The Tension Between The Lovers

In sonnet IV of 100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda describes a charming memory of him and his lover as they carelessly wonder through a picturesque and serene landscape. Throughout the poem, Neruda uses lifelike imagery as well as ambiguous oxymorons to create an idyllic and dreamy mood. The author exemplifies this in lines 1-2 when he writes, “You will remember that leaping stream where sweet aromas rose and trembled”. In this example, Neruda’s use of personification of the stream and aromas enhances the imagery so that the reader can obtain a more detailed image of the scene. This enforces the idea that the mood is idyllic and dreamy because “leaping streams” and “sweet aromas” are usually phrases that connote a calm and homey feeling or mood.

The appreciation of nature is illustrated through imagery ‘and now the country bursts open on the sea-across a calico beach unfurling’. The use of personification in the phrase ‘and the water sways’ is symbolic for life and nature, giving that water has human qualities. In contrast, ‘silver basin’ is a representation of a material creation and blends in with natural world. The poem is dominated by light and pure images of ‘sunlight rotating’ which emphasizes the emotional concept of this journey. The use of first person ‘I see from where I’m bent one of those bright crockery days that belong to so much I remember’ shapes the diverse range of imagery and mood within the poem. The poet appears to be emotional about his past considering his thoughts are stimulated by different landscapes through physical journey.

The memories in the poem maintain a cohesiveness and continuity of experience through repeated motifs such as the violets and the ‘whistling’. Memories also give us a recovered sense of life, as shown through the final line of the poem ‘faint scent of violets drifts in air’. This example of sensory imagery also creates a rhythmic drifting sense linked closely to the “stone-curlews call from Kedron Brook”. It echoes images of the speaker’s mind drifting into reflection and aurally creates transience between the present and the past.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

The poem describes the weather and its effect on cotton flower by pointing out the dying branches and vanishing cotton. The image of insufficiency, struggle and death parallel the oppression of African American race. The beginning of the poem illustrates the struggle and suffering of the cotton flower; which represent the misery of African Americans and also gives an idea that there is no hope for them. But at the end the speaker says “brown eyes that loves without a trace of fear/ Beauty so sudden for that time of year” (lines 13-14). This shows the rise of the African American race, and their fight against racism. The author used mood, tone and

The poem’s structure as a sonnet allows the speaker’s feelings of distrust and heartache to gradually manifest themselves as the poem’s plot progresses. Each quatrain develops and intensifies the speaker’s misery, giving the reader a deeper insight into his convoluted emotions. In the first quatrain, the speaker advises his former partner to not be surprised when she “see[s] him holding [his] louring head so low” (2). His refusal to look at her not only highlights his unhappiness but also establishes the gloomy tone of the poem. The speaker then uses the second and third quatrains to justify his remoteness; he explains how he feels betrayed by her and reveals how his distrust has led him

Immediately beginning stanza 2 the “stain” is introduced, which easily relates to male, female, or shared semen. Eroticism is obvious with the “horned branches” which are piecing a smooth purple sky, just how a penis “leans heavily” against a vagina. The sky can is also the barrier between the branches and that beyond the sky, just how it can be taken as the inside of the vagina, it can too be considered the outside, right before penetrating. Saying there is no light puts the situation into an even more suitable location for sex. The honey-thick stain is relevant to the texture of fluids involved in sex and its dripping from leaf to leaf and limb to limb may easily equate leaves to the delicate body of a woman, and limbs to the robust physique of a man. His fourth stanza relates to the events before and during the climax of the man. He has been “buoyed up” and his head-a name that is used to describe the tip of the penis- has knocked against the vagina-relevant “sky”. In the fifth stanza the surrealism and dreamlike dimension covered in the beginning has its attention shifted to the speaker. He wants her to see him, “dripping with nectar” and finally with his arms and hands idle, implying they were once busied up. The last stanza can either be one of true love for this woman, as he asks the question or one of disposal. He might be saying that he is done with her and doubts he’ll love her after this sex-where his connection to her was greatest.

In short, this first quatrain deals with the poet's liking for medieval romances insisting on their enchanting power. Nevertheless, the latter wishes to dismiss them from his mind. And prosopopeia is aimed at showing that he is deeply affected by his rereading of King Lear. The second stanza is going to contrast images of beauty with what Shakespeare's tragedy displays.

The poem begins with the poet noticing the beauty around her, the fall colors as the sun sets “Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true, / Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hue;” (5-6). The poet immediately relates the effects of nature’s beauty to her own spiritual beliefs. She wonders that if nature here on Earth is so magnificent, then Heaven must be more wonderful than ever imagined. She then views a stately oak tree and

The imagery in the poem “35/10” also conveys the speaker’s wistfulness and jealousy for her daughter’s youth. The speaker describes her daughter as, “a moist/ precise flower on the tip of a cactus” (9-10) while she says, “my skin shows/ its dry pitting” (8-9). These phrases paint an image of the daughter as blooming and new, whereas the speaker is wilting and used. The word moist is associated with youthfulness and the word dry is associated with old age. The speaker’s use of the contrasting words moist and dry also allows the reader to use visual and tactile senses to picture the physical differences between the

The atmospheric conditions may represent the hardships that the couple had to go through in their relationship, and may also be used contrast the unpredictability of the outside world compared to the steady relationship that the couple have. ‘A Youth Mowing’ is also a poem about relationships, this time it is between a younger couple. The river ‘Isar’ is a symbol of freedom, it represents the way that the men’s lives are. However, this sense of liberty is broken by the ‘swish of the scythe-strokes’ as the girl takes ‘four sharp breaths.’ Sibilance is used to show that there is a sinister undertone to the freedom that the boy has which will be broken by the news that his girlfriend is bringing. She feels guilty for ‘what’s in store,’ as now the boy will have to be committed to spending the rest of his life with her, and paying the price for the fun that they had.

In the beginning, the narrator recounts regrets the presence of "more than a hundred dollars of [cut lilies]" (1). The purple and white flowers cover the room, and the narrator thinks of all the vases he will need for them. The poems shifts to focus on the narrator’s memories; reminiscing about the children he used to see at Sevilla's Easter, a celebration in Spain, the narrator recalls how once he ran through marshes with skunk cabbage. As night grows near and Easter ends, the room darkens and the saccharin scent

Passage one in the description of the Caddagat garden alliteration is used to describe the condition, smell and beauty of the day and the garden. ‘soothed by the scent’, ‘soft spring sunshine which streamed’, ‘revelled in rich’ and ‘lapfuls of the lovely’ all have the alliteration of a different sound, the first two quotes being the ‘s’ sound to making it more flowing and smooth is then followed by the ‘r’ sound to put more expression on the start of the words and the sentence its self. This is then finished with the ‘l’ repetition to put forth the rolling off the tongue in some form of pleasantry to the reader. The second passage then uses ‘bold, bad’ with popping of the ‘b’ to send a sense of urgency and extremity on the situation and emotions that are being expressed, this is the same with ‘don’t dare’ and the use of the alliteration in the ‘d’. (Did you like that bit Mrs.Burrows?!). This is then followed with the ‘s’ in the words ‘sex is sufficient’ putting a strong confirmation on the words and their meaning behind it. This is also continued into passage three with the ‘a peasant, a part’ and ‘flood, fire’ with the view focused on that starting letter of ‘p’ and ‘f’.

Several poems in the anthology explore the intensity of human emotion. Explore this theme, referring to these three poems in detail and by referencing at least three other poems from your wider reading.’

for the whole poem which he compares his love as a summer’s day. In lines 5-6 we see another