Discuss the ways in which poets' use of form and language to present their views on love and marriage.

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Kyriakos Perdikou

Discuss the ways in which poets’ use of form and language to present their views on love and marriage

Love is possibly the most talked about subject of all time but unfortunately it has not always been as fair, free or co-equal as we like to believe it is today.  Pre-twentieth century poems clearly show us that love was very male dominated.  This was often the faults of the woman’s fathers who set up arranged marriages and tried to find the best financial proposition for the daughter.  Some of these poems include “A Woman to her Lover” by Christina Walsh, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and two sonnets “Remember” by Christina Rossetti and “How do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  All these writers try to bring across their view which is love was not fair.  Of these four poems only one was written by a man “My last Duchess”.

Elizabeth Barrett, an English poet of the Romantic Movement, was born in 1806 at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England.  Two years later, Elizabeth developed a lung ailment that plagued her for the rest of her life.  While saddling a pony when she was fifteen, Elizabeth also suffered a spinal injury.  Despite her ailments, her education continued to flourish.  Throughout her teenage years, Elizabeth taught herself Hebrew so that she could read the Old Testament; her interests later turned to Greek studies.  Accompanying her appetite for the classics was a passionate enthusiasm for her Christian faith.  She became active in the Bible and Missionary Societies of her church.  Elizabeth and Robert, who was six years her junior, exchanged 574 letters over twenty months.  In 1846, the couple eloped and settled in Florence, Italy, where Elizabeth's health improved and she bore a son, Robert Wideman Browning.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in Florence on June 29, 1861.

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Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England.  His mother was an accomplished pianist and his father, who worked as a bank clerk, was also an artist, scholar, antiquarian, and collector of books and pictures.  His rare book collection of more than 6,000 volumes included works in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish.  After reading Elizabeth Barrett's Poems (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months, Browning met her in 1845.  They were married in 1846, against the wishes of Barrett's father.

Christina Rossetti was born in London, one of four children ...

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