The various ways in which the poets present the theme of love and loss Essay Example For Students

The various ways in which the poets present the theme of love and loss Essay How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Albert Einstein. The subject of love has always inspired poets, writers, and those lucky in love as well. Love is everything its cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you dont risk everything, you risk even more. Some of the poets who are so inspired by love are John Clare, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Browning and Edith Nesbit who wrote classic love poems. John Clare was an English farmer turned poet of the natural world who wrote many poems, essays and letters on love, politics, sex, corruption, etc. Christina Rossetti was also an English poet who wrote many melancholic poems with symbolic religious themes. Elizabeth Browning was a famous poet of Victorian England best known for her romance with Robert Browning and her Sonnets From The Portuguese which is widely read. Edith Nesbit was an English novelist, poet and writer of stories for children though her novels and poems never gained much recognition as much as her stories for children. First Love by John Clare is a romantic poem about love at first sight. This poem is linked to love and loss, and has got all the sweet memories of falling in love for the first time and all the pain for losing it at the same time. How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Browning is about a woman analyzing how she loves her husband immeasurably. This was her last poem probably written for her husband. A Birthday by Christina Rossetti is a blissful poem about nature filled with fecundity, and packed with nature imagery. Remember is also by Christina Rossetti, but is completely reverse of A Birthday. Remember is filled with a lot of pain, and the poet is obsessed with death and death hangs throughout the whole poem. Villegiature by Edith Nesbit is a poem about a conflict between expectation and reality. It shows us romantic notions of what lovers ought to be. How do I Love Thee? and Remember are both sonnets relating to love and how it is combined with death. Though in the way in which the poets approach the subject is quite different. Remember is a completely death obsessed poem and shows the passionate love Rossetti has for her lover. How Do I Love Thee? though is still much more less disturbing than Remember. The poem starts like a mathematical problem, let me count the ways, measuring the different ways, the breadth and the height of how she loves him. In Remember there is more of a poignant note, Remember me when Im gone away. The whole poem echoes with Remember me and shows the different ways how she is so obsessed with death like, Remember me when Im gone far away into the silent land. The poem begins with a very down to earth, rational and logical way in How do we love thee? but it loses all rationality by moving into spirituality. My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight, For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. She means that people are capable of love in crucial moments of time, but moments of spirituality do not arise in everyday life. In Remember we see that the woman is going through death where she does not want to let go her lover and is quite averse to move on or end this relationship. We know this by When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. In Brownings poem we see all the euphoric moments of love where love can be found in simple and ordinary moments of life because love is contentment, I love thee to the level of every days Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. Here we see the finest comparison of love made to sun where love is the light of the sun, but love can also be the heat, the harsh rays of the candlelight. You tell me of our future that you planned. Here the woman shows that her husband who is in total command dominates her and she does not object to it. In Brownings poem we learn that even though the poem ends with a death note its more heartwarming than Remember which is so death obsessed. The whole of Brownings poem echoes with I love thee. I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise I love thee with passion. This shows pure emotions and passion for her lover. We learn that she has intense and extreme love, which is unaltered by peoples praises and blames. Only remember me, she is pleading, because she feels it will be too late to counsel then or pray since death will be on her soon. The woman seems determined to be remembered since she wants to keep an image of herself in her lovers mind. We se that Rossetti compares the passion of love with passion of grief. She talks about old griefs, emotional problems that really made her sick. We learn that for adults faith can be skeptical, but for children, they either love or dont love. The love that she lost has now been transformed into his love, there are no reservations in her love. Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose, I shall love thee but better after death. She insinuates that if God permits, love will transcend life, beyond the barriers of love. In Remember we see that the octave is a repetitive call to be remembered, and as we come to the second part we notice a gradual change, that now she wants her husband to forget her because she places her husbands happiness instead of her demands. For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had. 'The Sun Rising' by John Donne and 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell EssayThe poem A Birthday is like a rainbow shell with all the colours of a rainbow, almost like a woven tapestry. All the images here are auditory, impressive and appealing to the ear, even pictures of nature are covered here, whereas in Villegiature there are more immature responses to love. The poet knows that she loves him but tries to prove every time that she disapproves of him when she clearly shows how deeply and passionately she is in live with him. A Birthday with its oriental flavour and splendour is much better Villegiature. First Love by John Clare is a poem about love at first sight and how it is linked to love and loss. I neer was stuck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet. The very first line conveys the violence of emotions, struck, with the suddenness and sweetness of the feeling. Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower, this is one of the most exquisite comparison made to woman that she is like a flower. My face turned pale as deadly pale, My legs refused to walk away. We are made aware of love as an overpowering emotion where the poet felt like a dead person who refused to walk away. He felt like he was on the top of the world when she looked at him. He fell to depth of despair. His life and all turned to clay. She had such an overpowering element in her that first he was not able to walk and now he could not see a single thing. His faculties are totally lost, but there is an exchange in it. He was tongue tied and couldnt speak a word to her and now he is able to communicate through his eyes. His eyes spoke as chords do from the string. In the last stanza the poet is being philosophical. He is very sure of the fact that his heart has left its dwelling place. It looks as though he was doomed to die and lose, because even though he spoke through his eyes, the girl said no. This is one experience, which he will never forget where love and loss are both involved. All the poems are conveying love and they have done it effectively by adding in nature imagery, or comparisons and sometimes even symbolic elements. How Do I Love Thee? is a sonnet of 14 lines. She starts her poems as a mathematical problem. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. Here similes have been used to compare the way in which she loves him. In this poem not much of figurative speech is used. The tone is the same throughout. The title is quite good for the poem and you are able to relate to it as well quite easily as with the title itself you get to know what the poem is about. A Birthday is also a sonnet of 16 lines. Throughout the first part, the poem echoes with My heart is The first part of the poem is completely covered with similes and nature imagery. Her heart is compared to a singing bird, an apple tree and a rainbow shell. The second part of the poem is full of imperatives where it follows a delicate pattern of raise me, hang it, carve it, and work it. The title somehow is too vague for the poem unless we read the last line, but it would have been better if it were titled How Do I Love Thee? since she is giving a full analysis of how she loves him. Remember is a sonnet of 14 lines. Gone far away into the silent land. This is euphemism used here to show how the poet is referring to death. In this poem you do not find much of figurative speech but through out the poem thee is a gloomy atmosphere. Villegiature is a poem of four line stanzas. It comprises of an end rhyme and an internal rhyme. The whole poem is a mix of conflicting emotions and feelings. This poem has a lot of nature imagery used in it like pear tree bloom, dewy lawn First Love is a poem of three paragraphs of eight line stanzas. It consists of internal rhyme. This poem has a lot of nature imagery. Similes have been used like Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower, My face turned pale as deadly pale Personification is also used like They spoke as chords do from the string All the poems bring out the essence of love, but they might lack some elements. Like for How Do I Love Thee? the poem starts well enough but then it gradually moves from reality to. First Love though, is much more realistic since it shows how a person might feel when being in love. The feelings and reactions are beautifully explained and therefore gives a lasting impression on the reader. Remember conveys a message that, remember all the good times the people had and dont remember the depressing memories. Like in the part of the poem where it says, Better by far you should forget and smile, than that you should remember and be sad. Like forgetting the worse times and keeping a smile on your face rather than remember the worse times and being heartbroken about it.