WorldLit

Monday, December 12, 2005

Group 1: Ruins of a Great House

Discuss this poem using terms from the Poetry Primer handout. You needn't write about the entire poem, but choose an image or a rhythm device, et al. that catches your interest. Maybe find a challenging line or stanza and propose interpretations. Look up unfamiliar references and words. Be sure to read other students' responses to avoid repetition.

Here is the Donne reference: John Donne, poet 1572 - 1631

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it and made fit for God by that affliction.

From Donne's Meditations: "Devotion"

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