AP English Literature
Mr. George
November 11, 2014
Thou Blind Man's Mark
In Sir Philip Sidney's poem, Thou Blind Man's Mark, the speaker uses both consonance and personification to convey his regard of desire, which he triumphantly sees as a worthy moral adversary.
The scattered repetition of the pronoun 'thou' indicates that the poem is addressing desire directly, which gives the abstract notion a more concrete form in the readers' eyes. By addressing desire in the second person, the speaker is able to further personify it by asserting that "But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought; / In vain thou madest me to vain things aspire; / In vain thou kindlest all my smoky fire" (lines 9-11). The idea that desire has intentions and seeks out the speaker's ruin contributes to the notion of desire as a tangible enemy. The aforementioned notion is further propagated by the accusation that desire attempted to take control of the speaker by pushing him to aspire to vanity. Through a personified portrayal of desire the speaker combats the preconception of an abstract notion as a weak and unreal obstacle, and opens the door to fully acknowledging the power of temptation.
Not only does the speaker personify desire, he also proposes several epithets for it. In line two, the speaker calls desire "Fond fancy's scum", which is not only a derogatory way to view the concept of human urges, but is also sounds titular because of the consonance of the letter 'f'. The use of consonance to refer to desire makes the concept personified not just as human, but as an authoritative person worthy of an epithet to their name. Making desire seem so powerful and tangible draws the speaker to the conclusion that all of desire's influence on him was in vain, and that he conquered it. By praising the subject of his conquest, the speaker generates the idea that desire is a respectable opponent, and that the speaker is proud to have grappled with it and won. To him, desire is a formidable rival.
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