In this essay I am going to refer to six Pre 1914 poems and 3 poems in detail , I will also explore how each poet conveys the pleasure of pain and love.
The anthology is about “Love and Loss”. Love is expresses in many ways. There is dedicated love where a person is dedicated to the person that they love, false love where a person is just having the person on, first love where a person instantly falls in love on first sight, brotherly love where a man loves another man like a brother for example in a war and also unrequited love where someone loves a person but the person does not acknowledge them. There are many types of love in the world today.
There is also Loss where there are many ways in where a person has lost someone or they have died. The poems that I have studied all contain some sort of love and loss. Most have love whereas some have loss. Some of them are mixed with love and loss as well. Love and relationships are used a lot in these poems. The poems that I am going to compare and convey pain and love are
* ” When We Two Parted” by Lord Byron
* ” Remember” by Christina Rossetti
* “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barret Browning
* ” A Birthday” by Christina Rossetti
* ” La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats
* ” First Love” by John Clare
In “When We Two Parted” a man talks to his ex-lover about how they separated from each other and that they had an affair together. He tells her that he is deeply upset and that he hears her name everywhere from other people describing her actions of what she does about sleeping with other men. He is humiliated to hear her name spoken badly of and that he feels shame when someone else mentions her name. He cannot reveal their secret and regrets having an affair with her. He says that if they should ever meet he will with anger.
In “Remember” a woman talks about how she is going away and that she wants her lover to remember her when she is gone. But then she says if you forget me don’t cry for me and to continue with your life.
In “How Do I Love Thee” a woman tells a man about how she loves him and the ways in which she does. She sys that she will love him as much as her soul has a need to reach and she will love him also after death.
In “A Birthday” a woman is describing to the audience about her birthday and what feelings she has as well as what will be at her birthday party. She is also excited because her lover is going to come home.
In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” a man finds another man near a like walking alone and the man reveals his tale about himself being a young knight who finds a young woman and is seduced by her looks and ways. He takes her on his horse and then finds himself he has never been before. The woman feeds her food that he has never eaten and then sung him a song and he then went to sleep. He had dreams about people and that they warned him about the woman. He then awoke and found himself where he is at the present time alone.
In “First Love” a man tells the audience how he first met a girl and instantly fell in love with her. He describes her feelings towards her. He stares at her and she comes over to ask if he is ill and he replies that he isn’t and then she walks away. He tells the audience it cannot be repeated again.
The pain of love is where there is love but it all ends in pain and sadness. The poems that I am going to use to convey the pain of love are
* “When We Two Parted”
* ” Remember”
The poem “When We Two Parted” had four stanzas and an abab cdcd rhyme. It was written by Lord George Byron and this is interesting because society does not expect men to express their feelings so openly especially love in such an emotional way.
The poem “Remember” has no stanzas and is written as a long paragraph. It was written by Christina Rossetti. It is a sonnet as it has 14 lines and 10 syllables in each line.
I think the poet Lord Byron has called this “When We Two Parted” because the events that are in this poem may have actually happened to him in real life. From the title “When We Two Parted” I think that the poem is going to be about a relationship that has broken up in pieces e.g. “we parted”. This tells the reader that it is about 2 people splitting up. The poet sounds like he is addressing it to the woman in the poem. I know this because it says “Pale grew thy cheek and cold”. This tells me that he is not addressing me but the woman.
I think that Christina Rossetti called this poem “Remember” because that in her earlier life because of her grandfather who published her poems when she was younger into a book. In “Remember” I think that a person has gone and that they do not want the other person to remember them judging by the title. The poet is addressing the person “Remember me when I am gone away”.
The poet conveys the pain of love as he says “when we two parted in silence in tears”. This suggests to the reader that they split up with the woman being silent and the man crying in tears. Tears suggest in this break up that it was a very sad event for the man. In my opinion this tells me that the man was in very much pain if he was crying as men do not normally cry and only do when something very emotional has happened to them.
In the first stanza it also says “half – broken hearted” telling the reader that the man is upset but not as very much. Her cold reaction shows that their split will affect him later on “truly that hour foretold sorrow to this”. This tells the reader that he will be sad later on. Also it says “pale grew thy cheek and cold” suggesting that before the split up the woman was growing colder towards him as not loving him that much anymore.
The poet in “Remember” conveys the pain of love even though they are not quite as painful as the ones in “When We Two Parted”. The woman says “Gone far away into the silent land”. This tells the reader that she is going to go far away where there is silence.
