Love should grow up like a wild iris

James Fenton and Carol Ann Duffy are both contemporary poets. Their poems ‘In Paris with You’ and ‘Quickdraw’ both include the themes of the pain of love. This essay compares how the two poets present the pain of love in their poems, exploring things such as imagery, vocabulary and form and structure.

In the essay “Loves Vocabulary” Diane Ackerman portrays the notion of love possessing not just the ability to produce a buoyant feeling, but also cause emotional harm. The analogy of arrows communicates the idea of love encompassing not solely pleasant feelings as well as negative.

In our society, falling in love is viewed as an important aspect of one’s life. There are many definitions of love, some being deep affection, an intimate relationship where each person is seen as an equal, or a strong positive emotion towards another person. In Wild Seed, Octavia Butler describes love in terms of selfishness, a need to have someone for personal gain. In doing this, she questions whether love can really be felt in a genuine way. Using the concept of love, and defining it as looking out for one's own self-interest, Butler challenges the current definitions of love.

Oftentimes, poetry is used to express extremely romanticized love, such as in Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18.” This love is often explicitly expressed through numerous emotional appeals and comparisons of love to many seemingly incredible views or experiences, such as stating “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” (Sonnet 18, 1-2). In contrast to this figurative expression of one’s love, Declan Ryan provides a more human and tangible expression of his love while writing about what seems to be a more mundane experience in his poem “Rope-a-Dope.”

In analyzing the symbolism in “Play-by-Play,” Murray suggests more than expected. “Watching the young men move above the rose garden” (line 20), brings about the conventional meaning of love through the symbol of the rose. However, if one looks at the line as a whole, it could be interpreted as men being above or

Love is undoubtedly one of the most frequently explored subjects in the literary world. Whether the focus is a confession of love, criticism of love, tale of love, or simply a tale about what love is, such literary pieces force readers to question the true meaning and value of love. Raymond Carver accomplishes this in his short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” As the unadorned setting and the personality of each character unfold, the reader realizes that Carver is making a grave comment on the existence of love. Carver utilizes strong contrast, imagery, and diction to ultimately suggest that love cannot be defined concretely and therefore cannot be defined in words, and because of this, it is better off unexplored.

In the blank space before the third stanza we infer that the woman has killed the flea. He is upset at the woman because she killed the flea and wants to know how this flea was guilty. The tone of the poem changes in this stanza because now, he is chastising her for her sins. He is even cool and harsh when he says, “Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, /Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee” (26-27) He then concludes by explaining that having sex with him would be just as trivial as killing the flea.

We live in a society that has increasingly stomped on love, depicting it as cruel, superficial and full of complications. Nowadays it is easy for people to claim that they are in love, even when their actions say otherwise, and it is just as easy to claim that they are not when they really are. Real love is difficult to find and keeping it alive is even harder, especially when one must overcome their own anxieties and uncertainties. This is the main theme present in Russell Banks’ short story “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” as well as in “The Fireman’s Wife,” written by Richard Bausch. These narratives, although similar in some aspects, are completely different types of love stories.

“To receive a bouquet was a tricky one . . . blue violets said, I’ll always be true, but a striped carnation, Sorry, I can’t be with you” (Walton 15). Love, likewise, is a tricky thing; it can be messy but also beautiful, and it can appear in several different forms. This theme is explored through generations of love and loss in Leslye Walton’s novel The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender.

When an individual thinks of love the first thing that comes to mind is a person. A person whom they care and have strong and constant affection towards. In the 21st century, there seems to be a fading of true “love”. Loving someone is not a feeling, it is a choice. A choice to care for someone through the good and the bad as illustrated by Meinke in “The Cranes”. Unfortunately, individuals live in an era where traditional values of love and honor are being replaced with their own dreams so much that divorce is now a common word. Peter Meinke’s use of symbols in “The Cranes” gives the impression of being a simple love story of an old couple bird watching while reminiscing about their life together, but in reality reveals the darker components

The righteousness it takes to try and give the essence of love through words is insurmountable. John Muir and William Wordsworth articulate relationships with nature similar to that of a human friend; in correspondence, they would use metaphoric expressions and rhythmic structure, respectively, to parallel in their approach. John Muir related the Calypso borealis as “it was more memorable and impressive than any of my meetings with human beings.” Comparatively, William Wordsworth, as a romantic poet, related to daffodils more so as a man to dancing women “A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company.” Fortunately, while these great writers bask in their glory, they remembered to take note, and in that wake, sprout the nobility of the messages they wrote which grew into an excellent virtue of life.

An incredibly crucial component of modern love remains having relationships that are “rightly ordered”. Unfortunately for Wing Bittlebaum, most of his obsessions were incorrectly ordered. Although sexual relationships between adults and children are obviously inappropriate for any time period or location, Bittlebaum’s relationship with Willard was incorrectly timed by approximately sixty years. Despite not necessarily being an allegory for any modern problem in particular, Sherwood Anderson’s “Hands” provides incredible insight into human need and want, and the drive to fulfill one’s desires while ignoring a rightly ordered life in favor of an incorrect balance. Although many relationships can flourish without necessarily being ordered perfectly, Wing Bittlebaum’s many illegal and unwanted relationships could never have succeeded due to his lack of understanding and empathy. Although not considered to be the pinnacle of knowledge regarding poetry, John Dalton’s famous expression, “It’s the right idea; but not the right time” (online) rings true in Sherwood Anderson’s short story

In Ernestine Northover’s poem, “Joint laughter,” a theme of love can be seen. A couple realizes that marriage is not always beautiful. The married couple realizes that not everything in marriage is beautiful. In this famous poem the speaker uses imagery to show the joys and sorrows of marriage. Imagery is used by a lot of authors in their poems to appeal to the readers senses. Northover uses imagery to show the reader how beautiful marriage can be. The imagery in this poem also shows the reader that marriages is not always beautiful. In Northover’s poem, “Joint Laughter,” the imagery is critical to authorizing the theme of the poem because the imagery brings vivid pictures to the reader's mind.

From the majestic nature of her walk to the adorable laugh that she seemed to have no shortage of, she was a shining emerald amongst the dull characters that pervaded his everyday life. At first, he could live without her pervading all his thoughts and dreams, but now, here he was, as the frigid cold of winter set in, feeling the full force and warmth of her mere presence. Quite frankly, he was in love. Endless hours were spent talking to his friends about her, and there hardly seemed a time where he talked about the usual thing. Love had taken complete control of all of his senses, and as much as he’d hate to admit it, he was truly at the whim of his heart. Her name? Sylvia Peters

     In contrast to these fairly pessimistic views on love, the author describes an instance in which a couple found true love. Mel tells an anecdote of an old couple that was admitted to the emergency room after a very bad car accident. The two people were wrapped up in full body casts, and as a result they could not see each other. Mel noticed that the old man was very sad, even