Poetry Compare and Contrast Love and Madness True love is the theme in the poem “Porphyria’s Lover,” by Robert Browning, and “Annabel Lee,” written by Edger Allen Poe. They were written in the same time period both having romantic notions, and share the same dramatic monologue style. Both are similar poems in their deranged views of love. However, the manner in which their beautiful lovers die and how they felt after their death, differ greatly. The men in both poems truly loved their women in the beginning, but by the end they had become obsessive, drove themselves to insanity, and slept next to the dead bodies of their lovers.
She wants us to feel it and I know this in the end of her poem when she writes “In the wonderful MAGIC OF LOVE” and because of this line I have no doubt in my mind that she was madly in love when she wrote this poem. Now in the poem “Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims he takes a much different (and more realistic) approach on how he perceives the idea of his love. As early as the first line he starts to criticize his girlfriend/wife by writing, “My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases, At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring.” In the first line he’s already calling her incredibly clumsy but tries to soften it up by calling her “dear” but by using the word shipwreck it’s almost like wherever she goes and everything
And if I see not half my days that’s due, What nature would, God grant to yours and you; (10-14) Bradstreet writes “Before the Birth of One of Her Children” seemingly as a eulogy. The poem is to comfort the child if Bradstreet does not survive birth. This illustrates the great amount of love and dedication she has for her children. Luther Caldwell, editor of An Account of Anne Bradstreet: The Puritan Poetess and Kindred Topics states: “According to many able and learned men of her time, she was the most remarkable, level-headed and self-poised intellectual woman of the early colonial times, and a Christian woman, devout and conscientious, of the loftiest faith” (Caldwell 5). She was a dedicated mother and her poetry expressed everlasting love for her children.
In the play, Hamlet is portrayed as a very philosophical character that thinks and analyzes every situation to the extreme. Hamlet undergoes many difficult situations such as the murder of his father, which causes him to act in a very mad and crazy manner, which plays a role in his relationship with Ophelia. Before the incident of Hamlet’s father’s death, Hamlet loves Ophelia and he demonstrates this by showing romantic gestures such as exchanging love letters with her. Hamlet sends her letters in which he refers to her as “the most beautified Ophelia” and his “soul’s idol” (2.2.109-110). Hamlet clearly demonstrates his expressions and feeling towards her through this letter and shows us that he does love her.
Along with the frequent use of rhyming couplets and enjambment, this makes it clear that the Duke was a suspicious and dominant man to his dead wife and also shows his control. The first evidence in the poem to support this is “Will’t please you sit and look at her?” and also “Sir, twas not her husband’s presence only, called that spot of joy into the Duchess’ cheek!” Both are said in reference to his wife to the Count’s envoy. These are effective as we are presented with the subjective viewpoint of the Duke. Like Shakespeare, Browning wrote plays as well as poetry which is evident as we see how he combined the techniques of play writing and poetry. Again, as the Duke talks about the Duchess
Neither of the characters have a voice in the historical books however Duffy gives both the women their own voice in the poems. These poems are very much alike however very different. Duffy uses an oxymoron in the first line of Havisham. `Beloved sweetheart bastard` show that the character has mixed emotions about her lover and gives an air of uncertainty about the characters emotions for her lover. She calls him a bastard because he walked out on her however Duffy uses beloved sweetheart to symbolise her unconditional love for him.
Bliss and Sorrow Begins and Ends Love Throughout texts and other literary devices, many various authors have used conflicts as an element to introduce love into their stories. In Robert Frost’s “Home Burial,” Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shiloh,” and Katherine Ann Porter’s, “Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” such conflicts are introduced and used to project love differently. The three authors show how the loss of a loved one can be either tragic or pleasant. The setting of the poem, “Home Burial,” is gravely important to the dispute between husband and wife. In the beginning of the story, Frost places the wife standing at the top of the stairs and grieving while her husband is at the bottom of the stairs emotionally inferior and indifferent towards the death of their only son.
When reading this story I got the feeling that although the mother was sleeping with all these men to make ends meet, she was also doing it to fill a void in her. Maybe it was the loving and belonging of a male figure in her life. "For a brief second, I almost mistake him for the ghost of his father, an older lover who disappeared with the night's shadows a long time ago. "The mother longs so much for that void to be filled that she makes up a story for he son if he should wake up. "Should my son wake up, I have prepared my fabrication...I will tell him that his father has come, that an angel brought him back from Heaven for a while."
Robert Browning uses jealousy as a theme for most of his poems, claiming that the duke in the poem “My Last Duchess” was obsessed with the Duchess and kills her due to the fact that he does not want other men to be seduced by her appearance, and likeness. In relation to this in “Porphyria's Lover” Browning displays this theme in the poem by talking about how the Young man took this nice young woman into his house, and then strangled her and kept her corpse so he could be with her. In the poem “A Light Woman” Browning talks about a flirtatious woman who takes a man’s attention and then diverts her attention towards one of his friends who in the end wins her heart. The speaker unravels his jealousy as she changes her attraction to another man. He uses the characters portrayal in each of the poems.
These were the words that Queen Gertrude delivered to Ophelia's brother, Laertes, when she took her own life. Many think Hamlet is the most tragic character in the play, but some critics like to think that Ophelia is the most tragic. Ophelia's life is not mentioned often throughout the play, so it is shadowed by the life of Hamlet. Many obstacles that Ophelia faces throughout Shakespeare's tragedy support reasons why she is considered the most tragic character. Ophelia lives in a society ruled by men, faces rejection from the love of her life, and deals with the death of her father.