Two Definitions

Allusion

Definition: an indirect or passing reference to some event, person, place, or artistic work.

Example: the use of "Adam and Maiden" in the poem "Fern Hill"

Explanation: the writer is making a biblical reference to the Garden of Eden and its occupants. "Maiden", or Eve, was lured out of the Garden by a snake who tempted her with the forbidden fruit, and the  author of Fern Hill is using this imagery to show how he was thrusted out of adulthood the same way the antediluvian couple was thrusted out of their home. 

Connotation

Definition: "The emotional implications and associations that words may carry, as distinguished from their denotative meanings."

Example: Using "strong-willed" or "pig-headed" instead of "stubborn" in literature. 

Explanation: "Strong-willed" has a positive connotation, showing someone who believes in what they preach, and are hell-bent on achieving what they desire, while pig-headed has a negative connotation, showing someone who may be difficult to deal. Both have the same denotation (stubborn) but very different connotations. 

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

First Paragraph (Stanzas 1-4)

“A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne is about a man saying goodbye to his lover before he dies. In the first four stanzas, he is describing how their love is different than other loves, and how just because they have to be apart doesn’t mean they have to fall apart. He says in the first paragraph that they’re parting should resemble the death of an old man, gentle, and you can’t even tell he has stopped breathing. In the third stanza, he says they’re love is unlike an earthquake, because earthquake’s cause pain and suffering for a moment or two, but in the long run are innocent, and their love has a more lasting effect. There is actually an allusion in the line “trepidation of the spheres” to the Greek myth that the revolving planets created a song that controlled everyone’s destiny. In the fourth stanza, he talks about couple’s whose relationship is fueled by lust, and how that couple couldn’t survive the distance like they will because parting “doth remove those things which elemented it”. He uses a bit of sarcasm in the first line “Dull sublunary lovers’ love” because he making fun of the cliché couples who fall in love in the moonlight, as the tale goes.

Second Paragraph (Stanzas 5-9)

In the next five stanzas, John Donne goes from talking about how the speaker and his lover are different by comparing them to different types of couples, to talking about their relationship specifically. He says in the fifth stanza that their love is so much bigger than anyone else’s that it’s hard to fathom its’ complexity. He tells her that they share a soul, so they will stay connected no matter what, through a breach or an expansion. He then contradicts this last statement in stanza seven and eight by saying that if their souls are two and not one, they are two like the two legs of a mathematical compass are two: one sits in the middle (his lover), while the other revolves around it (speaker), but in the end, they will always come together. He tells her in the last stanza that she holds him down, and without her, his circle would be ungeometrically correct, and he wouldn’t be able to come back to where he began and complete the circle.
 

Home Burial Explication (edited a bit)

"Home Burial" by Robert Frost is about a man and a woman who have lost their newborn baby. Coincidentally, this poem isn't actually about this terrible occurrence, but rather how the parents deal with the situation. The blame between them only enhances their poor communication skills and mild sexism toward the opposite, generated by this personal experience, and this poem is basically a story of condemnation.

In line thirty-seven, the husband asks "Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?" and the woman replies with "I don't know rightly whether any man man." The wife is implying that men in general, not just her husband, aren't able to properly grieve. She accuses him of not caring because after he finished digging the child's grave, he came inside and spoke about decrepit fences. "Three foggy mornings and one rainy day will rot the best birch fence a man can build." Using this imagery, and the presentation of their broken relationship, the author showed us the moment their marriage began falling apart- the man unable to talk about their great loss, and the woman is so disgusted by the man's actions that she can't see him as anything other than an enemy. This image is also representing the man's need to be the one to fix their relationship, and how men and women grieve differently: a man may go out and a work, where a woman may need to talk about how she feels. Overall, this is a symbol for how a couple of problems can destroy something beyond repair, like the weather did to the strong fence, and like the loss of a child did to their relationship.

"What was it brought you up to think it the thing to take you mother-loss of a first child so inconsolably- in the face of love." In this line, the husband is replying to her earlier insult. The gender bias in this line is in the term "mother-loss". He is implying that the grief of a mother is very different than the grief of a father. He asks why she thinks she can grieve the child more thoroughly than he can, when she rejects his help when he tries to help her. He brings this same issue up again in lines 73-74 "God, what a woman! And it's come to this, a man can't speak of his own child that's dead." This is the same thing he asked before, but as if she has answered his question, this line is a statement instead. The gender roles come into play because he isn't stating that his wife is a difficult person is general, but that she is difficult because she is a woman. He is blaming her grief and their problems simply on the fact that she is a woman, kind of like what he did by telling her that they grieve differently because he is a man.

