Literary Technique: Couplet
Poem Example:
Man's Short Life and Foolish Ambition
By Margaret Cavendish
In gardens sweet each flower mark did I,
How they did spring, bud, blow, wither and die.
With that, contemplating of man's short stay,
Saw man like to those flowers pass away.
Yet built he houses, thick and strong and high,
As if he'd live to all Eternity.
Hoards up a mass of wealth, yet cannot fill
His empty mind, but covet will he still.
To gain or keep, such falsehood will he use!
Wrong, right or truth—no base ways will refuse.
I would not blame him could he death out keep,
Or ease his pains or be secure of sleep:
Or buy Heaven's mansions—like the gods become,
And with his gold rule stars and moon and sun:
Command the winds to blow, seas to obey,
Level their waves and make their breezes stay.
But he no power hath unless to die,
And care in life is only misery.
This care is but a word, an empty sound,
Wherein there is no soul nor substance found;
Yet as his heir he makes it to inherit,
And all he has he leaves unto this spirit.
To get this Child of Fame and this bare word,
He fears no dangers, neither fire nor sword:
All horrid pains and death he will endure,
Or any thing can he but fame procure.
O man, O man, what high ambition grows
Within his brain, and yet how low he goes!
To be contented only with a sound,
Wherein is neither peace nor life nor body found.
Biographical Information: Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was a prolific writer who worked in many genres, including poetry, fiction, drama, letters, biography, science, and even science fiction. Unlike most women of her day, who wrote anonymously, she published her works under her own name. Her significance as a rhetorical theorist has two main dimensions. First, she lived at a time when rhetoric itself and rhetorical theory were undergoing radical changes. Her writings provide a valuable source of information about some of these changes. Second, her ideas about the rhetorical tradition provide particular insight into the relationship of women to that tradition at a critical time in its history.
Explanation of Technique: A pair of successive rhyming lines, usually of the same length. A couplet is “closed” when the lines form a bounded grammatical unit like a sentence. Each stanza of this poem is a couplet- it has two rhyming lines. Therefore, this poem is a long series of successive couplets.
Interpretation of Poem: Throughout this poem, various actions that display man's greed and ambition are listed. We build strong and big houses, as if we could live in them forever. We hoard huge masses of wealth, and continue to want more. Cavendish remarks that despite our burning ambition and will to do great deeds no one can avoid death. We can take medicine and endure horrible pain, but no matter what we do, we will die. Even with all of our wealth and achievements, in the end, we all die and become part of the earth. We can all go so very high, even to the moon, but we all end up in the ground.
Visual Representation:
Explanation of Visual: I selected this image because it goes along with the poem's main theme- that despite man's greed and ambition, he dies no matter what. This image's theme is that greed for money is the only thing on man's mind, and even if he has one mountain of wealth, he will want another. The image supports the poem's message.
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