The love in “When We Two Parted” is unrequited as the man loves the woman but the woman does not love him back and uses him. The poet conveys this by “thy vows are all broken”. This tells the reader that the woman has broken all her promises to him. In the second stanza pathetic fallacy is used as it says “the dew of the morning sunk chill on my brow”. This morning is related to what the man feels when he wakes up and that is sadness.
The poet conveys the pain of love in “Remember” when she says “when you can no more hold me by the hand”. This tells the reader that the woman was very close to someone by them holding hands. The love in this poem is dedicated love because in this poem she is clearly telling her lover to remember her and that she would want him to be happy even if being forgotten “Better by far you should forget and smile”.
The language in “When We Two Parted” is archaic where it is old. I can tell it is archaic because of the quote “pale grew thy”. “Thy” is not used in the modern world and instead it will be “your”. The language is also simple and easy to read but some archaic words are hard to understand their meaning such as “knell”. The word knell is a funeral bell and the quote “Thy name thee before me a knell to mine ear”. This tells the reader that the man when hearing his ex-lover’s name hears is like a funeral bell calling to him.
The language in “Remember” is easy and simple to read then that of “When We Two Parted”. It consists of 14 lines which make it easier to read than “When We Two Parted”.
The third stanza in “When We Two Parted” tells about his feelings when he hears her name. In the first line he says “thy vows are all broken” indicating to the reader that she has broken all of her promises to him and that he has been let down by her. He hears her name is humiliated that her name is being spoken so badly “I hear thy name and share in its shame”. This tells the reader that he regrets having the affair with the woman.
In “Remember” in the fourth line she tells her lover that she is about to go but stops when she is about and wants to stay “nor I half turn to go yet turning stay”. This tells the reader the woman loves him very much.
In the forth stanza of “When We Two Parted” the man talks about her name being spoken badly and tells her why did he love her so much “why wert thou so dear?”. This tells the reader when he hears her name he regrets loving her so much. The man says that he knew her very well and that people did not know and that he regrets knowing her and that he and that he is bitter very much ” long , long shall I rue thee too deeply to tell”. This tells the reader that he doesn’t want to know her and that he is very angry with her and will be for a long time. The poet conveys the pain of love in this stanza because of her memory and that he wants to forget her and that she has a painful memory of her that he will be very angry at and bitter.
In “Remember” she wants him only to remember her a lot after she goes because there won’t be any time left to say goodbye “only remember me; you understand it will be too late to counsel or pray”. She also says that if you do forget then that he should not be sad “yet if you do forget me for a while and afterwards remember do not grieve”. This tells the reader that the woman does not want him to be sad if he forgets and then remembers again. The author conveys the pain of love because the lover will forget her and that he will be sad that she is gone.
In the last stanza of “When We Two Parted” the man says that they met in secret “in secret we met”. Pain of love is conveyed here because he grieves in silence of his feelings towards her and that she has forgotten so easily”in silence I grieve that thy heart could forget”. This tells the reader that he is sad that she forgot so easily. Pain is also conveyed in the poem because of her deception and betrayal in loving him “thy spirit deceive”. This tells the reader that she played him like a fool and that she used false love to get to him. Pain of love has been put to use in these last lines “after long years how should I greet thee? With silence and tears”. This tells the reader that he has deeply affected by their split and that he his emotions are that of anger, pain and sadness.
In “Remember” at the end the woman tells her lover that instead of remembering and being sad he should be happy and get on with life ” better by far you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad”. This tells the reader that she wants her lover to be happy and live normally.
“When We Two Parted” gives more details about the feelings that are involved in the pain of love whereas “Remember” gives not a lot of description of how she is feeling. The message in “When We Two Parted” that I think is that he is telling the reader about the pain of love and what it can do to a person if they are deceived and betrayed. The tone of this poem is sad and depressing. And in “Remember” I think the poet is telling the reader of the sacred bond of love and no matter what happens that the other one will love the person forever whatever happens. The tone of this poem is sad and also depressing but less than that of “When We Two Parted”.
The pleasure of love is where the emotions of love are happy, joyful and that everything is content. The poems that I am going to use to convey the pleasure of love are
* ” A Birthday”
* “How Do I Love Thee?
“A Birthday” is a sonnet and has 16 lines and was written by Christina Rossetti.
“How Do I Love Thee?” is also a sonnet and contains 14 lines as well as being written by Elizabeth Barret Browning.
