While reading the poem “Upon the Nipples of Julia’s Breast”, I realized that yes there are certainly sexual undertones to Herrick’s fixation with this specific\u00a0part of\u00a0Julia, but I also noticed how he went about it in a way that was preserving her purity and innocence.\u00a0For example, \u00a0he compares Julia’s nipples to cherries which can represent her sweetness in character and then her actual breast is a lily which can represent her purity. So I thought, if he wanted to focus so much on her purity and innocence, why choose to write a poem about her breasts? This question made me think about how when it comes to nudity, there is a difference between the words “Naked” and “Nude”. The word Naked usually has a more sexual connotation to it where someone is exposed in a way that they are vulnerable or indecent, usually\u00a0seen in a negative light, as opposed to the word “Nude” which has a softer connotation to it where someone is seen as just\u00a0uncovered, pure, and even comfortable. These differences\u00a0in words that essentially mean the same thing is perhaps what Herrick is trying to address. In my opinion I feel as if he is trying to show in his writing that he can depict parts of a woman that are deemed\u00a0sexual in nature and still show that she is being respected and emphasized\u00a0for her character. He is also trying to show that sexuality is a natural thing that should not be deemed as shameful. Julia’s\u00a0uncovered sexual organs do not mean that she is suddenly\u00a0not pure, Herrick demonstrates that\u00a0her exposing a natural part of herself can still indicate\u00a0that she is remaining innocent and pure as well as her being able to show herself and be physical\u00a0with a man that she is in love with. He also\u00a0attempts to convey\u00a0that physical love\u00a0can actually be something that\u00a0should be embraced because sexual feelings are present when two people are attracted to each other anyways and\u00a0once welcomed,\u00a0riches and prosperity can come such as the ones he describes when he compares Julia’s breasts to rubies and pearls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While reading the poem “Upon the Nipples of Julia’s Breast”, I realized that yes there are certainly sexual undertones to Herrick’s fixation with this specific\u00a0part of\u00a0Julia, but I also noticed how he went about it in a way that was preserving her purity and innocence.\u00a0For example, \u00a0he compares Julia’s nipples to cherries which can represent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":415,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-early-modern-pornography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/415"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-2202-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}