Love & Loss - analyse and compare two different love and loss poems written in the 19th and 17th century: A Woman To Her Lover (written by Christina Walsh) and Sonnet 130 (by Shakespeare).

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An exploration of love and loss in 17th and 19th century poetry

Poetry has been around since earlier than traditional times, first emerging around 1000 BC. Over the centuries, poetry developed into various different forms and has remained very popular but, it seems that because of the destructive quality of the Industrial Revolution, its popularity began to diminish. Poetry has a respectable history nonetheless, bearing in mind its effect on politics and other aspects of life. However this essay is intended to address, analyse and compare two different love and loss poems written in the 19th and 17th century: A Woman To Her Lover (written by Christina Walsh) and Sonnet 130 (by Shakespeare).

Sonnet 130 is an Elizabethan poem of 14 lines. This sonnet plays a complex joke on the principles of love poetry typical of Shakespeare’s day. It is a subversion of traditional images of beauty and is so well-conceived that the joke continues to remain amusing today. It consists of alternate rhyming couplets. Traditionally Elizabethan love poetry in Elizabethan times was full of picturesque imagery, with the poets expressing their unconditional love for their lovers by putting them high on a pedestal and worshipping them. However, this sonnet compares his lover to a number of beautiful objects but never in his lover’s favor. He makes blunt and critical statements and comparisons about her appearance to emphasize the reality of his love. For example, the poem surprisingly starts off with him criticizing her appearance “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red”. Here he is saying how the sun outshines her eyes and that her lips are not as red as the red in coral. He also says that compared to white snow, her breasts are dun-colored, and her hairs are like “black wires” on her head. This makes the reader realize that the woman is not perfect because of the way that Shakespeare points out every flaw in her disposition and appearance. At first, the reader is shocked by the unflattering comparisons, but further reading dispels this initial feeling.

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However, despite the fact that Shakespeare begins the sonnet with negative comments about his mistress and goes against the reader’s expectations, his conclusion is very positive and shows his real love for her. His final message is that he doesn’t care about all the things which she lacks. In his eyes she is beautiful and that’s why he loves her. This effect therefore makes this sonnet more powerful than the traditional sycophantic Elizabethan love poems as his love between him and his mistress is not as artificial and false as others may be. This sonnet also describes how normal ...

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