On my first sonne

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On my first sonne

• By Ben Jonson

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Attitudes and ideas

• This poem is written By Ben. Jonson to his son
  Benjamin Jonson Jr, it is written in a form of an
  elegy. Ben Jonson wrote this poem because he felt
  guilty about his sons death during his absence.

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Themes

• Parent and child
• Death
• Anger
• Guilt
• Sadness
• From these themes we can see how upset he is by
  losing his son.

4
Language

• Archaic shows that it was written a long time
  ago and that it is a pre 1914 poem.
• Monologue shows he is alone and grieving.
• Rhyming couplets helps the poem flow, sounds
  like a prayer.

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Structure

• Use of constant punctuation shows his grief
• Enjambment
• Use of question marks highlight his confusion at
  why he is being punished by god and why his first
  son has been taken away from him, also some
  biblical reference to Moses and the last plague.

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Comparison

• Before you were mine
• Song of the old mother
• Homecoming
• These compare because they have the theme of
  parent and child relationships.

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Why do you think this poem is successful?

• We believe this poem to be successful because
  Jonson has shown us how upset he is in losing his
  son. We can pick this statement out from where he
  compares his son to his best piece of poetry,
  this shows how much he feels for his son and how
  proud he is to have kept him for as long as he
  could.

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