I think that Christina Rossetti called “A Birthday” that name because of many birthdays that she celebrated with her friends and family. From the title a birthday the reader immediately thinks of presents, friends, candles and cake and balloons. This also tells the reader that a birthday is a fun time so this must have happiness in it. A birthday makes the reader also feel that the person is celebrating the day when they were born and that this is a happy time. The title is also a good one because many of the emotions felt for a birthday are felt when a person is in love.
I think that Elizabeth Barret Browning called “How Do I Love Thee?” because of her very good relationship with her husband Robert Browning and that they got married without the consent of Elizabeth’s father. The title begins with a rhetorical question suggesting that it will be answered and explored. This also tells the reader that the woman has a very intimate relationship with her lover.
In “A Birthday” the poet conveys the pleasure of love by containing a symbol of human love in the first line “heart”. The first line is also a simile “My heart is like a singing bird”. This tells the reader that the woman is overjoyed at the prospect of birthday. The second line suggest safety and new life “whose nest is in a watered shoot”. The word “nest” relates to safety and home like the birds live in and the word “shoot” suggests new life. This tells the reader that the woman is feeling she is reborn and is like a bird in a nest.
In “How Do I Love Thee?” the first line begins with the title and then she says “let me count the ways” making the reader think that she has a lot of ways in which she loves him. In the poem most of her sentences start with “I love thee” indicating to the reader that the woman loves the man very much and that she loves him and only him. Pleasure of love is conveyed when she says “My soul can reach”. This tells the reader that the woman loves the man as if he is her soul mate. The tone of the poem is like the tone of “A Birthday”.
In “A Birthday” the tone of the poem is cheerful and heart-warming. The lines in the sonnet most of them are similes e.g. “my heart is like an apple tree. This tells the reader that her heart is growing and blooming. The similes in this poem are used to make the reader imagine them in his mind as if they were real. However in “How Do I Love Thee” it is not used that much.
In “How Do I Love Thee?” the woman is portraying her love very vividly to the reader “by sun and candlelight”. This tells the reader that her love for him is positive and jovial. The woman wants her love to be natural and also love him purely as well passion “love thee freely”, “love thee purely” and “I love thee with the passion put to use”. This tells the reader that the woman loves the man not with forced love but with ordinary love and that she loves him with the sole purpose loving him with infatuation as well indicating that she is obsessed about him. The reader is assured that the love is true in this poem and nothing can affect it.
The woman in “A Birthday” says that “my heart is like a rainbow”. This is another simile and tells the reader that she is making the atmosphere of the birthday seems miraculous and colourful like a rainbow shining on a wet day. She then speaks “my heart is gladder than all these”. This tells the reader that the woman has something better than all of the items she said she was like and as she says “because of my love is come to me”. This tells the reader that her lover is coming back to see her and that this is happier than all the other things. It is like nothing can compare to her love about him and that in the poem she does not say lover indicating that she is the only one she loves and no one else. The repetition of “my heart” makes the reader understand how the objects reflect and correspond to her life wit her lover.
In “How Do I Love Thee?” the woman says that her love for him his more than that of “in my old griefs and with my childhood’s faith” indicating that she has more emotion for him than her childhood has ever had. At the near end of the poem the woman starts having religious uncertainties “with my lost saints”. This tells the reader that the woman is scared about whether it will affect her life in loving him and that her love is capable of abolishing any worries that she feels “a love which I seemed to lose”.
The poet also says “I love thee with the breath”. This tells the reader that the woman loves the man and cannot survive without him just like surviving with the need for oxygen. The poet wants to make the reader understand as she says in the second to the last line “smiles, tears of all my life-and if God chose” that the woman believes in and trusts in God and that he will let him to continue to love him very much. The poem ends with the woman telling her lover that “I shall love thee better after death” indicating to the reader that she will love him more after death and that her love for him too superior and too uncontaminated to be worldly and that it should be enjoyed in life after death where everything is possible.
In “A Birthday” the woman shows her status of her love and how important it is and what should appear at her birthday “raise me a dais of silk and down”. A dais is a raised floor in which important people like the king sit above the audience and also silk is an expensive material and this tells the reader that the woman is showing that her love is very important. The status symbols include “vair”, “purple dyes”, “doves”, pomegranates” and “peacocks with a hundred eyes”. The object that is “vair” is squirrel fur which is for the important people and the doves and pomegranates as well as peacocks in those times were rare and exotic objects that could be found in far away places.
