It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and … Chinese mythology tells that phoenix, qilin (unicorn), dragon and turtle are one of the most sacred animals, and the turtle is the only animals among the four that is actually living today. There are a few layers of meaning to most pieces of writing, so I’m just going to go through what I get out of the poem. The Phoenix and the Turtle Questions and Answers. This poem is one of the most obscure of Shakespeare’s, both in meaning and in popularity. Presenting you all the short interpretation of poem"The Phoenix and the Turtle" written by William Shakespeare. From a semantic point of view this renders the language tense, considering the shortness of the text, and thereby provokes the reader to decode the innovative vocabulary within the verses. See William H. Matchett, The Phoenix and the Turtle: Shakespeare’s Poem and Chester’s Loues Martyr (The Hague: Mouton & Co, 1965), 35. The poem has been interpreted in many ways. In the classical tradition, the mythical phoenix consumes itself in fire, from the ashes of which another phoenix is born. Start studying The Worn Path & The Turtle. In Shakespeare's poem, the phoenix is female and the turtle (that is, a turtledove) is male. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. It is a poem that looks forward to death while harking back to passions so strong reason itself is confounded. The Phoenix and Turtle was one of a number of works by prominent poets (Jonson, Marston, Chapman, and one Ignoto, besides Shakespeare) that were appended to … The Question and Answer section for The Phoenix and the Turtle is a great resource to ask questions, find … The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare is an allegorical poem of great complexity, of a magnitude not to be underestimated. Yet while it is true that tales of the Phoenix are "It protects something from the ancient silence of life, which in danger always manages to crawl back… The word “turtle” commony covers both turtles (generally live in water) and tortoises (generally live on land). Once you've grasped the surface meaning, and the bird-lore, it might be rewarding to read "The Phoenix and the Turtle" as a metaphysical fable about a chaste but intense love-affair. Turtle - Symbol and Meaning According to Biedermann's research, there is an interpretation of the tortoise in psychology as a symbol of meek strength and a possibility of refuge from any external threat.