Hello fellow pupils. It's Ashley
So, I'm curious. How are we all getting along with our Puritan literature? There have been some excellent class discussions. People have made really insightful points (at least when they remember to actually read the packet.) Unfortunately, I'm having a bit of difficulty "decoding" the messages. When I analyze poetry, I try to look for examples of imagery, diction (i.e. word choice), what the dramatic situation is (who is speaking / to whom they are speaking), and syntax. It's harder for me to study these poems and such because they're written in old English; I don't know if they are purposefully using this flowery, figurative language or if that's just how they spoke back then! When Taylor writes,
"We'll Nightingaile sing like / When pearcht on high / In Glories Cage, the glory, bright / And thankfully / For Joy"
I thought he was referencing the Puritan society - the "city upon a hill"- because they are perched on high, above all other nations, for everyone to see their example of morality and righteousness. Their society is a cage in that the inhabitants are secure within their town - the Puritan citizens have found the right path and do not want to be led astray (i.e. be released from the cage.) They are content to be there and remain there. They sing thankfully and for joy that they are safe within the confines of the cage.
I had no idea that he was referring to the cage as heaven! Is that the right answer? Is there only one right answer?
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I believe that in Taylor's case, he is only referring to one specific example- so there can be only one answer. We can interpret it to find countless answers, but Taylor (based upon his personal history and the examples from his other poems) was referring to Heaven. I too felt that the cage referred to the Puritan society on a hill, but how can the cage be described as "Glories Cage" when Puritans believed that life was suffering- pure punishment for what humanity had committed in the past (the Garden of Eden)? They felt that true joy could only be found if they were to be accepted into Heaven...which, according to their very own religion, was impossible to know.
Hey, it's Erin.
Ah, poetry. It's difficult to understand sometimes because so many things can be interpretted different ways. The way Ashley interpretted those lines was one I never thought of, and I'm sure there are many others. I don't know if there's a specific "right answer". There might be best answers, but how can we truly know what the author had in mind? I remember one time I wrote a poem for creative writing and everyone was making all these connections and it sounded great, but I never thought of it when I was writing the poem. There are so many different ways to read things based on our own experiences that I think that any idea is certainly plausible.
Hi there, Ashley here.
I just thought of another criticism - I think it's really interesting how Taylor uses the cage as a metaphysical conceit. It's analogous to Plato's allegory of the cave.
For those of you who are not familiar, the allegory depicts prisoners who have been chained since their childhood deep inside a cave. Behind the wall that their gaze is fixed on, is a fire which allows shadows to be cast. If a prisoner was released, he would be compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes would be blinded by the sunlight coming into the cave. Objects appeared less real than their shadows, which was all the prisoners had ever seen. Surprisingly the prisoners would not want to be freed, because descending back into the cave would require that they adjust again to the darkness. So it would seem that seeing the light would actually ruined their sight.
Where Taylor compares the cage to heaven, Plato compares the cave (or cage) to the tangible world. Plato believed that one can only learn through dialect reasoning. We had to transcend the world of image-making and objects we perceived to be real (shadows) and enter the true reality (the light.) Taylor viewed the cage as a security, when Plato viewed it as a barrier between reality and unreality.
Hi, it's Jasmine.
When I read "pearcht on high," I immediately thought of the "city upon a hill," the Puritans' notion that they were above everybody else. I saw the nightingale as a representation of the Puritans - "on high" meaning they were the elect.
I didn't pick up on the significance of Glories Cage though, until we discussed it in class. I reread the part of the packet that describes how Taylor wrote his poems - the end of the poem usually describes how he will "sing the praises of Christ" if he is destined for heaven. Thus, the nightingale (which represents Taylor) will sing when it discovers that it will be "pearcht on high" (in Heaven, among the elect).
Therefore, the Glories Cage can't refer to the "city upon a hill." The nightingale sings when "pearcht on high," so since the Puritan society has always been a "city upon a hill", the nightingale should have sung already; however, Taylor writes that they WILL sing in Glories Cage (but they are not pearcht on high yet).
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