Explication – Holy Sonnet #10
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy’or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Explication is one of the simplest ways that we can analyze a piece. Put simply, it is a close reading, a deep look into a text to see what surfaces. This can take on a number of different forms, depending on the media that is being analyzed, from a line by line reading of a poem or song (like the one that we are going to be looking at today), to detailed character analyses from a movie or book, to an examination of a particular chapter or section (like our ongoing Anatomy of a Film) series. Today we are going to look at John Donne’s Holy Sonnet #10 and the themes of death and afterlife that it contains. Read More…
The Gospel of Rap
Hip-hop and religion are intrinsically linked. Far from the all-too-common perception of hip-hop as being tied purely into drugs and violence, hip-hop has acted as a reflection of the culture and artists that create it since the first time a track was spun in the Bronx in the 70’s. In the four decades since, woven throughout hip-hop are religious threads that are becoming more and more evident each day. We wrote about it in our article on preconceptions against religious rap last year, but we did not examine the root of it, where this new trend came from.
The Christ Figure
When discussing criticism, there are a few things that deserve your attention. Usually drawn from our broad cultural touchstones they are themes that we can all easily recognize and understand, even if we aren’t conscious that we are doing it. Shakespearean tales and biblical stories have seeped into many facets of our literature and they aren’t far away in most of our media.
Especially the Christ figure. If we want our hero to be good, just, kind, and honest, then who better to compare them to than the man himself, Jesus Christ. It seems like you can’t watch a movie without tripping over someone who is supposed to remind us of Jesus. From the obvious, like Neo and Superman, to the more subtle, like Optimus Prime, Harry Potter, and Aragorn. But what makes a figure Christ-like? And why do writers choose to do it so often? Read More…
Uncomfortable - Review
The label “Christian rapper” carries with it a negative connotation in the rap community. It’s one of the reasons that Andy Mineo chooses to reject it. He wants his lyrics to reach all audiences, not just a Christian one. And coming into his second studio album Uncomfortable, Mineo looks to shake up the dynamic he has created in his last two albums, Heroes for Sale and Never Land.
Religious Rap
Coloring Book, the newest “mixtape” from artist Chance the Rapper, highlights many interesting things about the rap music industry. It’s a mixtape with timed exclusivity on Apple Music, a free album that might put him in the running for album of the year, and exists as a heavily gospel influenced album in a realm where self-described “Christian music” is looked down upon. But by circumventing that label and refusing to categorize his album in that way, Chance has delivered a musical bombshell that has fans asking what they are really listening to.
Read More…