Blog 1

 Johnathan Swift is by far my favorite poet that we have covered in class. "A Description of a City Shower" was obviously a very satirical poem in which Swift even took an opportunity to make a joke about the Whigs and the Tories. The poem is full of similes and show Swift is clearly being very over dramatic about the storm. Something I love the most about Swift is that the people who are unfamiliar with his writing style are often outraged with his pieces. Swift is quite the interesting read and always entertains me even if I am reading the same piece numerous times. 

 This is most definitely not my first time reading this poem but every time I read it I seem to get a new perspective. I used to think Thomas Gray was just writing about his creepy experience in a graveyard, but it is actually much more than that. While walking through the churchyard, Gray makes up a story about each persons tombstone he sees. I found it very interesting the way he could base an entire life story based simply off of someones name and the way their tombstone looked. It is quite possible Gray is putting into perspective how much people judge others simply on the way they look, when in reality no one will ever know a persons real story. Gray also could have just been creative in this poem and making up stories about the people, but once again, no one will ever know the true story. 

In the film Tom Jone's, there was a scene where essentially every man in the film and a large group of dogs were chasing after a deer for a very long amount of time. The way the scene was displayed seemed extremely similar to one of the first poems we read this semester called "The Hunting of the Hare" by Cavendish. Although the men and dogs were chasing two completely different animals, the scenes were extremely similar, to the point where when I was watching this scene I questioned whether it was based on "The Hunting of the Hare." I also found the scene to be a bit unnecessary. It just showed a bunch of men falling off their horses while chasing a deer that the dogs ate most of when it was caught, just to show Tom Jone's save Sophia. Despite this one part, I really do enjoy the film so far and look forward to finishing it.