Callum Sims 10T
How do the poets present different attitudes to women in each poem?
Refer closely to language and imagery.
In each of the three poems the poets show different views towards women, probably because of the time difference between the poets. They show their attitudes in the way that they write and the way women are shown in their poems. One thing they all have is an element of a love poem but not in a conventional way in any of them. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ seems like quite an outlandish poem with crude references to death and sex but could be seen as a funny take on things. In ‘Sonnet XVIII’ the poet seems to care for the woman he’s talking about but at the same time it has an unconventional theme. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is a story written as a poem and tells the tale of a man that is entranced by an unusual woman.
“Shall I compare thee…?” was written by William Shakespeare. This poem is unlike more common love poems at the time. It starts off in the normal way, comparing the woman to a summer’s day but then Shakespeare goes on to contradict himself saying that “Thou art more lovely” He goes on to say how summer isn’t always great, that sometimes it’s too hot or rainy, he also says that it doesn’t last long enough. In contrast he says “thy eternall Sommer shall not fade.” He is attempting to flatter her saying she will live forever in his poems. The theme of the poem is a twist on the conventional love poems of the time because he is realistic about summer days. The tone is gentle and this is helped by the fact that the rhyming scheme is mostly quatrains except for the last two lines which rhyme in a couplet. The quatrains give the poem a gentle tone because the rhythm scheme stays consistent throughout. The couplet at the end changes the tone and changes the tone. The language used throughout the majority of the poem is quite simple and easy to understand, the lines are also quite short which helps to add to the tone of the poem.
