They both explore the theme of love or rather painful love. the poet revels the link between the two poems’s through a verity of techniques which is done very effectively but also shows the difference between the obsessive love in “Havisham” and the possessive love of “Valentine”. The pain of love is evident from the beginning in both poems. “Carol Ann Duffy” uses the tone in the first couple of stanzas to show the unorthodox nature of the love. “Not a day since then I haven’t whished him dead”-Havisham This is very effective as the aggressive tone shows “Havisham” has been rejected and her love is causing her pain.
The theme of change is most obvious in the season imagery that Millay uses. The theme of loss is present throughout the majority of the sonnet but becomes most obvious in the last few lines. In this sonnet the octave has the traditional rhyme scheme of an Italian sonnet, but it is followed by a variation of the sestet and does not contain a rhyming couplet in the final two lines. The use of run-on lines cause the end rhymes to be lost in the middle of the sentences. This use of caesura and enjambment creates a flowing feeling as Millay describes her lovers.
In order to emphasise Larkin’s outlooks onto time and it’s passing, one can highlight the similarities and differences between Larkin and Abse’s poetry. In ‘Love Songs In Age’, Larkin illustrates the view that time and it’s passing merely leads to many disappointments. The enjambment he uses amongst all three stanzas, “and stood/relearning” in the first and second and “more/the glare” between the second and third; this implies the suggestion that love cannot stop the passing of time and the instances that happen within it, for example the death of the woman’s husband. During the first stanza, Larkin uses imagery to create a memoir of the music sheets that the woman has found, “one marked in circles”, “and coloured”, suggesting that the joy of life, love and happiness isn’t appreciated until age shows what one has missed during their youth. We can then imply from this suggestion that Larkin feels time is only appreciated during the older years of one’s life.
She refers to novelist Lou Salome and her loathing in giving up intellectualism for love and sex, portrayed through her inability to recall details of kissing a famous philosopher. H. then juxtaposes Salome to Saint Therese who spoke passionately about loving forever – she notes extreme difference between disinterest of apparent “mistress of Europe” and extreme romanticism of other in love with God, and ask for some of balance between them; “shall we meet half way between sanctity and liberation?” persona then finds she does not need to open collection as she is not upset, instead she understands that “this farewell’s left me joyful” in certainty that her lover will return to her: ‘my lover will come again to me”. Here unlike beginning of poem, she projects power, the insight brings her serenity, symbolised by image of her moving into “peaceful sunset” feeding her geese, pastoral scene where she is dominant force. Her reference to “latter children” and sunset contrast her youth at poems opening, term “afterglow” is implicitly sexual and is clear this afterglow is different to that of her youth – poem clearly shows her maturity and change. The audience reflect that while the poem is superficially about a farewell to a
Frame Analysis “Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow” is a poem about author Edna St. Vincent Millay’s conflicts with faithfulness and love and how she felt love was only temporary and being faithful and true in a relationship would keep her from being true to herself. It is a Shakespearean sonnet. As such, it is organized into iambic pentameter and uses a traditional rhyme scheme. It also includes a traditional turn at line 12. [10 points] The ideas and images presented in the poem follow its formal organization.
Subtle Doubts: The Examination of an Anne Bradstreet Poem Anne Bradstreet, a female poet who is often mistakenly regarded as the quintessential Puritan woman, appears to have instilled themes in her poetry about the love she shares with her husband, her children, and God; however, when one takes a deeper look at some of her works – for example, a poem called In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet – it becomes apparent through subtleties found in her diction, syntax and tone that Bradstreet secretly holds a dark and wrathful view of both God and the Puritan society in which she dwells. The surface understanding of In Memory of Elizabeth Bradstreet is rather simple; Bradstreet is deeply saddened by the loss of her granddaughter, and exhibits her grief through heartfelt metaphors. In the first three lines of the poem, Bradstreet refers to her granddaughter as the “the pleasure of mine eye” and describes her as a “fair flower”. Then, the poem shifts focus from Bradstreet’s love of Elizabeth to her view on death. Indicators such as the repetition of “farewell” emphasize the tragedy of the situation while lines such as “…a space was lent” solidify the idea that Elizabeth’s young death suggests that her life was only temporary.
Harwood highlights the extreme contrast in ones perception of love, life and death when influenced by either philosophy or poetry. In ‘The Violets’ Harwood explores the inevitable nature of passing time, that this passing gives rise to change and loss. The inevitability of the approach of death in the poem is seen through the figurative language and simile of sunset images ‘the melting west stripped like ice-cream’ symbolic of the inevitable approach. The connecting image of the violets are used throughout the poem ‘frail melancholy flowers’, ‘spring violets’ and ‘gathered flowers’ these images act as a metaphor representative of the stages of life. Each image is representative of high and low phases of life and ‘gathered flowers’ is suggestive of the end of life.
In Jane Eyre not much happens by the way of love throughout the opening half of the story before Jane meets Rochester. Once Jane and Rochester are seen slowly but surely falling into love it seems as though nothing, bar perhaps Blanche Ingram, could stand in their way. That is partly what adds to the shock when we’re told that Rochester is already married to Martha Rochester, the crazed, lunatic living in the attic, guarded by the drunkard Miss Grace Poole. This, much like “Wuthering Heights” taints the ideals of marriage before there had been any significant marriages in the story. This is especially true because of the nature of the two’s meeting; Rochester and Jane have admitted there is minimal attraction by appearance alone and so it seems their supposed marriage was built on love through other, more meaningful,
Also Eliza resisted the sexual double-standard which I found really amazing. “Marriage is the tomb of friendship. It appears to me a very selfish state. Why do people, in general, as soon as they are married, centre all their cares, their concerns, and pleasures ion their own families? Former acquaintances are neglected or forgotten.
This is reinforced by the rhyme scheme in the first two stanzas, ending both times with a rhyming couplet, as though there is some stern bond holding it together. Jennings’ parents, while both physically in the same room, are mentally worlds apart, with one dreaming of days gone past, and the other pretending to read. This is also shown when she talks of how her father is ‘keeping the light on,’ and her mother is ‘fixed on the shadows overhead’. The use of the words ‘apart’, ‘separate’ and ‘elsewhere’ show how they no longer need each other, but are not lonely, instead retreating into their own isolated worlds, and while they uphold their relationship, they sleep in different beds, which in itself reinforces how they are independent of each other. We can also see signs of their fading relationship with words such as ‘cool’ and ‘cold.’ There are references to how the two have lost emotion in their old age, without necessarily