Both of these women were mothers who lost children. Both of their poems on losing their children are both similar and different. They both talk about losing a child shorty after birth and that grief thatcame with that. How they differ is what exactly is said in the poems. In Philips, we get to see just how much grief she is feeling because of her lost. She describes that things won't be that same without him. He was there one minute then gone the next "I did but see him, and disappeared." the main theme of her poem is the grief she feels and that her tears and sorrows are now her writings.
Aphra Behn's poem is quite different. She does not describe the grief she is feeling over her lost child but describing the happy things that he will be experiencing in heaven. She begins the poem, talking about the baby's tomb and it's filled with sweetness and innocence. She talks about the beautiful things that he will see while in heaven. You get the sense that she is happy that the child is in a better place filled with better things.
Both of these poems have to do with losing a child but take different approachs as to describing the lost. Philips takes on the prespective of the grieving mother trying to overcome the lost of her baby; while Behn is describing the wonderful things her baby will experience in heaven. Losing a child would be hard for any mother to go through. Both of these mothers had different ways of describing this lost. I can't imagine going through that kinf od pain. But you can see the their writing helped them get through the lost of their children.
Posted by webasst at April 13, 2004 6:57 PM | TrackBack(Behn was not known to have had any children. She could have written the poem to commemorate the death of someone else's child).
Posted by: Dr. J. at May 3, 2004 12:48 AM