Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Epitaph on Elizabeth, L.H. Ben Johnson

I liked this poem even though it was a little depressing. What I got out of this poem was that someone (the poet?) is asking the reader to stay and hear this sad story in mind. A story of a woman named Elizabeth who had died. There isn't any indication as to how she died, but it should be an obvious assumption after the line, " Underneath this stone doth lie..." because the poet or some man or even woman is simply saying here lies so and so pretty much. So basically, here lies a beautiful woman named Elizabeth who i'm assuming didn't have any faults? That maybe she was a very respected woman who was kind? Then again I wasn't too sure because it says, " If at all she had a fault, leave it buried in this vault." Which also brings me to the conclusion that maybe she had herself a  good share of mistakes and that all was forgiven and buried in her coffin along with her. I really wish I knew exactly who this Elizabeth was because at first I thought this poem was about the death of someone important like Elizabeth Taylor. Then I looked at the date that this poem was written and realized it that that would be impossible. After that I thought maybe Queen Elizabeth was who he was talking about. I was curious so I looked up what year Queen Elizabeth died and it said she died in the year of 1603. So maybe this was a farewell to the queen? I was never truly sure. I liked the language of this poem, and as I read on I pictured this person standing beside a grave that was fantastic (assuming dead important person) with intricate carvings and detail; saying a heart felt goodbye maybe at a funeral, maybe not. That is what it seemed like, though. I've got a little bit of a knack for enjoying sad poetry, so that's probably why I like this one so much. But it wasn't just the sadness that made me like it, but the imagery and overall language, too. I thought it went together nicely even though there was rhyming involved.                

1 comment:

  1. So I thought right off the bat that this poem was a remembrance to Queen Elizabeth and her splendor, due to the time period (and since she died only years before this was written). It turns out that the author, Ben Jonson, was a writer and actor and had a foul temper. He worked and lived during Elizabeth's reign, which for me automatically made sense as to why he would grieve her death; theater thrived in her days of ruling (and being good friends with Shakespeare, Jonson would have been well aware of this). Not quite. After some digging I discovered that Elizabeth tried to "off" the man on several accounts, narrowly missing each time. So maybe I'm wrong. I also tried to figure out what L.H. stood for and ended up with nothing. The scholars and historians are just as baffled as I. The most they ever got out of it is the idea that L. might have stood for lady, and that that lady is dead. No duh. So unless he was talking about ovulation cycles (which L.H. also stands for as I unfortunately discovered), I truly haven't the fainest idea who he was writing about. I still think it's about Queen Elizabeth 1, though.

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