“Oh My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose”

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Written by Hein Min Kyi. Robert Burns’ “Oh my love is like a red, red rose” is a beautiful love poem. Burns uses this poem to express his yearning towards a woman. This poem is a quatrain poetry types because it has four-line stanzas. Burns uses a variety of techniques such as figurative language, meter and rhyme that makes the poem artistic. His rhythmic verses also help me gain insight into the poem. This poem is a good example of the use of simile: Oh, my love is like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; My love is like the melody That’s sweetly played in tune. In the first and the third lines of the stanza, Burns compares his love with “a red rose” and a “melody” by using “like.” He also uses symbolism in this poem. For example, “Red rose” is a symbol of deep and passionate love. “Melody” stands for his sweet and joyful love. Written by Hein Min Kyi. Burns uses the Iambic Meter which is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. The first and third lines of every stanza have four line lengths and a metrical description is “Iambic Tetrameter,” which means the poem’s lines have four alternating stressed syllables. For example “AS FAIR | art THOU | my BON, | nie LASS”. The second and fourth lines of every stanza are “Iambic Trimeter,” which has three alternating stressed syllables. For example “That's NEW | ly SPRUNG | in JUNE”. Burns also uses “rising meters,” which is the rhythmic pattern of stresses in verse, to let us enjoy the natural rhythms of his speech. These meters give the poem its musical sound which is easy to read and understand. Written by Hein Min Kyi. Burns makes good use of rhyme in this poem. Rhyme means all lines of the poem have repetition of the same or similar vowel sound. Burns practices end rime, which means rhyme occurs at the ends of lines. For example, “sun” after that “run” and “dear”

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