An investigation into the nature of love as presented in 20th and pre 20th century Love poems
An investigation into the nature of love as presented in 20th and pre 20th century Love poems
Of the many themes of poetry, love is probably one of the most intricate and complicated subjects to write about.
Some poets like to express their true feelings of passion and reminiscences
"...the power of your name brings me here to the window naked"
(Carol Ann Duffy's first love)
Or some like to let their views be heard in a flurry of angered emotions.
"...Just this
Or that in you disgusts me."
(Robert Browning's My Last Duchess)
Some like Love, others think it is just a trap that just messes with your feelings then simply spits you out after chewing you up.
I think that much of the 1900's love poetry is a little bit easier to understand because they actually write what happens and try not to make you guess too much. Pre 20th century love poems and 20th century love poems reveal many similarities and differences. To begin with, they both like to reminisce about the past and talk about the effect love has or has had on them:
"My heart has left its dwelling- place
And can return no more."
Taken from First Love by John Clare, shows that when you care for someone dearly they take your heart and you may never get it back. This line is also a change of tense; it is in the present tense, whereas the rest of the poem is in past tense. I think it is a nice touch to finish of the poem; it is in a matter of fact tone. Firstly he reminiscences the effects it had on him, which were obviously very strong and meaningful and then suddenly remembers the consequences which still haunt him.
Twentieth century poems are significantly different in the way that they make you think a great deal more. 'Gold' by Murray Pannet, is a prime example of twentieth century poets using lot's of metaphors in their work.
"She holds his hand so tight"
Starts of the second verse just like that. As soon as you read this you contemplate, who is 'she'? and where did 'she' come from? 'She' might be a past lover or just a figment of his imagination just to keep him going,
"So he feels supported by her love."
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Twentieth century poems are significantly different in the way that they make you think a great deal more. 'Gold' by Murray Pannet, is a prime example of twentieth century poets using lot's of metaphors in their work.
"She holds his hand so tight"
Starts of the second verse just like that. As soon as you read this you contemplate, who is 'she'? and where did 'she' come from? 'She' might be a past lover or just a figment of his imagination just to keep him going,
"So he feels supported by her love."
Everybody needs some one or something to keep them going, or they would probably feel alone or forgotten too.
"I hid my love while I couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly!"
The affect of love in another of John Clares poems, 'I hid my Love' is a pretty disturbing one. For love to be so bad that you can't bear the buzzing of a fly, just shows that love had such a deep affect on him that it drove him mad. In the end he realized he loved her so badly that everything negative around him increased.
"The fly's buzz turned to a Lion's roar."
Driving him insane just shows you how love can rip you apart and make you go crazy in some situations.
Perhaps the most important similarity is that both pre twentieth century poems and twentieth century poems both realize the fact that love is blind.
"And then blood rushed to my face and took my site away"
(John Clares First Love)
When you truly love someone and not just think that you do, and ponder whether it is true or not, you don't see fault with the fact that they might look like an ill favoured un-inviting Gargoyle and disregard the fact that they could give off an odour of a dead sewer Rat but all within reason of course.
A way in which they differ is when they talk about their first love. In Robert Graves' 'A Dream of Frances Speedwell', he focuses more on how the girl looked
"You were tall and fair, just seventeen perhaps"
I personally think that this isn't a true sign of affection, because true love isn't a physical thing. I admit that even though Robert Graves focuses on physical appearance, his language has sincere undertones, 'fair' is a nice word it isn't in too much of a provocative language but as more of a sincere manner, nowadays in society the emphasis is more on looks than personality, so he isn't being too melodramatic in his expression.
In Clare's first love he describes more the effect it had on him, than how the girl actually looks to him.
"My face turned as pale as deadly pale"
Whilst Clare has a nice clear description of the effect, he also uses a simile to add more emphasis to the line; it gives the reader a feeling of recognition and makes it hit more to heart.
In another of his love poems 'Dance of words' he uses a different style of writing. The technique is that he doesn't actually talk about emotions or descriptions he just acts as if the two lovers were words.
"To make them move you should start from lightning"
You should really think about the consequences, because you only live once and you may regret it, as you will continually think about it.
Effects that most poets don't use nowadays are ballads; even though they are not quite poems they can still have the same emphasis on you. Most love poems are expected to be saying how much you love someone, but then again some aren't.
"A faithless Shepard courted me
He stole away my liberty
When my poor heart was strange to men
He came and smiled and stole it then."
Even though she has just stated that he courted her, in the next line of the poem in which rhyming couplets are used she also says that he stole away her liberty, by taking her freedom (which in those days was important because women never had much freedom anyway) it is a very interesting thing to note. If someone has a major impact in or on your life in these circumstances you will want to be with or seek help from them.
"...I sought him he never came."
When she searches for him, it doesn't necessarily mean that he never came it mean that she looked for him but he was not found, this might upset her dearly even though she never really came across men.
"...My poor heart was strange to men"
So after these turn of events she is not really going to want to trust men, which is going too be extremely hard seeing as they are everywhere. But the ironic thing is in the twentieth century it seems to come true that men are very easily overcome
"I fell in love at my first evening party
You were tall and fair."
This shows that if a man falls in love so easily that he probably won't be faithful. I find this quite a big similarity between pre twentieth and twentieth century love poems
Overall, I think that the nature of love presented in pre twentieth and twentieth century love poems, still follow the same rules and boundaries to show the fact that love isn't all it is made out to be, by just speaking from the heart. Like the similarities between the unfaithfulness of men, e.g. in 'ballad'
"A faithless Shepard"
or the very similar twentieth century
"I fell in love at my first evening party"'s
Sincere, direct but somewhat easily susceptible to looks approach.
Finally, Whether love poetry in the next 100 years will be any different, either more or less provocative, longer, shorter or more direct, only time will tell if it keeps up the similarities as held between pre twentieth and twentieth century love poems.
