Expressive readings of John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" and George Herbert's "Love"

Donne's metaphysical poem belittles personified "Death" because of its temporary victory, after which it is paradoxically fated to "die" itself, with the Resurrection.  Herbert's dialogue is reveals a male soul's entry into heaven and God as "Love" assuring the  hesitant narrator's soul of its welcome to heaven. Its "Lord" is definitely a New Testament one! Both poems would be useful to write about for AO5ii, (The historical context)  AO1, (Use of  poetic technique) and AO3 (form, structure and language). There seems to be a progression between them. These AOs refer to Edexcel's legacy syllabus. 


Julian Glover's reading of this poem is spot on!


Herbert's poem was read by Poetry Animations

Notes on Metaphysical and Cavalier Poets

Here's link for further study with interesting information on metaphysical poetry and its features.
http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl331/donne.html

"To His Coy Mistress" - presentation

To His Coy Mistress - Andrew Marvell

View more OpenOffice presentations from Andre Oosthuysen.

John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" - Notes

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/DeathBe.html

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love by Christopher Marlowe

Sonnet 130 read by Alan Rickman

Sonnet 130

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 from the BBC's modernised production of Much Ado About Nothing

A marvellous rendition and analysis from the Beeb's production of "Much Ado About Nothing". It was clever of them to insert it into Shakespeare's play, even if The Bard did not do so. Benedick and Beatrice are the estranged characters who were earlier tricked into falling in love - even though their love-hate relationship always indicated their love for one another. This scene is placed before Claudio and Hero's "wedding".

"They Flee From Me That Sometimes Did Me Seek" by Thomas Wyatt

The poem with notes
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2407.html

The Francis Child Ballad Collection

The main link for the Francis Child collection of ballads.

http://www.contemplator.com/child/index.html

Notes on the early Child ballads including "The Three Ravens" and "The Twa Corbies".

http://www.pbm.com/%7Elindahl/ballads/early_child/#tour

The Three Ravens

Here's the northern English version of the same poem but with the values reversed.

The Twa Corbies