Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Reflection #4

  Patrick Kelly
  EN 101
  10/16/13
                                                                Reflecting on Life's

          In the three poems, "When I consider how my life is spent" by John Milton, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" by William Shakespeare, and "Litany" by Billy Collins, the authors discuss how certain aspects of their lives are not fully fulfilling. In both William Shakespeare and Billy Collins' poem they say how the woman in their lives isn't all that they wish she would be, while in John Milton's poem he reflects on how his own life is not all that he wants it to be.
          In "When I consider how my life is spent" John Milton through the use of a sonnet, discusses the negatives of his life by saying, "Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, and that one talent which is death to hide." Its almost sad to hear Milton talk about the darkness of his life and his world and its a continuing theme in this poem because he continues by saying, "I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent that murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need." Milton is referring to the unimportance he feels his life has become and feels himself to be useless.
          In "Litany" by Billy Collins, he relates his love one to many different things but not all of them seem necessarily to be good things. He says, "you are the dew on the morning grass, and the burning wheel of the sun." Though these things he is comparing his loved one to are not bad, they also don't seem to be all that flattering. It more seems like Collins is just seeing this person everywhere he looks and finding ways to relate this person to what he is seeing.
          In "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" by William Shakespeare, he discusses the flaws he sees in his mistress. He says, "Coral is far more red than her lips' red; if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun." Its almost like Shakespeare is giving a slight insult or even like a backhanded compliment. It seems like he can't be with this woman for a long period of time but for now she will do. This can be seen when he says, "I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound."Again its just another backhanded compliment.
                    I wouldn't consider my self a very religious person. In fact I think the only times I go to church is on Easter and Christmas. But on Wednesday I attended a prayer service at the chapel. I went to public school for my entire life so I didn't really understand much that was being said but I still felt like I learned something by going to that prayer service. In the prayer service we evaluated our own morals and discussed not only what is important to us in life but what is important to the people we love. This helped me to make certain moral improvements, which I feel will help me in the long-term. I feel like this can relate to these three poems because these three poets seemed to focus on things that aren't important and negative, when they should be focusing on what is important not only in their life but in the life of the people they love.

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