Pre 1914 Poetry Of Love And Loss

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Pre 1914 Poetry of Love and Loss Out of a range of poems, this essay consists of a comparison of poems including “First Love” by John Clare, “La Belle Dame Merci” by John Keats and “Remember” by Christina Rossetti. They all have been written with different structures and forms although they all portray a common theme of love. In “First Love” Clare writes about love at first sight and unreturned love. It also illustrates about how love is fierce, sudden and unexpected. “I ne’er was struck before that hour. With love so sudden and so sweet”. This reflects the nature of love and compares it to the sudden strike of the hand of a clock. Similarly, in Keats “La Belle Dame Sand Merci” the content is based on a series of events taking place in his life at the time relating to love. “I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful a faery’s child”. Keats describes the lady in a magical way and put across the feeling she is someone special in his life. Also in the poem “Remember” is about a woman who wants to be remembered after she dies. “Remember me when I am gone away, Gone faraway into the silent land;” Straight away in the first line we get the impression the lady wants to be remembered because she says “When I am gone away far away”. This emphasizes she loves her very much. “First Love” puts across the theme of rejection as the poem progresses to sadness in comparison to the beginning. “And stole my heart away complete”. “My heart has left its dwelling place and can return no more”. Clare writes about how a man has been rejected towards the end. The changing feelings from a positive start to a sad ending portray the poet’s attitude towards love. The message John Clare is trying to say that love is a painful thing and that unrequited love is devastating. Also it is even hard for a poet to write about love. In “La Belle Dame sans Merci” the poem
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