Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Why do you think the speaker brings up the poet and playwright Thomas Otway? What's the effect? Why not keep it entirely about herself?
- Why does the speaker say that melancholy has "magical power"? Why bring the question of the supernatural into it at all?
- Why does she address the poem "to melancholy" instead of just making the poem about melancholy? Why treat melancholy as though it's a person, instead of just a state of mind?
- Sonnets are usually love poems, but this one is addressed to melancholy, not to a lover. Do you think the speaker is almost in love with her own melancholy? Why or why not?
- Have you ever felt the kind of so-sad-it's-good feeling that the speaker describes? When? Under what circumstances?