The Sounds of Appleton House: Andrew Marvell’s Poetic Audioscapes

What is it about?

Over the course of "Upon Appleton House," the speaker’s experience of sound draws him ever deeper into the particularities of the Yorkshire landscape. In doing so, the estate’s soundscape simultaneously provokes and complicates his desire to obtain a metahistorical perspective on Appleton as a microcosm of post-Reformation England. In at least four key moments, a specific, culturally charged sound signals a transition in the poem, drawing both speaker and reader deeper into the estate. By tracing these four key transitions, we will better understand the poem’s structure, prosody, and imagery along with the historical exigencies animating them.

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