This should take you about two hours, in all, of concentrated work.
Turn to page 131 in your Marvell book: 'Women and Sex'.
Read, annotate and respond to pages 131-137, completing all activities and responding to all questions. That means you should:
- give detailed answers (in word or on paper) to ANY sentences ending in a question mark
- annotate all the poems mentioned (Young Love, The Picture of Little TC, To His Coy Mistress), using the corresponding sections in the back of the book to help your understanding (pages 92, 93 and 89 respectively).
Everything you need is in those 6 pages; how much you get from them is up to you.
We'll be using this as a basis for discussion on Thursday.
John Carew's gruesome drooling over a 13-year old girl, referred to on page 133, is below:
The Second Rapture
No, worlding, no, 'tis not thy gold,
Which thou dost use but to behold;
Nor fortune, honour, nor long life,
Children, or friends, nor a good wife,
That makes thee happy: these things be
But shadows of felicity.
Give me a wench about thirteen,
Already voted to the queen
Of lust and lovers; whose soft hair,
Fann'd with the breath of gentle air,
O'erspreads her shoulders like a tent,
And is her veil and ornament;
Whose tender touch will make the blood
Wild in the aged and the good;
Whose kisses, fast'ned to the mouth
Of threescore years and longer slouth,
Renew the age; and whose bright eye
Obscures those lesser lights of sky;
Whose snowy breasts (if we may call
That snow, that never melts at all)
Makes Jove invent a new disguise,
In spite of Juno's jealousies;
Whose every part doth re-invite
The old decayed appetite;
And in whose sweet embraces I
May melt myself to lust, and die.
This is true bliss, and I confess
There is no other happiness.
Which thou dost use but to behold;
Nor fortune, honour, nor long life,
Children, or friends, nor a good wife,
That makes thee happy: these things be
But shadows of felicity.
Give me a wench about thirteen,
Already voted to the queen
Of lust and lovers; whose soft hair,
Fann'd with the breath of gentle air,
O'erspreads her shoulders like a tent,
And is her veil and ornament;
Whose tender touch will make the blood
Wild in the aged and the good;
Whose kisses, fast'ned to the mouth
Of threescore years and longer slouth,
Renew the age; and whose bright eye
Obscures those lesser lights of sky;
Whose snowy breasts (if we may call
That snow, that never melts at all)
Makes Jove invent a new disguise,
In spite of Juno's jealousies;
Whose every part doth re-invite
The old decayed appetite;
And in whose sweet embraces I
May melt myself to lust, and die.
This is true bliss, and I confess
There is no other happiness.
