of the day, which seems to have derived both from ancient Roman religion (the feast of Flora, goddess of flowers) and from the indigenous nature religion of the Celtic and British peoples.  The feast was celebrated with garlands and dancing (especially dancing around a May pole bedecked with ribbons), the choosing of a Queen of the May, and much sexual frolicking.

A.  First, consider the form: the long stanzas alternate back and forth between longer and shorter lines, and each stanza ends with a refrain line; the poem begins at dawn, summoning Corinna from her bed.  What previously-encountered 17th-century genre does this recall?  How does Herrick play upon that genre?

B.  Who is the speaker?  How does he resemble the speaker of "To the Virgins..."?

C.  How does the speaker use religious language?  What are his beliefs?  What is sinful according to his creed?  What is holy?