"Cloyed with the torments of a tedious night" is a sonnet by Lady Mary Wroth, an English Renaissance writer known for her sonnet sequence "Pamphilia to Amphilanthus". This sonnet, like others in the sequence, explores themes of love, longing, and frustration.
The poem begins with the line "Cloyed with the torments of a tedious night," which immediately establishes the speaker's emotional state. The word "cloyed" suggests an over-saturation or excessive indulgence, often to the point of disgust or weariness. This implies that the speaker is overwhelmed or exhausted by the "torments" of a long, sleepless night spent in longing and anticipation.
The poem continues to elaborate on the speaker's emotional turmoil. She describes the "wild work of my disordered thought" and the "cruel comfort" of her dreams. These phrases suggest a mind in turmoil, torn between hope and despair. The use of alliteration in "wild work" and "cruel comfort" draws attention to this internal conflict and amplifies the intensity of the speaker's emotions.
In terms of structure, the poem follows the Shakespearean sonnet form, consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet. This form allows for a clear progression of thought. The first two quatrains describe the speaker's restless night and troubled dreams, while the third quatrain introduces the idea of dawn and a potential end to her suffering. However, the final couplet reveals that her torment continues, as she remains trapped in her unrequited love.
From a stylistic perspective, the poem uses a mix of iambic pentameter and trochaic meter to create a sense of rhythmic tension, mirroring the speaker's emotional turmoil. The poem also employs a range of poetic devices such as alliteration, paradox (e.g., "cruel comfort"), and vivid imagery to convey the speaker's emotional state.
In sum, "Cloyed with the torments of a tedious night" is a powerful exploration of the torments of unrequited love, brought to life through Wroth's masterful use of language, structure, and poetic devices.
The generated response gives you some good ideas about how to annotate Mary Wroth’s poem “Cloyed with the torments of a tedious night.” It is correct in its identification of the speaker’s emotional state, the poem’s structure, and the poet’s style and diction. All of these make for excellent annotations. To help you make further progress with this assignment, let’s look at the process of annotation in more detail.
To annotate a poem like this one, you’ll first need to print out a clean copy or paste a copy into a word processor document. Your annotations will surround the poem, pointing out various elements, asking questions, and making personal reflections and comments. If you are handwriting your annotations on a sheet of paper, you might put a small number near each word or line you wish to annotate and then write your annotations below the poem. You could do the same if you are using a word processor only be sure to use superscript numbers for clarity.
As you begin your annotations, you may be struck by the first word “cloy’d.” Look this up in the dictionary. It means something like “bored” or “disenchanted” or “indifferent” or “fed up.” This seems to be a strange word to pair with “torments.” How is a person bored or indifferent to torments? Yet this word choice is deliberate, and it tells us something important about the torments of the “tedious night.” This is the kind of detail and attention you will need to provide for an annotation.
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