Maha Alyami Dr.

Afra Al Shiban Poetry

Sonnet 11 : " She Cruell Warriour Doth her Selfe Addresse" By Ednmond Spenser

Sonnet 11 : " She Cruell Warriour Doth her Selfe Addresse" By Ednmond Spenser Dayly when I do seeke and sew for peace, And hostages doe offer for my truth, She, cruell warriour, doth her selfe addresse To battell, and the weary war renew'th; Ne wilbe moov'd, with reason or with rewth*, To graunt small respit to my restlesse toile; But greedily her fell intent poursewth, Of my poore life to make unpittied spoile. Yet my poore life, all sorrowes to assoyle, I would her yield, her wrath to pacify; But then she seeks, with torment and turmkoyle, To force me live, and will not let me dy. All paine hath end, and every war hafh peace; But mine, no price nor prayer may surcease.

:Summary The speaker starts his series of sonnets entitled Amoretti with lines that are filled with the lover's sighs, soaked with tears , addressing his beloved in sweet expressions of infatuation. He pleads for her to stop avoiding his love , and ask her to accept his heart as a sign of his truthful love. However, in these lines the tone changes. The speaker describes his love and his beloveds rejection as a weary battle through which he claims daily to sew for peace and ends this war . (sue for peace, line 1) . He asks for peace , and for her love to end his turmoil in her love. He offers her a hostage (line 2) a beautiful young doe as a metaphor of his heart , but she continues in torturing the speaker with her coldness. He describes her as a cruel warrior who enjoys his suffering (line 3) and his own life as her spoil. He tells the reader that he is captivated in her love (line 8). He wants peace with herwhich entails her confessing love for himbut she refuses to acknowledge any feelings for him, thus keeping the weary .war (line 4) going The speaker uses irony in describing her giving in to feelings for him as his own surrender, while her constant resistance to his repeated words of .love as an act of aggression

Analysis : The poem is a Spenserian sonnet , written in 14 lines stanza with a rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee . In sonnets 10 and 11 from the series sonnets of Amoretti , The speaker changes his tone in the previous sonnets (1-9), from one of adoration to one of anger at the beloved rejection and coldness. The lines conveys an extended metaphor of the beloved being described as a cruel , sadistic tease who enjoys the speaker's pain in her love. This metaphor starts in sonnet 10 and continues in this sonnet and the one after. The speaker put an emphasis on his suffering in such love affair as if he fights in a battle field against a .(fierce enemy not a delicate creature ( a woman He moves further to grasp the reader attention with vivid images of his suffering. So , the reader finds him first as an exhausted , weary soul that seeks peace and love from this merciless , cold-hearted beloved who refused to accept" the doe" which stands for his heart as her .hostage , and as a true symbol of his total submission to her He tells us that he tried to win her love by reason or even by raising her pity but all that has gone in vain. The speaker in these lines sounds hurt and in great pain that he compares his continuous pleading for love and the beloved abandonment to a " torment and turmoyle" . He cleverly uses words that carry many layers of meanings. For example, the word torment , in English it means agony or great pain , however, it :is derived from the Latin word (tormentum) which means the folloing 1. an engine for hurling missiles; 2. an instrument of torture 3. a (twisted) cord or rope 4. torture, anguish, pain, torment All these meanings are drown together to describe the cruelty and the sadistic nature of this lady who seems to torture his heart by rejecting his advances .The twisting and squeezing implications of the words are metaphorically implied to heighten the tension and the speaker's pain , reflecting his anguish. Then , he adds to that the image of the heartless woman in order to win the sympathy and total agreement of the reader. He says that she is so brutal that she does not accept my love , breathing life in my tortured heart , neither let me die peacefully, alluding to her teasing characteristic. He ends his lines by stating that his pain is not like normal sickness or injury that would be cured by money or by prayers, or a war that would reach an end. His love for her has caused him an uncured and infinite pain. The use of the extended image of the cruel lady adds unity to the sonnet and at the same time hinges the previous and the next poem

together adding more coherence and cohesiveness to the sonnet 11 in .particular and to the whole series of Amoretti in general The poet uses alteration in the first line (seek and sew) using the /s/ that reoccurs frequently throughout the poem as an outlet for the speakers .sighs of sorrow, which add to the sorrowful tone in this sonnet From a psychoanalytic point of view, many studies have discussed the emotional needs that should be fulfilled in a healthy love relationship . they say that a person in love needs to be : To be listened to and understood To be nurtured To be appreciated To be valued To be accepted For affection For love For companionship As we can see that the speaker is deprived from allof the previous emotional needs . According to psychoanalysis studies he would be suffering from "emotional abandonment ". It happens when you cant connect and your emotional needs arent being met in the relationship. Henceforth, resentments easily develop in such relationship when your feelings, especially hurt or anger, arent expressed. When they go underground, you may either pull away emotionally or push your partner away with criticism or undermining comments. And one likely to develop feelings of rage as a result of beingor feelingunnoticed and emotionally abandoned. Consequently, this is what happens to the speaker. He starts the series of poems yearning for love and passion , but with the lady constant rejection and cruel reactions he shifts to describe her as a cruel sadistic tormentor who enjoys his pains .