Comparing 3 poems in the theme of love

GCSE English

Name: Amalia Rosmadi

Group: 10 E2

Subject: English

Comparing 3 poem in the theme of love

~ First Love

~ A Birthday

~ My Last Duchess

The poem that I want to compare are ‘First Love’ ‘A Birthday’ and ‘My Last Duchess’. Each poem has their own theme and meaning, but always different with each other. The entire poem that I want to compare is based on the theme of love, but different kind of love and how the poet feels about love.

First things I want to discuss are the theme. The theme basically tells us what the poem is all about. In ‘First Love’ the theme is what the feeling when someone fall in love for the first time. The poet make us know that is someone fall in love, they will feel very excited and sometimes nervous. The theme for ‘A Birthday’ is how happy she feels if her dream lover comes to her and loves her. It quite similar to ‘First Love’, but we didn’t have the clue if that was the first time she falls in love or not. For ‘My Last Duchess’, the theme is jealousy in love. If someone really jealous to his lover, he will do anything-even he needs to kill her. It shows that love is not all sweet but sometimes it hurts.

It means that jealousy exists in love.

This is a preview of the whole essay

It means that jealousy exists in love.

Next thing I want to discuss is how does the poet feel about love. These things make us know that there are many different feeling of love. Some people think that love is so sweet but some think love is hurt. Back to the poem, in ‘First Love’, the poet feels really happy and think that love is just sweet and that was the first time he’s in love. The only person he can think of is she and everything feel good for him. In ‘A Birthday’, she feels that love is really great things happen to her. “ My heart is gladder than all these because my love is come to me”. Both of the poems tell us sweet things about love but not in this one, ‘My Last Duchess’. The poet feels really hurt and he think the duchess have cheating on him. He feels really jealous and makes him so angry and that mean, he doesn’t feel that love is sweet anymore. He still love her but he don’t think he get enough attention from her because the duchess treat him as much as she treat other men. “Sir, ‘t was not her husband’s presence only, called that spot of joy into Duchess cheek…”. The poet is suffered from love.

The next things I want to talk about are the language that the poet used to make their poem more meaning and interesting. That mean, each poem is no need to be long, they need to be meaningful. In ‘My Last Duchess’ Robert Browning use a lot of difficult word like ‘courtesy’ ‘countenance’. He also uses word that wasn’t likely used in every poem or essay like “…nine-hundred-years-old name”. He also makes some word meaningful like “.. I gave commands, then all smiles stopped together..’ That mean, the Duchess was died, all of sudden. We not sure who kill her but there are two possible explanation for this. The most likely is that he orders someone to put her to death. Robert Browning did once say, when questioned, that it might otherwise mean she was sent to convent. He also uses some past imagination like “…”. In ‘A Birthday’, the poet uses many nature imaginations like ‘bird’ ‘rainbow shell’ ‘peacock’ and ‘apple tree’. This poem also have some similes ‘my hearts is like a singing bird’ (line 1) ‘my heart is like an apple tree’ (line 3) ‘ my heart is like a rainbow shell’ (line 5). The poet didn’t use difficult language but all the word really makes sense.