The word “doves” also represents soul mates and that the woman had found her true love also doves are one of the three symbols of the Holy Spirit indicating to the reader that their love is pure and innocent. The line “work it in gold and silver grapes” tell the reader that the woman wants these expensive things as gold and silver are precious metals hard to find and “grapes” are the food of the Gods in Greek mythology of Bacchus the God of food and drink. The woman describes her birthday as her love “birthday of my life”. This tells the reader that the woman’s birthday is related to being like her love life. In the last line the woman says “Is come my love is come to me”. This tells the reader that she is happy that her love is coming to her birthday making it a very special birthday.
The language in both of these poems is archaic as they use o9ld words like “dais” and “thee”. The use of similes and alliteration is put to use in “A Birthday” “raise me a dais of silk and down” and “my heart is like a rainbow shell”. The rhythm of the poem is that of abab and the tone of it is that of happiness. The message of this poem is that the poet is conveying the pleasure pf love and how it can affect the life very with content. The tone of “How Do I Love Thee?” is that of a cheerful tone and that I think the poet is saying the message of the story is that a person can be loved in many ways and that love is a very intense.
A mixture of pain and love is where love is involved but there is also pain as well where the relationship starts well but it ends in pain. The poems that I am going to use to convey a mixture of pain and love are
* “First Love”
* “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
“First Love” was written by John Clare which is interesting just like Lord Byron as they are both men and men did not express their love emotions during this period of time that they were in. I think the reason why John Clare called his poem “First Love” because of an early disappointment of love for a girl named Mary Joyce who was the daughter of a wealthy farmer and this made a lasting impression on him.
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” was written by John Keats. I think he called this because of his mother dieing and to make an impression on the season autumn. I also think it was because oh his obsessive love Fanny Brawne a near neighbour in Hampstead. The title means “woman without mercy”. From the title I think it is about a woman who has no mercy and that she will cause pain.
The title of the poem suggests that the person who is involved in the story is being in love for the first time. The first line of the poem makes the reader think that the man was hit on the head and this conveys pain of love “I ne’er was struck before that hour”. This tells the reader that the ma has never fallen in love like this before. The second line conveys the pleasure of love “with love so sudden and so sweet”. This tells the reader that the man has the feeling of sweetness. The second line also uses alliteration because it uses the “s” sound so many times “so sudden sweet .
This tells the reader that the man was struck so suddenly and fell in love. The poet the uses the simile “her face it bloomed like a sweet flower”. This suggests that the man can see her beauty inside of her ad it is like a flower. This is so far the pleasure of love but then it changes into the pain of love as he says “my face turned pale as deadly pale”. The reader now thinks the love is threatening and resembles a disease which is an unlike view to before where the love was not painful. This is dissimilar to the start of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”.
The title of the poem suggests that it is French. There are two voices in this poem and this is the narrator and the knight. The poem is a ballad and consists of twelve stanzas each having an “a-b-c-b” rhyme scheme. The first three stanzas start of with the narrator addressing the knight asking him what is wrong and why is he on a cold hill “what can ail thee knight at arms?” This tells the reader that the man is curious to know what is wrong with the knight. The pain of love is conveyed because of the knight’s features as the man describes them to the knight “so haggard and woe begone” and “I see a lilly on thy brow”. This tells the reader that the knight has suffered many hardships due to what a woman has done to him. This is unlike “First Love” because “First Love” talks about the pleasure of love and less that of the pain.
In “First Love” the end lines of the first stanza seem to give the pain of love “my legs refused to walk away” , ” and when she looked “what could I ail” , ” my life and all seemed turned to clay”. These lines indicate to the reader that the man is suffering from her gaze and face and that the word “clay” is showing that is life is worth nothing and is like clay. The clay represents statue and death and no life as well as cold. When the poet says in the second stanza in the first line “blood rushed to my face” it tells the reader that the man is embarrassed when the lady talked to him. When his blood rushes to his face it says in the second line what it did to him “and took my sight away”. This tells the reader that the blood rushing to his face has blinded him by love and is blushing and that it also tells the reader that he feels so overwhelmed that he cannot see anything but his love for this woman. This is similar to “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” as the next six stanzas are told of the knight’s love.
