Blog #5: "Thou Blind Man's Mark" Essay & Reflection

In Sir Philip Sidney’s poem, “Thou Blind Man’s Mark”, Sidney portrays a man who obsesses over desire, but holds an irritated and unfulfilled attitude towards it, viewing the destruction of desire to be a well-deserved compensation; this attitude is articulated through parallel structure, anaphora, and repetition.

The first line of the poem refers to the object of the narrator’s desire as it is referred to as “Thou blind man’s mark, thou fool’s self-chosen snare”. The author purposely chooses to use “blind man” and “fool” to exaggerate the type of man who goes after desire, there is a bitter tone in that the author views this person as imprudent and so oblivious that he may as well be blind. The use of the word “snare” helps capture the predatory nature of catching desire. The frustration that the narrator has with desire is evident in his diction as he calls the thing that he desires the “Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care”. The alliteration with the “c” consonants adds to his exasperation with the senselessness of the characteristics of what (or the actions of whom) he desires. Repetition with words such as “desire” and “too long” reiterates the narrator’s unsatisfied feeling towards his situation.

Towards the end of the poem, Sidney begins to use an anaphora by staring each line with “In vain thou”, which basically implies the words to no purpose or unsuccessfully. The repeated uttering of the word “vain” shows the narrator’s now shifting attitude that his efforts to seek desire have served no purpose as he is unsuccessful time after time.  Beginning in the third to last line to the end of the poem, the audience sees a more firm and consistent attitude toward desire. The narrator believes that he has taken a benefit out of this experience through learning a lesson in the line, “For virtue hath this better lesson taught—“, and the dash puts an additional emphasis on the two lines following it. These final two lines conclude his complex attitude toward desire by pointing out that he has earned himself the right to seek his only repayment, which is to destroy desire.

Throughout the entire poem, Sidney uses poetic devices to capture the narrator’s conflicting view towards desire in that he is obsessed but simultaneously frustrated and exhausted from aspiring towards it. The author ends the poem with what the narrator views as his only repayment which is to destroy the thing that he has been so infatuated over, the thing that he digresses about for the entire length of the poem. The ending is very cynical and ironic.

Reflection:

The mere act of thinking about writing the poetry essay felt extremely taxing and strenuous. I was dreading it. It felt like a looming storm that would either hit me head on or pass me by completely. Another words, I thought I would both find the complexity and completely understand how the poetic devices convey the attitude of the speaker or completely misinterpret the poem and lack any sort of nuanced understanding. In reality, after “norming” the sample essays and discussing them in class, my essay can only be regarded as mediocre at best. The complexity, however, wasn’t completely disregarded. I made a conscious effort to address it in my essay, for instance, in the last paragraph I write, “The author ends the poem with what the narrator views as his only repayment which is to destroy the thing that he has been so infatuated over, the thing that he digresses about for the entire length of the poem. The ending is very cynical and ironic”. There is a feeling of contradictory attitudes from the narrator in my explanation, which addresses the complexity. The other aspects that strengthened my essay were identifying the correct connotation of the word “vain” as futile or pointless as well as identifying the significance of the alliteration, repetition, parallel structure, punctuation (dash), and anaphora. I consider my essay to be a five as it is evidently "a plausible reading" of the poem and contains a "superficial" analysis of the attitude and the poetic devices.

Looking at the flaws in my essay, I can immediately see that it lacks the personification of desire. Also, I interpret that the narrator is irritated by desire because he is unsuccessful in his pursuits. This is far too safe and predictable of an interpretation. A higher scoring essay would have addressed the fact that the narrator refers to desire like a person and demonizes it by showing how desire corrupts people and furthermore, is single-handedly responsible for all human suffering and self-destruction. I also failed to acknowledge that this poem is in fact a sonnet and subsequently failed to identify the structure of a sonnet with the Octave, the Volta, and the Sestet. A well-written essay would have addressed the tone shift starting with the line “Desire, desire!” as the start of the Volta or turn in the sonnet and the first eight lines as the Octave or obstacle that the writer is presenting. In addition, addressing how the author turns the attention back to the speaker in the last two lines of the sonnet in the Sestet (solution) would have made for a very thorough analysis of the sonnet.

In order to improve my poetry essays in the future, I will continue to ask myself guiding questions while close reading the poem (similar to the prose passage essay). My questions will include the following: What type of poem is this? What is the structure of this type of poem? What is the significance of a certain meter or rhyme scheme? Are there details that contradict each other to show contrast? What kind of poetic devices are being used so that it affects mood and tone? And if all else fails, how does the author use diction and syntax to create meaning?

I will also continue with my goal of staying organized and efficient in the prewriting and close reading stages of my 40 minutes, utilizing a full ten minutes to plan out my essay. My last goal will be more specific to analyzing poetry, as there are certain pieces of prior knowledge that I am significantly lacking. I will make a conscious effort to familiarize myself with the various poetry forms, the different types of meter and rhyme schemes, and the various poetic devices.