SONG FOR CELIA

Francis Benjamin Johnson Jr.

AUTHOR's BIOGRAPHY

BIO

• A ranch hand and rodeo performer when, in 1940, Howard Hughes hired him to take a load of horses to California.
• He decided to stick around (the pay was good), and for some years was a stunt man, horse wrangler, and double for such stars as John Wayne, Gary Cooper and James Stewart.
• From Foraker, Shidler, Oklahoma, USA

BIO

• His break came when John Ford noticed him and gave him a part in an upcoming film, and eventually a star part in Wagon Master (1950).
• He left Hollywood in 1953 to return to rodeo, where he won a world roping championship, but at the end of the year he had barely cleared expenses.

BIO

• The movies paid better, and were less risky, so he returned to the west coast and a career that saw him in over 300 movies.

PERSONA/ SPEAKER

PERSONA/ Speaker

• What I think is that the speaker shows a lover. A lover of Celia who puts in words on how much he loves her. He shows that he doesn’t want wine but the kiss from the cup she drank from.
• And he rejects Jove’s immortalizing drink for Celia’s mortal elixir of love.

PERSONA/ Speaker

• He also sent a wreath of roses for her to keep and not to be withered, what Celia did was send it back with a breath which he thinks will not wither because of her breath.
• So basically he’s dying to tell Celia how much he loves her.

IMAGERY

IMAGERY

• WINE
• Wine implies intoxication, the delirium of love, but also sensual gratification. The substitutes that the poet is willing to accept seem more ethereal: the glance, the kiss in a cup.

IMAGERY

• ROSE
• is the archetypal symbol of love in the English tradition. The wreath consists of a number of roses woven into a circle, which is itself a symbol of eternity. The eternal devotion that was the hallmark of the more spiritual love popularized by Petrarch is combined, then, with the sensual.

IMAGERY

• While the circle may imply eternal love, the wreath’s nonstatic quality is emphasized: “it grows, and smells.” These flowers are still alive, growing as does the poet’s love.

FIGURES of speech

FIGURES of Speech

• The "Song:To Celia" is an epigram that appluads love. The author, Ben Johnson, incorporates figurative language such as personification for example "Time will not be ours forever : He, at length, our good will sever"(3-4.149) to personify "time" and how it lives forever.

FIGURES OF SPEECH

• Also another figurative language such as metaphor "Tis no sin love's fruit to steal, But the sweet theft to reveal:"(15-16.149) is used to say how they are stealing time and using it for loving eachother.
• . The theme is eternal love which is noticed in "Tis no sin love's fruit to steal, But the sweet theft to reveal:"(15-16.149)

Figures of speech

• 15-16.149) to show their love for each other and how they should forget how time passes by and how their youth is fading but they should just focus on loving one another.

Thank you!