The theme of Love is complexed and varied: How is the theme of love portrayed respectively in ‘My last duchess’ by Robert Browning, ‘Mother in a Refugee Camp’ by Chinua Achebe, ‘Sonnet 116’ by Shakespeare, ‘Catrin’ by Gillian Clarke, ‘Sonnet 130’ by Shakespeare and ‘Le Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by John Keats?
Love is a mixed emotion of happiness and sadness that no one can avoid. These poems explore love in three different ways, obsessive love, motherly love and unconditional romantic love. The three poets uses a wide range of literary devices and language techniques to convey the theme of and to challenge the readers mind in what love it.
‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning is set in the Late Italian Renaissance. Browning’s inspiration for ‘My Last Duchess was from a Renaissance duke, Alfonso II of Ferrara, whose wife, Lucrezia died in 1561 at age 17. Although Lucrezia came from a powerful and wealthy family, she never had a chance to enjoy her status as a duchess since she married Alfonso II at age 14, 3 years before her death. After her tragic death, Alfonso
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Although they both consist the same theme, the love is expressed in two different ways. ‘Catrin’ is an intensely personal poem, illustrating an argument about whether her daughter can stay outside in the dark skating for ‘one more hour’. As Clarke mentions in the poem that there is always a ‘tight red rope of love’ that ties them together, despite their differences, which brings them even closer. In contrast, Achebe describes a mother in a refugee camp, that under no circumstances will she stop unconditionally love and care for her dying child, even when everyone around her has given up. Both these poems express that even how hard and challenging it is to be a mother, and how many differences there are, love will always exist between a mother and a child
How do(es) the use, meanings, connotations and denotations of the central image of the word “love” change(s) in Maragret Atwood’s Variations on the Word Love and also whether the poem may be viewed as a love poem.
The poem “My Last Duchess” is a historical event that involves the Duke of Ferrara and Alfonso who lived in the 16th century. Robert Browning "My Last Duchess" presents a narrative about a recently widowed Duke who talks with an emissary had come to an arranged marriage with another lady from a powerful and wealthy family. In the perspective of Duke, power and wealth were integral in marriage and was determined to be married to a wealthy lady from a famous family. As the Duke orients the emissary through the palace, he stops and shows a portrait of the late Duchess who was a lovely and young girl. The Duke then begins by stating information about the picture and then to the Duchess. Duke claims that the Duchess flirted with everyone and did not appreciate the history of the family: “gift of a nine hundred years old name.”(33) However, when an individual continues to read the poem, it is evident that the Duke played an important role in killing the lady. Duke states that “he gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together”(45-46) he used these words to define the death of his beloved Duchess. The aim of the essay is to analyze literary devices that emphasize the content of the poem, which includes rhetorical questions, exclamation mark, and em dash.
Shakespeare examines love in two different ways in Sonnets 116 and 130. In the first, love is treated in its most ideal form as an uncompromising force (indeed, as the greatest force in the universe); in the latter sonnet, Shakespeare treats love from a more practical aspect: it is viewed simply and realistically without ornament. Yet both sonnets are justifiable in and of themselves, for neither misrepresents love or speaks of it slightingly. Indeed, Shakespeare illustrates two qualities of love in the two sonnets: its potential and its objectivity. This paper will compare and contrast the two sonnets by Shakespeare and show how they represent two different attitudes to love.
William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Love Is Not All” both attempt to define love, by telling what love is and what it is not. Shakespeare’s sonnet praises love and speaks of love in its most ideal form, while Millay’s poem begins by giving the impression that the speaker feels that love is not all, but during the unfolding of the poem we find the ironic truth that love is all. Shakespeare, on the other hand, depicts love as perfect and necessary from the beginning to the end of his poem. Although these two authors have taken two completely different approaches, both have worked to show the importance of love and to define it. However, Shakespeare is most confident of his definition of love, while Millay seems
Love is not always an easy adventure to take part in. As a result, thousands of poems and sonnets have been written about love bonds that are either praised and happily blessed or love bonds that undergo struggle and pain to cling on to their forbidden love. Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet "A Lovely Love," explores the emotions and thoughts between two lovers who are striving for their natural human right to love while delicately revealing society 's crime in vilifying a couples right to love. Gwendolyn Brooks uses several examples of imagery and metaphors to convey a dark and hopeless mood that emphasizes the hardships that the two lovers must endure to prevail their love that society has condemned.