In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” the knight tells his tale to the man in the next six stanzas about how he met a girl “I met a lady in the meads” full beautiful- a fairy’s child”. This tells the reader that the knight is describing the woman as how he saw her as mythical being. The old spelling of “faery” gives the reader of a sense of age. The third stanza describes what he did for her “I made a garland for her head and bracelets too and fragrant zone; she look’d at me as she did love”. This tells the reader that the knight thinks that the woman loves him. He then says he put her on his horse and he saw nothing else all day because she would move and block his gaze and sing “nothing else saw all day for sidelong would she bend and sing a faery’s song”. This makes the reader wonder if she is not that truthful as she seems as she is blocking his view from where they are going and she is singing a song which makes the reader think is it a spell that she is singing rather than a song.
“In First Love” the man does not seem to think it is the woman who is causing him to do this irregular behaviour. In the second stanza in the last lines the man seems to think that the day has turned into night due to his blindness “seemed midnight at noonday”. This tells the reader that because of this love it is making him see illusions. In the text it says “they spoke as chords do from the string”. This tells the reader that the man he is portraying his feelings like music effects a person’s emotions. When it says in the last line “and blood burnt round my heart” this conveys the pain of love as it describes that the blood is very hot and burning him in pain.
In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” the man describes what the woman did when travelling to where they were going “she found me roots of relish sweet and honey wild and manna dew and sure in language strange she said ‘I love thee true’. This tells the reader that she is feeding him some unknown and strange food and makes them think is he poisoning him and also when she says “I love thee true” it is the pleasure of love that this remark is quoting. In the eight stanza the woman takes the knight into her “elfin grot”. This tells the reader that the knight was taken by the woman to an enchanted place. Then she started crying and then the knight closed her eyes and kissed her “and there she wept and sigh’d full sore, and there I shut her wild eyes with kisses four”. This makes the reader think that the woman wants the man to feel sorry for her because she is crying so he kisses her to keep quiet.
In “First Love” in the third stanza it says “are flowers the winter’s choice?
Is love’s bed always snow?” This tells the reader that the experience of first love was unpleasant and cold. These lines are metaphors of cold. He wanted the girl to know of his existence of love for her. Love is supposed to be warm, joyful and tranquil but the man thinks it is cold as snow and that it is painful and harsh. In the third line of the third stanza it uses alliteration “she seemed to hear my silent voice”. This makes the reader think that he is accepting what it feels like to be rejected. He then says “I never saw so sweet a face as that I stood before: my heart has left its dwelling place and can return no more”. This tells the readers that first love can’t be repeated and his heart is completely lost to her in addition to that she has stolen it forever “can return no more”. This conveys the pain of love. This is similar to the ending of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”.
In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” the last four stanzas are about what happened to the man “she lulled me to sleep”. This tells the reader that the woman have sung a spell over him to go to sleep. He then says he dreamed “and there I dream’d-ah woe betide”. This tells the reader that the dreams he sees are nightmares instead of dreams. In his dreams he says he saw “pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all; they cried-La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!” This suggests to the reader that the knight is looking at the ghosts of dead important people and that they are warning him that he is trapped by the woman.
In the second to last stanza he sees their expressions on their faces and then he wakes him on the cold hill side “I saw their starved lips in the gloam, with their horrid warning gaped wide and I awoke and found me here on the cold hill side”. This tells the reader that the people suffered because of the lady and that they made him awake. He wakes up and finds it is winter. In the last stanza the knight repeats what the narrator said “and this is why I sojourn here”. This tells the reader that he has waited a long time to awake.
The two poems are similar because they display the same feelings that are in each. The language in both of these is also archaic. They make the poem feel old. They both are related to because of their conveyance of the mixture of pain and love that are expressed in each of them.
My conclusion is that these six poems are all linked together as they all describe the feelings and emotions of love. I think that the key difference between these six poems is that they all have different endings. All poems are effective in expressing their ideas relating to the theme of love. I clearly understand the poet’s description of love. All of the poems are related to real life experience. Lord Byron relates his poem because of his rejection by Lady Caroline Ponsonby. Christina Rossetti relates her poem because of her love for her grandfather and for the amount of birthdays she had. Elizabeth Barret Browning relates her poem for her love for her husband Robert Browning. John Keats relates his poem because his mother dieing and John Clare relates his poem to when he was rejected by a rich farmer’s daughter.
My favourite poem is “When We Two Parted” because it moved me because of his emotions towards the woman he loved and that he rejected him as well as playing him along. I found it easy to analyse as all the others were a bit to hard to understand. I liked the fact that the ideas and his emotions went a lot deeper that I first appreciated. The poet gives out the real emotions a person feels after they have separated from them and how it affects them. I like this poem because it tells the truth of how painful love can be.
