Annotations from the poem, Brotherhood

A) When I annotated the poem i took the term "Brotherhood" very literally. Because of this preconceived idea, my interpretation of the rest of the poem was greatly inhibited. Whilst I recognized that this poem was a Petrarchan sonnet, I did not include it in my essay as I was unsure of how this particular type of poem contributed to the meaning of the poem. After repeated readings of the poem, I was still unable to sieve out any main themes, only small ones which I had great difficulty in connecting to each other. My main observation in my annotations of the poem were that I was circling a lot of individual words that stood out to me, instead of finding a pattern. Because I was repeating this same mistake of being narrow minded, instead of looking for connections, my "analysis" ended up being very superficial. I also still am not completely clear on what constitutes literary style and am struggling to understand how it is used by poets/writers to contribute to meaning. This time, I tried to connect similar ideas together and use more contextual knowledge (eg the connection between the elements, winds, flame and naturality/order). Previously, I either jumped to conclusions and asserted my ideas baselessly, or tried to cram as many points as I could into the essay instead of expanding each idea, and I suspect this is my go-to reaction when placed under stress. I just revert back to my secondary school ways, which is wrong but im still trying to crack the bad habits, and am fairy unsure as to how I should go about doing this.

B) Themes: Equality, Judgement,

·       end-stop line at the start of the poem

Brothers acknowledge their common humanity  and do not have the right to "judge" others. "Each consents and is the same." Humans all have a right to exist. Hence, any violation of this (ie an attempt to take human life or judge another person) would be going against the laws of nature,  when "floods are on us" and "sweet winds turn to fire".

·       Similarly the repetition of such rhetoric and hypothetical situations such as "madness breaks and runs through the rude world" and "ground and sky are soon to go" reflect a swiftness of the consequences ("breaks and runs" and "soon")as well as the unnaturalness which is suggested again at the end of the poem. Elements of dementedness are suggested, coupled with negative appearances

·       the break in the harmony which is manifested by naturality is firm and is reinforced by brevity of the sentences and absolutes

·       rhyme scheme (same, flame) and (runs, shuns) reflect the polar opposites in the poem as consequences of the break in common humanity, and emphasize the contrast in both situations.

·       Volta or turn in the poem marks the start of a hypothetical situation where the common humanity is broken, and reinforces the effects of this violation of the first line of the poem "equality is absolute or no" whereas the first 8 lines reflect the emphasis on the need for such "rules"