To Simplicity

    Coleridge's sonnet "To Simplicity" is one of the few sonnets I've read and enjoyed. The way he personified simplicity made me look at it as if it were a real person. I imagined this person who was concise at everything without ever doing too much. Coleridge includes a great use of punctuation throughout the sonnet. His use of exclamation points throughout the sonnet allows you to feel his excitement as he expresses his love for simplicity. Even looking at some of his other sonnets, he does the same thing. While reading the sonnet I felt like I was taking this journey and falling in love with simplicity as Coleridge did. To look deeper into the poem I believe Coleridge wasn't just addressing simplicity as an abstract attribute, but as a personal characteristic. It seems he likes for people to be simple in action. Although he doesn't explicitly say this, I believe it is difficult to love an inanimate attribute without being able to attach it to something. Simplicity cannot exist without a host. The most striking part of this sonnet would have to be the volta. Of course it's the turn in the sonnet, but it presents us with a statement that can be viewed as a complex simplicity, which furthermore goes with the theme of the sonnet. "But, whether sad or fierce, 'tis simple all, All very simple, meek simplicity!" These last two lines of the poem stand out because they present us with a puzzle. The lines are simple, but you may have to read them a few times in order to get what Coleridge is saying. In summary, I believe Coleridge is trying to tell us that everything is simple and we overcomplicate things. That if we operate in simplicity, everything would be simple.