Upon Julia’s Clothes- Robert Herrick

[on Julia’s (a girl’s name) dresses]

 

 

Whenas in silk my Julia goes

[While his crush is wearing this pleasant soft, shimmering material and walking]

Then, then, me thinks, how sweetly slows

[The second then is for emphasis, and sweetly flows is like pouring beautifully]

That liquefaction of her clothes.

[The silk is so beautifully flowing he’s saying it looks like a liquid.]

 

Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see

[Cast is a connotation, witches and fishermen cast things. In here he means it in the fishermen sense, only he is not the predator he is the victim]

That brave vibration, each way free

[That refers to the clothes, brave is another word for handsome or beautiful. By vibration he means that: when a fisherman casts his bait in the water, it vibrates to attract its prey. And that since he is the victim, he is attracted by the vibration]

O, how that glittering taketh me!

 

Subject: Julia

 

Object: Julia is the object of the speaker’s gaze

 

Setting: Probably in a ball, or it could be at home

 

Theme: Women’s attraction/ Men’s lust

 

Tone: Sensuous, obsessive, celebratory

 

Speaker: The person Obsessed in Julia

 

Poet: Robert Herrick

 

A little Description of the poem: The writer is probably a voyeur.  He is a stalker of some sort but he definitely has an obsession with Julia. So it’s not love it’s obsession. Anyways, the writer starts out as a voyeur and Julia as an Exhibit [someone being watched without the knowledge] But later on she realizes he’s watching and becomes an Exhibitionist [which is someone who knows he is being watched, likes it and therefore flaunts it] we can tell she was showing it off by reading “each way free”

 

Style of poem: 2 versus only, with 3 lines in each. The whole first verse rhymes separately, and the whole second verse rhymes alone. 

 

Difference between the 2 poems: Jonson likes what is under all the cosmetics i.e. the heart, while Herrick likes the appearance only.