The last example of sexism in the poem is the last line "I'll follow and bring you back by force. I 
will!-". In this line, the husband is displaying his physical dominance over the woman by threatening to bring her back if she leaves him. Throughout the poem, the man and woman have been insulting each other's genders: the man calling the woman weak, the woman calling the man uncaring. The poem ends with no resolution, nor the end of the conflict, but it does end on a stalemate: the woman shut the door on him, a temporary win, but the man might go after her anyway.

So, what happens?

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

STEP TWO:

1.      “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” a valediction is a goodbye, and the title implies that the farewell being spoke of is one that the speaker isn’t allowed to be sad about.

2.     In the poem, the speaker is dying and is sharing his last words with someone he loves. The speaker is trying to tell his lover that she shouldn’t be sad because their life together isn’t over, it’s just going to change it’s form and become stronger.

3.     It’s the tone of a dying man trying to convince someone to not mourn this terrible scenario. He is sad, of course, because he will miss his lover, but he is hopeful, and is trying to say that she should be too. He is very sure of himself and what is awaiting him in the afterlife. This is shown when he discusses the expansion of their love and tells her that this isn’t the end, or “a breach”, it’s just a change.

4.     That love knows no bounds.

STEP THREE:

1.     The speaker requests that his lover not be sad when he passes on. He tells her that he doesn’t want her to cry when the time comes because it makes for a messy break, and he doesn’t want that, he just wants her to “…let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move…” He tells her that sadness will ruin their goodbye, which, really, should be a beautiful thing.

2.     The lover is scared that this could be the end for them, but he explains that man cannot know what the afterlife is, therefore she shouldn’t be scared of it. He says that the apprehension toward the thought of death is the source of fear, more so than the afterlife itself.

3.     The force of the Soul Mate Principal, and how you will stay connected to that someone after death.

4.      

Sonnet Analysis

"Why That's Bob Hope" is a hybrid sonnet about a man reminiscing about his days before being drafted into the war, as shown by the turn in line nine, "But now we're past our wild phase and Bob's back...".
"Friend Who Never Came" is an Italian sonnet; the first eight lines are about someone who has never had a real friend, and in the next six, a.k.a the turn, the speaker is writing a note to the friend they will never have.
"Sonnet Ending With a Film Subtitle" is a hybrid sonnet about a woman stating all the tribulations women face because of men's mistakes (venereal diseases, strong women waiting for men to call), but in the turn of the poem in line twelve"(I wonder if the bastard kept my letters?" she has fallen prey to a man's will.
"The Poet's Final Instructions" is a hybrid sonnet about a man who is choosing his final resting place, and chooses during the turn in line eight, "Drop here, with honour due, my trunk & brain...".
"Sunflower One" is an English sonnet about a man telling his woman about much he loves her...until the turn in the final couplet, where he tells her that it would be a poor decision to choose him over anyone else.
"Sunflower Two" is an English sonnet about a man who is willing to do anything for his lover, with is shown in the final couplet, "...some sacrifice of falling stars for rare. And there are stars, but non of you, to spare."

"London 1802" or, as I call it, "A Poet's Bromance"

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower,
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
                     -William Wordsworth

"London 1802" by William Wordsworth is an Italian sonnet lamenting the demise of poet John Milton, consequently, the author of "When I Consider How My Light is Spent". In the first eight lines of the sonnet, he is describing London in 1802 (totally unexpected, I know) - "...she is a fen, Of stagnant waters: alter, sword, and pen." He is saying that England has forgotten all the things that made them great: religion, military, and literature. The speaker is convinced that Milton could inspire England, and turn the selfish Englishmen into their old noble selves. The next six lines, which is the turn in the poem, goes from him ranting about the state of England to the speaker dwelling on Milton's high points, "Thy soul was like a Star..." and "Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea." He says that he is admirable, had an amazing character, and praises the poet's humility.