The Dissolution

Question 1

“sad despair” “death” “wretched”

Answer 1

• Semantic field of bleakness and misery, conveys the speakers grief.

Question 1

Overview:

Answer 1

The poem considers the overwhelming grief the speaker experiences following the death of their lover in terms of elemental imagery. Whilst at the beginning the elements reflect the speaker’s sadness they later develop into giving the speaker means to reunite with their lover in the final conceit of the bullets.

Question 2

“nourish not, but smother”

Answer 2

• Idea that the elements that were once controlled by his partner have become uncontrollable.
• Drawing on the typical renaissance belief that elements needed to be balanced.

Question 3

“My fire of passion, sighs of air,/ water of tears, and earthly sad despair”.

Answer 3

• elemental imagery.
• hyperbolic nature of his despair.
• natural images imply the sheer extent that the lovers death has had on the speaker.

Question 4

“my soul… will outstrip hers; as bullets flown before/ a later bullet may overtake, the powder being more”.

Answer 4

• Tone of the speaker changes from being overcome by his emotions to being resolved to use them for positive means.
• final conceit that their souls will become bullets - the unbalanced elemental image suggests that the love that the speaker has will cause his soul to outstrip that of his lover.
  “more and before” - final rhyming couplet solidifies the speakers resolution.
  more - potentially a pun on Anne Moore.

Question 5

Form:

Answer 5

• regular metre and rhyme - implication of a steady argument.
• unsettling structure - unbalanced nature of the speakers elements.

Question 6

Context:

Answer 6

• Dissolution of the monasteries happened in 1536 - a reference to a break down.
• this poem however is not focussed on a religious breakdown but rather a breakdown of the soul.