# Reading > Poems, Poets, and Poetry >  what's the carpe diem theme?

## truth_forest

what's the carpe diem theme?
and what's the work that's reflect "carpe diem"?

I know only 2 poem that's the best-known.
Andrew Marvell's _To His Coy Mistress._
Robert Herrick's _To The Virgins, To Make Much of Time._

Do you know more?

----------


## Petrarch's Love

I don't know exactly what you mean by "carpe diem theme," but I'm assuming you're asking what it means for a poem to take carpe diem as it's theme. Carpe diem is latin for "seize the day." In poetry it is usually associated with poems such as the two very excellent examples you cited, in which a young man encourages a young woman to make love with him, and not to delay one more minute because time passes quickly, youth fades away, and we may die tomorrow. The idea is that she shouldn't be so slow to get into a physical relationship but instead seize the day before it's too late and her day is past. "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may," from the Herrick poem, is a line that has become almost synonymous with "carpe diem."

----------


## truth_forest

thank you so much...

----------


## kilted exile

Dylan Thomas Do Not Go Into That Good Night

----------


## Geochelonian

Carpe diem might best be translated as "harvest the day." Carpere is a word most associated with agriculture.
Horace Odes 1.11.7-8:
Dum loquimur, fugerit invidia aetas. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

The idea of "seize the day" is also expressed by Horace in Epodes 13.3-4:
Rapiamus, amici, occasionem de die dumque virent genua
et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus.
Rapere (from which 'raptor' derives) better conveys the idea of 'seize'.

----------


## Jay

You can find carpe diem theme in romanticism, Shelley, Keats, Blake for example. Blake puts it this way:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.
- William Blake, from _Auguries of Innocence_

----------


## truth_forest

thank you so much

----------


## Anna Seis

In the 16th and 17th century, spanish poets used to write about that theme. The idea is the same that Petrarch's love said above. Garcilaso de la Vega y Luis de Góngora writed sonnets and letrillas to convince young girls to love them before the age carries away her beauty (it seems the men were always young and beautiful)

----------


## jackyyyy

In old and modern Portuguese it declares, ' live today like there is no tomorrow '.

I should add a work:

Ser poeta é ser mais alto, é ser maior
Do que os homens! Morder como quem beija!
É ser mendigo e dar como quem seja
Rei do Reino de Aquém e de Além Dor!

É ter de mil desejos o esplendor
E não saber sequer que se deseja!
É ter cá dentro um astro que flameja,
É ter garras e asas de condor!

É ter fome, é ter sede de infinito!
Por elmo, as manhãs de ouro e de cetim...
É condensar o mundo num só grito!

E é amar-te, assim, perdidamente...
É seres alma e sangue e vida em mim
E dizê-lo cantando a toda gente!

{

the last part... (rough).. and to love yourself, crazy/losingly,, and to have soul and blood of life for me, and tell this singing to everyone.

}

----------


## Anna Seis

Jackyyy, I didn't read Portuguese Poetry. What's your poet's name?
He talks about a condor. A condor is a South American bird of prey. Is he a brazilian poet?

----------


## Petrarch's Love

> In the 16th and 17th century, spanish poets used to write about that theme. The idea is the same that Petrarch's love said above. Garcilaso de la Vega y Luis de Góngora writed sonnets and letrillas to convince young girls to love them before the age carries away her beauty (it seems the men were always young and beautiful)


It was a popular form in 16th and 17th century England too. Your post reminded me of some of the beautiful sonnets of Garcilaso de la Vega. Here is one with a _carpe diem_ theme:

_
En tanto que de rosa y d'azucena
se muestra la color en vuestro gesto, 
y que vuestro mirar ardiente, honesto,
con clara luz la tempestad serena;
y en tanto que'l cabello, que'n la vena
del oro s'escogió, con vuelo presto
por el hermoso cuello blanco, enhiesto,
el viento mueve, esparce y desordena:
coged de vuestra alegre primavera
el dulce fruto antes quell tiempo airado
cobra de nieve la Hermosa cumber.
Marchitará la rosa el viento helado,
todo lo mudará la edad ligera 
por no hacer mudanza en su costumbre._

While the colors of roses and lilies are still to be seen in your face, and while your ardent, chaste eyes inflame the heart and restrain it; and while your hair, selected from veins of gold, in a flutter about your lovely neck, so long and white, is blown, scattered and disarranged by the wind: gather the sweet fruit of joyful springtime before sullen time covers with snow your lovely head. the icy wind will shrivel the rose, fleeting time will change everything in order not to change its usual custom. --Trans. Elias Rivers

----------


## Anna Seis

You`re right. Luis de Gongora has a very similar one:

Mientras por competir con tu cabello, 
oro bruñido al sol relumbra en vano; 
mientras con menosprecio en medio el llano 
mira tu blanca frente el lilio bello; 

mientras a cada labio, por cogello, 
siguen más ojos que al clavel temprano; 
y mientras triunfa con desdén lozano 
del luciente cristal tu gentil cuello; 

goza cuello, cabello, labio y frente, 
antes que lo que fue en tu edad dorada 
oro, lilio, clavel, cristal luciente, 

no sólo en plata o viola troncada 
se vuelva, mas tú y ello juntamente 
en tierra, en humo, en polvo, en sombra, en nada.

Very probably there must be some intertextuality.Góngora also has a most popular song:

Mozuelas, las de mi barrio,
loquillas y confiadas, 
mirad, nos engaña el tiempo,
la edad y la confianza,
no os dejéis lisonjear
de la juventud lozana, 
ved que de caducas flores
teje el tiempo sus guirnaldas...

and so on. The obvious purpose is go with the girls behind of the doors, as he says in another poem. But was a great master and an amusing people, this old Luis  :Brow:

----------


## Charles Darnay

As someone above (terribly sorry, I didn't pay attention who wrote it) mentioned, Carpe Diem was prominent in Romanticism. It was the Romantics' way of challenging the logic of the Enlightenment era. 

If you ever happen to read Goethe, you will find some good examples.

----------


## jackyyyy

> Jackyyy, I didn't read Portuguese Poetry. What's your poet's name?
> He talks about a condor. A condor is a South American bird of prey. Is he a brazilian poet?



Florbela Espanca, Portuguese. This is widely known in Brazil, not sure about Portugal. Yes, she also writes of, ' having the wings of a Condor '.

I want to add that its still common today, this Carpe Diem theme; forget the past, the future, only think of now (today).

----------


## Nerd

The Romantics were big on "carpe diem." 

Tennyson's poem Ulysses... those last two lines ... it's a bit long, I suppose, but definitely worth it. I have a book of his (all of his collected works), and I marked that one in particular.

Song of Myself (I sound my barbaric yawp from the rooftops of the world) is a great one if you want to read 50 pages of Whitman. haha. 

Handy just to know lines from it. Yeah, psshhh, I'm cool like that.  :Wink:

----------