The acceptance of love has the power of transforming an individual to demand of that same love. The social context of the 1850’s was seen to be emphasised on individual’s emotions and rebellion against established social rules and convections which was evident in her open declarations of love and demanding’s of love which was a concept of idealised love. The notion of idealised love transforming an individual is presented in the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’. Sonnet 14 as Elizabeth Browning urges her lover to not love her for any particular reason other than “love’s sake only”. In the Octave, the first line is EBB talking directly to whom she loves and she uses high modality in the word ‘must’, making it seem like she
Love is a popular theme in a multitude of literature pieces throughout the times. Forbidden love seems nearly as popular as does love gone wrong and unconditional love. Two tales that contain the theme of forbidden love, the theme of love gone wrong, and the theme of unconditional love are: William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Fay Weldon’s “IND AFF or Out of Love in Sarajevo.” Though these stories were both written many years apart, they have a commonality with their themes. These themes can be drawn by the individual story’s main characters and main events. Even though the theme of love gone wrong displays itself a bit differently in each piece, its identification is still very clear in
People have different perceptions and ways to show love. In the poems “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “Magic of Love” by Helen Ferries, the poets describe love in two different ways. These two poems have differences and similarities. Both poems have the same theme which is love; however, they have different uses of imagery and dissimilar tones. The first poem “Those Winter Sundays” defines the meaning of love and describes the love the son has for his father 's; on the other hand, the second poem “Magic of Love” looks at love as a gift of heaven. I think the second poem “Magic of Love” is more powerful than the first poem “Those Winter Sundays” because has a beautiful sense of what is love.
In Robert Browning’s poem, My Last Duchess, is about a conversation surrounding a portrait. The focus swirls around the untimely death of the duchess, Alfonso II last wife, because of some impropriety. She looks alive, and the duke attributes this to the skill of the painter, Frà Pandolf. This serves to remind the reader that the duke does not approve of the way the duchess handled herself. Evidently, the duke does not approve of the zest for life that the duchess exhibited. He of course compliments her beauty,
One type of love that is present in the selected poems is agape love. Agape love is an unconditional love that is all about sacrifice. Agape love in the highest
Love can be quite a difficult topic to write about, expressing one’s intimate and innermost emotions requires a great level of dedication and honesty. If done correctly, the outcome is truly stunning. John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and Katherine Philips’s “To Mrs. M.A. at Parting” are two masterpieces of this genre. These poems depict the concept of true love so meticulously that the reader cannot help but envy the relationships presented. Perhaps the reason that these works are so effective is due to the fact that they are incredibly similar to each other. Although some differences are present when it comes to structure and gender concerns, the poems share the same theme of love on a spiritual level and show many parallels in meaning.
Written by Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess” is a poem about an egocentric Duke who has a painting of his last wife upon the wall and is trying to impress an ambassador who is negotiating his next marriage. Although it is obvious that the Duke is trying to persuade this ambassador, however, this is where the first mystery is created. It is almost as if he is trying to persuade no one more than himself.
Love has a voice that speaks to everyone differently. For some people it is a gentle whisper, but for others it is a scream, yearning to be noticed. Love is a common theme in literature, discussed in many works. Love is a very broad term, that can be defined in many different ways. Love has many characteristics, with many individual interpretations. In this essay, I will be talking about three poems: Robert Graves’ Symptoms of Love, Bob McKenty’s Adam’s Song, and Muriel Stuart’s In the Orchard. Each of these poems demonstrates their own meaning of love, and each author interprets love in their own different ways.
This poet chose to show various types of emotion with the themes of this poem. This poem has a purpose of demonstrating of how easy it is to become vulnerable of these moments of despair in one’s lifetime, especially when it comes to love. Life is based around love, people develop great unexplained heart filled feelings, it can even take place in the midst of just a few moments, to ignite that “love at first sight” feeling. When one gives another their heart, he/she must thoroughly trust that their chosen one truly does love them, because from the moment that one experiences love with another person they never truly know if they do. This feeling is very critical for a couple in a relationship. So, when things take a rough path, and one becomes unhappy it may take the other by surprise and catch them at a vulnerable state of mind and heart. This would cause for it to take a
“How do I love thee?” The infamous Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is both thought provoking and lovely, with a somewhat melancholy undertone. How has this small poem shaped the way we as a human race view love, and how is it that most of us know those first few powerful lines by memory?