A Modest Proposal from my perspective

This week was very very interesting for me. We talked about social life of England in 18th century that was very scary especially for children and analyzed Jonathan Swifts’s A Modest Proposal. I can say I begin to like 'satire'.

Firstly, 18th century was a century that many machineries were developed and England gained importance. On the other hand, with the increasing of population, many children had to work even they were under 12 years. A few born could live because they had lack of food and many diseases were rising. And this caused the need of critisizing the society. If you want to know how terrible that times, you should read A Modest Proposal.

A Modest Proposal written by Jonathan Swift argues the idea of preventing the children of poor families from dying and making them beneficial. It seems quite reasonable at first, but actually this idea is disgusting. Of course, this was written to make a satire of the government and I think, this was very successful work in terms of enlightening the society. What disgusting is to consider all that were written are real. It’s quite normal that when you read this, at first you might imagine these as real. All people who lived at those times didn’t understand the irony, as well. Swift explaines his ideas so effective by using numbers and calculations that we can say this work reflects the features of the terms exactly.

To sum up, social events change the literature. Works are written according to the needs. If we want to make a conclude, then we have to take into account characteristics of the period.

Satirical poets

This week, Mac Flecknoe was our topic. I am not much interested in this topic but I really find this poem important.

Satire is a way of poets usually use. One of them is Mac Flecknoe that is a mock-heroic satire written by John Dryden in 1678. In every country, there are poets who critisize the society, kings, beliefs, cultures etc. because the best way of expressing your angry is to write a poem. John Dryden did this by resembling Shadwell to Flecknoe as his son. Dryden found Shadwell ridiculus and wanted to critisize him. He considered him as a bad poet. The most interesting part of this poem that impress me is Dryden used ‘Sh…’ abbreviation in the poem. ‘Sh…’ stands for Shadwell, and Shadwell himself never proved this. We can say that Dryden used this abbreviation to say ‘shit’ and this make it special.

Consequently, satirical poets affects me. I thought that making a mockery of someone is not just simple. It also requires ability.

Carpe Diem

We studied this week Andrew Marwell’s To His Coy Mistress. This poet reflects all thoughts of Carpe Diem exactly. Carpe Diem means live the moment or seize the day. So I want to talk about a little bit this view.

Carpe diem is mentioned in one of the poets of Horatius and this became a world view. The poet continues like this:

Be wise, strain wines, and cut short far-reaching hopes, for the
Short space of life. As long as we speak, a grudging lifetime will
Be gone: enjoy today, with tomorrow trusted as little as possible.

As far as we can see, in this poet, the importance of the moment that we’ll live is emphasized. While we live in the moment, we have to do good things. I think if we will die one day, then everybody wants to be remembered. This is possible while being honest.

Many people think that carpe diem means living the moment impulsively, without feeling any anxiety of future. I think this is completely wrong. Yes, we must live because we deserve this but while we are living, we have to care about our custom. We are different from any other creatures. We can think, love, hate or dream etc. Indeed, my thought is we must live the moment. On the other hand, we must think about consequences of what we did.

Consequently, If we’ll die one day, then we have to enjoy the life and live. What’s the point of delaying the life? The important thing is living by respecting the others and enjoying without disturbing the others.

Poets and John Donne

Poetry has always strange and different emotions that really affect people. Whenever I read a poetry especially from Turkish Literature, I feel deep emotions. But this week I read poets from English Literature and our topic was Metaphysical Poets and I can say that poets have strange meanings as the same as Garip Akımı from Turkish Literature.

I want to talk about Jonne Donne who is quite good at personification. When I first read his poets, I had difficulty in understanding. In time, I realized its beauty and admired him. Holy Sonnets 10. is one of the most meaningful poets I’ve ever read. In this poet, we can see the personification of death. I am normally scared of death but I can understand thanks to Donne death actually nothing to fear . The poet refers that death is the key to the real world. This work has a strong effect on me.

To sum up, this period was quite strange for me in terms of meaning and shape. After Shakespeare, this poets has shocked me but I loved them. I am looking forward to see others.