Blog 3 close reading

The poem focuses heavily on the unraveling of the tapestry by Penelope as an analogy for the author’s love life. This point is driven across by both his words and the unraveling nature of the rhyme scheme. Initially, he sets up the analogy in the first four lines by giving the backdrop of Penelope’s story. However, as the poem continues the line “For all that I in many days do weave, In one short houre I find be her undone” reveals the author as the weaver and his lover in the role of the suitors, who resists his work and tries to break the bond of his love. In fact, his feelings are unraveling themselves as she resists his feelings, until his work, and love, is broken “with least wind” as it has deteriorated throughout the poem. The rhyme scheme mimics this deterioration, with the rhyming lines unraveling into a longer patter. The pattern goes a,b,a,b,b,c,b,c,c,d,c,d,d,d. Thus, the consecutive rhyming lines build on each other, with a appearing only twice, b and c appearing consecutively at certain points, and an ending of d,c,d,d,d that gives the image of the poem unraveling into a repetitive sound seen in “rend”, “fynd”, and “wynd”. His passion seems to be, like Odysseus, full of twists and turns, using the analogy to Penelope and Odysseus to not only show the strength of the authors love, but also to reveal its fragility in the way his efforts unravel throughout the poem.