An in-depth line-by-line (and further!!) analysis of Go Lovely Rose by Edmund Waller. These notes helped me get 96% for English in my matric finals and I have no doubt that they'll help you too.
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Author: educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge and entered Parliament while still
a young man. Tried unsuccessfully court a lady. [Renaissance]
1.Go, lovely rose! Speaker commands rose to go to woman he loves. Wants
use rose to convey a message to woman. Choice of
flower symbolic.
2.Tell her that wastes her time and me, Wastes could either refer to woman’s absence causing
the man to long for her or the fact that she is throwing
away an opportunity to be with a worthy man
3.That now she knows,
4.When I resemble her to thee, Compares woman’s unmatched beauty to the rose
5.How sweet and fair she seems to be. Both rose+woman sweet and fair. Uses the words ‘sweet’
and ‘fair’ to create image of woman+her beauty
STanza 2:6.Tell her that’s young, Speaker explains what he believes is being wasted.
[Command.] Speaker tells flower he wants the woman to
understand she is as beautiful as a rose
7.And shuns to have her graces spied, suggests that she is shy, coy or modest and hides herself
away. He says that she shouldn’t hide her beauty away
from him+that by doing so she’s like a flower that blooms
in some deserted spot where nobody gets to enjoy
it+praise it
8.That hadst thou sprung
9.In deserts, where no men abide, The speaker instructs the rose to explain to the woman
that its beauty would have gone unnoticed
+unappreciated if it had grown in a desert ‘where no men
abide’
10.Thou must have uncommended died. waste of beautiful flower for it had not been
seen+appreciated, emphasizes ideas that not showing off
her beauty is a waste since nobody will be able to
experience it. Just as if flower died in deset, nobody
would notice
11.Stanza 3:Small is the worth Speaker clarifies his argument. States that reclusive or
‘retir[ing]’ beauty, one is hidden away, kept out of sight.
The speaker is saying that beauty isn’t worth much of it is
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