the relic
- Created by: eleanorfarnold
- Created on: 13-04-15 12:25
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- The Relic
- Catholic associations - could you talk about the controversy surrounding relics?
- love poem but relic is a clearly religious
- stanza 1
- And he that digs it spies/ A bracelet of bright hair about the bone, Will he no let us alone,/And think that there a loving couple lies
- new image as love is introduced - narrative progression.
- hair doesn't decay - lives on (gross)
- love equally lives on...
- talking as if intruding on live couple
- Who thought that this device might be some way/ To make their souls, at the last busy day,/ Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
- On judgement day, the body must be complete tf. woman must find him for hair
- underplayed seriousness
- can be seen equally as a comic metaphor for everlasting love as a serious religious idea of love lasting through eternity.
- way day stay
- When my grave is broken up again/ Some second guest entertain/ (For graves have learned that woman-head,/ To be to more than one a bed)
- sense of certainty
- party joke language
- sexualised dead bodies
- company of corpses.
- possible pun on 'maidenhead'
- company of corpses.
- possible pun on 'maidenhead'
- whole stanza is one sentence
- And he that digs it spies/ A bracelet of bright hair about the bone, Will he no let us alone,/And think that there a loving couple lies
- Stanza 2
- Thou shalt be Mary Magdalen, and I/ A something else thereby/ All women shall adore us, and some men;
- arguably written to Mrs Magdalen Herbert
- certainty of complete worship of the image of their love
- Philip Larkin - an Arundel Tomb
- women = criticised more then men! too stupid and emotional
- If this fall in a time or land/ Where mis-devotion doth command,/ Then he that digs us up will bring/ Us to the bishop and the king
- criticising Catholicism
- also suggests a continuous religious instability
- hierarchy
- And since at such time miracles are sought,/ I would have that age by this paper taught/ What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.
- they are looking for miracles but haven't found them yet. magic associated with relics
- the poem will also be worshipped
- Thou shalt be Mary Magdalen, and I/ A something else thereby/ All women shall adore us, and some men;
- Stanza 3
- Coming and going, we/ Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;/ Our hands ne'er touched the seals/ Which nature, injured by late law, sets free.
- their bodies are kept pure
- seals = tokens/symbols of a covenant, seals their lips to a vow of silence + colloquium tfor genitalia
- seals = tokens/symbols of a covenant, seals their lips to a vow of silence + colloquium tfor genitalia
- kisses nourished the souls
- their bodies are kept pure
- First, we loved well and faithfully,/ Yet knew not what we loved, nor why;/ Difference of sex no more we knew/ Than our guardian Angels do;
- their love transcended human understanding
- again progression
- couldn't even distinguish between gender -
- likens them to angels they are holy
- These miracles we did, but now, alas,/ All measure, and all language, I should pass,/ Should I tell you what a miracle she was.
- he can't even explain how great and wonderful she was.
- Coming and going, we/ Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;/ Our hands ne'er touched the seals/ Which nature, injured by late law, sets free.
- critics
- also written to Mrs Magdalen Herbert - makes clear relationship was platonic
- Catholic associations - could you talk about the controversy surrounding relics?
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