Thursday, February 28, 2013
What does it mean?
Petrarch Rima 160
The basic plot of this poem is that the speaker sees a woman who is so smittingly beautiful that he tries to follow her, even though she bades him not to, and he follows until he falls into a stream and loses sight of her.
When it talks about a pure white hind, and later on at the 'touch me not' part, it makes her seem pure and unsullen in the 'unripe' season. Which would mean that the speaker was chasing after the perfect purity, just out of his grasp, but since he was a miser already, he couldn't obtain it.
Then it goes on to talk about the diamonds and topaz encircling her neck, spelling out the words 'touch me not'. Diamonds always represent love and topaz is representative of wise, smart choices. Both play into the purity theme because love is a pure thing, and wise choices lead to a wise, lasting love unlike the unwise choice of a one-night stand.
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Do you see any interesting connections between Petrarch's original at Wyatt's version that we looked at in class?
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