Stop shadow of my elusive good: Poem Analysis

The poem "Stop, shadow of my elusive good" is a sonnet written by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz that talks about the poetic voice's longing for love before a lover with an elusive presence.

It is a poem with a love theme, of great expressive beauty and formal rigor, attached to the school of Hispanic Baroque, hence its syntax is relatively difficult and its images are dark but fascinating.

Stop, shadow of my elusive good
image of the spell that I love the most,
beautiful illusion for whom I happily die,
sweet fiction for whom I live.

If the magnet of your attractive thanks
serve my chest of obedient steel,
Why do you make me fall in love, flattering,
if you have to mock me then runaway?

More emblazon can not satisfied
that your tyranny triumphs over me;
that although you leave the narrow bond mocked

that your fantastic form belted,
it does not matter to mock arms and chest
if my fantasy carves you prison.

Analysis of the poem "Stop shadow of my elusive good"

"Stop, shadow of my elusive good" is a sonnet of baroque aesthetics, of contained language but of great expressive force.

instagram story viewer

The poetic voice challenges a lover, designated as "shadow of my elusive good", whose fleeting presence, referred to as a "beautiful illusion", a "sweet fiction", fills her with anguish and longings.

That lover, at first elusive, happens in the next stanza to be seen as a magnet, a metaphor for the mysterious force of love, to which the poetic voice, however, succumbs: "Why do you make me fall in love, flattering / if you have to mock me then fugitive?"

In the next two stanzas, however, the poetic voice ironizes about the presence of the lover elusive, who, although he comes and goes as he pleases, remains in the fantasy of love that the voice carves poetics.

Verse type, rhyme and meter

The poem "Stop, shadow of my elusive good" is a sonnet. It is made up of fourteen hendecasyllables that are organized into four stanzas of which two are quartets and two are triplets. It uses a consonant rhyme of pattern ABBA ABBA CDC DCD.

Literary figures

Apostrophe

The poetic voice asks another person: "Stop, shadow of my elusive good."

Epithet

The adjective attributes qualities or characteristics to the accompanying noun: “(…) beautiful illusion (…)”, “(…) sweet fiction (…)”, “(…) obedient steel (…)”

Metaphor

There is a subtle relationship of analogy or similarity between two ideas, images or concepts. For example:

“(…) Shadow of my elusive good (…), as a metaphor of the fleeting lover.
"(...) If the magnet of your graces, attractive, / serves my chest of obedient steel (...)", where the magnet works as a metaphor of attraction, of the mysterious force of love.
“(…) If my fantasy carves you prison (…)”, a metaphor that alludes to ideal love.

Antithesis

It proposes a contrasting relationship between two opposing ideas or concepts: "(...) beautiful illusion for whom I die happy, / sweet fiction for whom I live in pain."

Oxymoron

Combination of words with the opposite or constraining meaning: “(…) I am happy I die (…)”, “(…) I am painful (…)”.

Hyperbaton

Alteration of the conventional order of the syntax of the sentence: “(…) If the magnet of your attractive graces / serves my chest of obedient steel (…)”; “(…) But to blazon you cannot be satisfied / that your tyranny triumphs over me (…)”.

Rhetorical question

He asks for expressive purposes: "Why do you make me fall in love, flattering, / if you have to make fun of me then fugitive?"

It may interest you: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: biography, works and contributions of the New Spain writer.

About Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, born in 1648 and died between 1651-1695, whose real name was Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez, she was the most important New Spanish writer. Advised to enter religious service, she joined the Order of Saint Jerome.

He cultivated a rich and dense poetry, in which the influences of the Spanish Baroque are recognized, with the fluidity of a Lope de Vega, the culteranismo of a Góngora and Calderón de la Barca. His work, composed mostly of poetry, letters and theater, would only be published years after his death.