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Question
How do the shadows before noon differ from the shadows afternoon? What do the two kinds of shadow represent?
Solution
The Poet refers to Noon as 12 PM, a very short time. A minute preceding or succeeding Noon is either morning or evening. In a relationship based on love, there is an opportune time when two people understand each other perfectly. Similarly, the shadows before and after Noon are meant to describe the actors’ relationship in love before and after the right time when their relationship has matured and they understand each other perfectly. The shadow before noon is clear whereas afternoon it fades away.
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RELATED QUESTIONS
Love is described as light. What makes the poet talk about shadows?
Comment on the use of the image of the shadows for the idea that the poet wants to convey.
The poet seems to be addressing his beloved in the poem. What is the message he wishes to convey to her?
Instead of ‘A Lecture Upon Love’ the poet calls the poem ‘A Lecture Upon the Shadow’. What is the effect that this has on our reading of the poem?
Examples from other poems from this period:
- How neatly doe we give one onely name
- To parents issue and the sunnes bright starre!
| As the first were made to blind Others, these which come behind Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes. If our loves faint, and westwardly decline, To me thou, falsely, thine, And I to thee mine actions shall disguise. The morning shadowes wear away, But these grow longer all the day; But oh, love's day is short, if love decay. Love is a growing, or full constant light, And his first minute, after noone, is night. |
- What does the poet mean by ‘the first’?
- How are the first different from others that follow?
- What is meant by love declining westward?
- What does morning shadows represent?
- What is the night symbolic of?
- Which word is an apt synonym for ‘thine’
- Ours
- yours
- hers
- theirs
Read the extract given below and answer the questions which follow:
|
Stand still, and I will read to thee These three hours that we have spent, So whilst our infant loves did grow, |
- What is the central message of the poem?
- What is the significance of the shadows in the poem?
- What is the meaning of the phrase "Love's philosophy" in the poem?
- In what ways does the poem reflect Milton's view of love and relationships?
- How does the poem use imagery and figurative language to convey its message?
- Pick out the word from the extract which is an apt synonym of ‘conscientious'.
