Modern Love by George Meredith

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Maria Portillo January 14, 2013 A.P English Literature – Period 4 Modern Love by George Meredith In the poem, Modern Love by George Meredith, it defines the feelings about a husband and a wife, who both had suffered in a loveless marriage. Meredith uses literary devices to convey the view of “modern love”; he uses alliteration, metaphor, and imagery throughout the poem. Meredith uses alliteration in the first line of the poem, “she wept with walking eyes (line1).” Since the beginning of the poem the readers could notice that the wife was already unhappy, since she had cried, probably for unhappy marriage. He also writes, “were called into her with a sharp surprised (line 4)”, meaning that she wanted to escape the marriage but couldn’t, and that the time that is poem was written it referred to the marriage in the 19th century. Which both the wives and husbands were forced to marry, without loving each other. “She lay stone-still (line 6-7)”, means that her marriage had killed part of who she was because she was displeased with her marriage. Another literary device that is used in this poetic sequence is metaphor, “the strange low sobs that shook their common bed (line 3)”. Since they were probably forced to marry, they probably forced to have sexual relationships, which was why the wife would cry in their bed. Another example of metaphor would be, “drink the pale drug of silence (line10)”, which would mean that she is suffering and that she has to suffer quietly, no one much know that suffers in this marriage. The last device that Meredith uses is imagery, “her giant heart of Memory and Tears (line 9)”. This is saying that she wishes very much to be happy and to run away from this horrible life that she is living. She is not the only one who is suffering in the marriage the husband is also suffering, “sleeps heavy measure, they from head to
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