A Modern Woman's Take on Swift's A Lady's Dressing Room

The view on women based on Jonathon Swift’s The Lady’s Dressing Room and a reaction for a modern woman: Me:

                Jonathon Swift proves how disgusting a woman’s dressing room can be even though she is basically raisen from dung and turns into a beautiful flower. I can see how one might see women as gross when they delve too far into the grooming time. I could see a man taking my makeup brush that has never been washed because I like how fluffy it is (although, I just got a new one). I could see him or anyone thinking that excrement is gross; it is. So don’t go sticking your hand into an unflushed toilet Strephan! Also, I could see anyone thinking dirty laundry is disgusting and smells bad. Well, back when Jonathon Swift was writing, some clothes weren’t washed or there were so many layers, one sweated through them all. I know I’m not crazy about smelling my dirty laundry after I take it off and throw it into the bin to be washed. As for the makeup…Puppy insides, bird poo, and puppy water…yuck. I’m glad makeup standards have changed and most of my makeup is all natural or completely vegan. It’s just powder now so don’t spring a leak. I get that the makeup back when Strephan was disrupting the force in a woman’s private space. Just let me make clear, if you think it’ll be yucky, don’t touch it, look at it, sniff it, or feel it. Basically, keep in mind that women come out looking and smelling like a tulip.

                Men, I won’t intrude on your Axe body spray, hair-clogged razor, and never cleaned with the seat up toilet, if you keep your paws off and out of my closet and makeup bag. Because you come out smelling like a wanna be Jersey Shore Guido with too much jel and a condom stuck to the bottom of your foot…nowadays. When Strephan was pawing through Celia’s stuff, he didn’t know that she could be pawing through his. Hmmm…didn’t men wear makeup too back then? Did you, Strephan, turn poor Tripsy’s brother Tipsy into makeup or shaving cream. Did you forget to flush the toilet once and a while and most off all, you wore high heels…leave it to the women, pal.

                Moral of the story, Jonathon Swift, stay out of Lady’s Dressing Rooms; Strephon, don’t go through Celia’s stuff—and yes, she shits!—and Celia, if you ever go through Strephon’s things, write a poem about it for pay back and tell it to all your friends then laugh about it but never let him find out. As for the modern day people, No snooping in your significant other’s closet or makeup and please, if you do, don’t write a poem about it. Everybody shits.

Sonnets

Sonnets!!

 I love the sonnets we’ve been reading in class. I have yet to write a successful one. My favorite has to be Sir Phillip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella. Sidney uses the normal sonnet conventions of love and emotion to exemplify the love between the star lover and his star.

The sonnet was once the most common poetic form written in 18 lines and usually in iambic pentameter. There’s usually a problem or question (octave) and an answer or solution (sestet). There are many types of sonnets the most important ones are Petrarch or Italian, and Shakespearean Sonnets.

The Petrarch Sonnet usually follows one of these forms:

            a-b-b-a a-b-b-a c-d-e-c-d-e

a-b-b-a a-b-b-a c-d-c-c-d-c

This sonnet was invented in the 13^th Century in Italy and was developed by Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374).

The Shakespearean Sonnet, I believe, is the most popular and widely used now. The form of these sonnets is usually:

            a-b-a-b c-d-c-d  e-f-e-f  g-g

Shakespeare was the best and no one could out do him so that made the sonnets big. He was one of the best playwrights and sonnet poets. Shakespeare’s sonnet collection includes 154 sonnets. Shakespeare also does not follow conventions as closely as a lot of other poets. He never clearly follows one pattern to a tee. Shakespeare also turns convention on its head when the focus of his sonnets is sometimes a young man.

One of my favorite sonnets is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1:

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

 That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

 But as the riper should by time decease,

 His tender heir might bear his memory:

 But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,

 Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,

 Making a famine where abundance lies,

 Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:

 Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,

 And only herald to the gaudy spring,

 Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

 And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:

 Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

 To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

            In this sonnet he speaks about that you create your own hell even when there should not be one. He follows conventions here and form but it isn’t clearly about love. One could argue it could be about a lot of people who are making their own life harder.