Forum A Petrarch uses the metaphor of a lost ship to describe the way he feels a lack of direction after the loss of his love, Laura. However, many critics (including the editors of the Norton Anthology) have pointed out that Petrarch is using Laura as a figure from which he can create his sense of self. Describe the impression that you get of Petrarch (what we would call his “poetic persona”) in his poetry. Is it possible to use a loved one and the death of a loved one for the purpose of self-construction or self-discovery? Montaigne retired from his political work at the age of 38, deciding instead to devote his life to writing and meditation. Like Petrarch, Montaigne also writes a work of literature that we could describe as autobiographical (writing about oneself). Describe Montaigne’s thoughts about himself. What does he think about death? What do the titles to his two essays mean? Are these meanings what you expected when you first read the titles? forum B John Keats died of turbuculosis when he was still a young man. How does this poem explore the tension between death and the vivacity of youth? What scenes are depicted on the urn? What does the phrase “cold pastoral” mean here? Do you agree with the poem’s conclusion: Beauty is truth, truth beauty,that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. What is this poem trying to say about art? 2-While many poets celebrate the beauty of nature, Leopardi’s poetry is unique for blaming nature for the trials and disappointments of the human condition. In this poem, he laments in particular the way that death and the passage of time rob the promise of youth. The young poet imagines himself distracted from his studies by the beauty of this young, idealized village girl. Why do you think the narrator addresses her, even though she is dead? How does he react to her death? You might compare/contrast his reaction to other poets we have read who react to the loss of loved ones (Petrarch this week and also Kakinomoto’s poem from last week).he epigraph to Browning’s poem, “The Cry of the Children,” is taken from an Ancient Greek play by Euripides, Medea. Medea is both the heroine and the villain of this tragic play in which she takes revenge on her husband for whom she has given up everything when he decides to leave her and their children for another woman. She decides that it will be more cruel to make his life impossible to live rather than to kill him, and so she makes the radical decision to kill the two children they have had together. (This play is in Vol. 1 of your book, if you are interested in it.) Why would Browning reference a mother who kills her own children to talk about child labor in the coal mines of nineteenth-century England? What do these children think of Christianity (a religion that makes use of parent-child metaphors, as many of you noted last week), and why? Why is Browning upset about this? Finally, it is widely known that many of the products that we buy in the US, from clothes and computers to makeup and toys, are made in factories that use child labor. Do you think that Browning’s poem is still relevant? 3-