About the Poem "The End of Love"

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THE END OF LOVE The main communicative purpose of this Italian sonnet is to advise how “the end of love”, that is, the breakdown of a relationship, should be; it focuses on its importance because it means the beginning of a new stage in life, as marriage is also a step from one stage of life to another. This unexpected comparison is the central image of the text. The rhyme follows a single scheme throughout the poem (ABBA ABAB ABB AAB). This gives a sense of continuity to the central idea. However, while the first quatrain presents a close rhyme, the second is alternate and the sestet combines both. The poem is composed by short sentences that give an effect of curtness; and therefore, a conversational tone. The poetic I uses that style to get closer to the readers and give more plausibility to what he says. The ideational development follows the stanzaic division: * The first half of the octave contains the general frame of reference, that is, an explanation about what people should do when they finish a relationship. These two first lines are repeated at the beginning and the end of the octave and also at the end of the sestet. They are a basic summary of the ideas and articulate them along the text. The whole sonnet has an ironic overtone because, from the point of view of the poetic I, something private like a break-up really is, it should be a public event, and it is the reason why he proposes “the hiring of a hall”. There are four alliterative couplings in the whole sonnet; three of them correspond to the frame of reference and the other (line 3), is a way to emphasize his idea, or why not to do the opposite than people normally do in this situation. The phrase “The end of love” is an important referent which by means of the verb of state “be” is identified with “a big event” (the focus of the comparison throughout the poem). After
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